Antigua

Spanish Colonial Capital of Guatemala

After getting a pretty late start on Tuesday, we arrived in Antigua after dark and without a motel. My intent was to find one once I got there, that I could look at. We were unsuccessful in this and had to run around a bit looking for one. Several places I had looked up that advertised themselves as motels were really remotely run AirBnBs that had no staff and thus could not show a room. Some were in gated areas where you couldn’t even see the front. After a few attempts, I finally just booked one of those for a single night. It was spacious and had a private room, but we had to share a bathroom and there were some marks on the wall that Audrey did not like, so we ended up moving the next day. It was pretty good for being $17, though.

As I cooled down from my run on Wednesday morning, I walked downtown and examined a few more traditional motels. They were substantially more expensive – in the $60-$70 range, but offered private quarters and a helpful staff. Many of them even offered breakfast. We ended up at the most expensive option, and it didn’t even include breakfast. It was nice enough, though. It was also in the middle of town where Audrey would not have to walk so much. The staff helped her make future travel arrangements as well.

After checking out of our first, more distant room, we made going to the market our primary activity for the day. We first walked past one of the churches ruined by the massive 1773 earthquake that caused the Spanish to move the colonial capital to Guatemala City. We walked through what turned out to be the edges of the central market and grabbed some street food for lunch. We located the bus station, in case it would be needed. This seemed unlikely since we had a car, but Audrey had been contemplating a quicker return to Texas, especially after she learned the only way to return our rental car was to back track about 11 hours in it to Flores.

Taking her to a motel near the Guatemala City airport in the rental car was an option, but it would require a four to five hour round trip journey through the constant mayhem of urban traffic in a Latin American city. She looked into some shuttle and transportation options so I would not have to do this. Andrew and I gently sought to persuade her to just remain with us on our journey. I think all along, though, she had not been completely comfortable with being gone so long this late in her pregnancy. It turned out that she got some experience travel planning on her own, and made her way safely back home Friday.

For the time being, though, we still had Audrey with us. She wanted to go shopping in the artisan markets, so that’s what we did in the afternoon. The first parts of the market we saw had rather mundane things, like foods and household cleaning products. We did find some booths more along the lines of what she was looking for as we worked toward the western end of the large market. She ended up with a baby sling, and some nice throws that looked kind of like an extra large scarf. Later, we passed some jewelry peddlers. Guatemala has a lot of jade. Audrey likes that, so we spent some time looking at the jade jewelry. She eventually bought a very nice earring and pendant set. I bought Stephanie something similar. Andrew found several key rings and some small oil and canvas paintings he liked.

As a thank you for upgrading our quarters, Audrey took us out for a very nice steak dinner Wednesday evening at Restaurante la Estancia. I ordered a churrasco. It didn’t come out exactly like an Argentine churrasco. I think they just call a thin steak here churrasco. It did come with some chimichurri sauce, though, and it was good. I forget what Audrey and Andrew ordered. They liked their meats as well, though.

(Continued)

I went for a long (for me) run on Thursday morning as the kids slept in. I ran five miles and walked another mile or two. Once I got back, we decided to do a day trip to Lake Atitlán. Although the lake was just over 80 kilometers away, our mapping app said it would take nearly two and a half hours. At first, I could not figure out how it would take so long, as we were making good time on a four lane highway. Good time in Guatemala is a relative term. I think we were doing 90-100 kph, which is something like 55 mph. It felt like we were flying, relative to our travel speed on the two lane roads. This did not last, however. We were soon on a pretzel shaped road entering and exiting a steep river canyon. The switchbacks were so extreme we had to nearly come to a stop not to fly off the curve and down the side. We passed some places where debris from rock slides made the road rough. In other places the pavement had been washed out. Finally, we approached a sign that said “Bridge Destroyed” in Spanish. This was not some temporary outage. It was a permanent road sign. We inched our way down to the bottom of the canyon where we ended up having to ford the river – in our Toyota Yaris! This ford was along the Pan-American Highway, the longest driveable road in the world. The Pan-American Highway runs from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, in Tierra Del Fuego. This highway is interrupted only by the Darién Gap on the Panamanian border with Colombia, unless you count this river ford as an interruption. We eventually arrived at the edge of a massive fresh water lake surrounded by volcanoes. We stopped at a mirador, took some pictures, and gazed over the immensity of the lake. Even this mirador had a few vendors camped out in it. We didn’t stay for too long. I found where we could reach a lakeside park in the village of San Lucas Tolimán. San Lucas Tolimán is a town of about 17,000 on an inlet in Lake Atitlán. Being on an inlet, it probably wasn’t the best place to stop. But it was close so that’s where we went. We paid a small Q20 municipal fee to park, and then set out to explore the lakeside park. There were a couple of open air restaurants along the edge. Andrew and Audrey ate there. There was a clean restroom. There were a couple of docks, and several kids wanting to rent us time in a small boat, which we politely declined. There were also more vendors, of course. We saw that some people were swimming. In fact, a couple of people were bathing with soap and shampoo. It’s a big lake. I visited with a family along the lake shore, having mostly decided to go ahead and take a dip. They informed me that the water was about 3 meters deep at the end of the dock. I determined to hop in there, and that turned out fine. Eventually Andrew and Audrey got in, too. Andrew jumped off the dock with me, but Audrey was reluctant to get her head in the water, and so just waded in. The water was cool, but not cold. It was refreshing, and a nice experience. I watched several Guatemalans get in and out, sometimes changing right out in the open. The few who talked to us assumed we were missionaries, maybe Mormons. This may have been because Andrew had a T-shirt with a Bible verse. It may also have been because they see a lot of American missionaries. I’m not sure. They were kind, though, happy to visit, and patient with my utilitarian but ugly Spanish. We visited one more mirador on the way out. We left the lake in mid afternoon, reluctant to traverse the canyon and ford in the dark. It was dark by the time we got back to Antigua. Audrey wanted to try a taco place that she believed would have a special stuffed banana desert she wanted to sample. They did have something similar. I had gringas, a large sort of overstuffed quesadilla with meat and vegetables in it, as well as cheese. It was a good day. Audrey had arranged for a coffee plantation tour on Thursday. Our tour guide picked us up from our motel at 8:45. I grabbed some local pastries to take along, and shared them with the kids. We made our way to San Pedro de las Huertas, a sort of suburb of Antigua. We hiked up the side of one of the town’s surrounding volcanoes. The road was paved at first. Soon we were on a dirt path that looked like a wash surrounded by weeds and littered with dog piles. Enjoying the moment, Audrey and Andrew did not seem to notice these distractions. We stopped here and there to hear an explanation of the plants we passed. There were loquats, avocados, wild sunflowers and marigolds, …… We even ate some of them as we went. We picked up the local coffee farmer named Cristobal at the bottom of the hill, where we began the walk. Cristobal explained many of his processes along the way, and after we reached the small field where the coffee was growing. His explanations were in Spanish. Our tour guide then translated those, but I knew enough Spanish to understand that he was kind of following his own program, not necessarily translating Cristobal’s talk. I found this mildly amusing. It wasn’t even really an annoyance, just kind of funny. I asked some redirected questions now and then that suggested I understood part of what Cristobal was saying. I think this made the guide a little uncomfortable. He rolled with it, though. There were mostly Arabica coffee plants in a sort of scruffy field on the highest part of the hill. We found some Robusto in a lower place, but none of them looked all that well kept. The whole operation was non-irrigated and pretty ad hoc looking. We were passed a couple of times by people on ATV tours. We simply stepped out of the way and let them pass. We also passed a swanky condo development on the side of the volcano. The tour guide explained that these homes were mostly built for foreigners and wealthy people from other cities. They all looked identical. We were told they cost between $250k-$500k U.S. There is apparently mixed opinion on whether or not they are a good thing. They create jobs and bring in money, but also utilize resources like water. Once back at Cristobal’s house, we met more of his family. We roasted some coffee beans, ground them, and made some coffee old style. I mostly dipped a cookie in mine. It was good. I just don’t drink a lot of coffee. The process was interesting, and the people were kind and hospitable. Audrey helped roast and grind, as did Andrew. We spent a few minutes at another small facility learning about the different kinds of jade and how it was processed. We were, of course, offered opportunities to purchase jade objects before we left. (Continued)

I was a bit distracted from about the middle of the tour on. When we arrived in town, I determined after quite a few attempts that due to an upcoming flower festival on the weekend, there weren’t any facilities in town that could rent me a room for all all of the weekdays we would be in Antigua plus Friday night. So we had booked our motel through Friday morning. Since Audrey would be leaving Friday evening, I had made several reservations in turn for Andrew and I to stay for just Friday night. Several motels or AirBnBs had confirmed the reservation, only to notify me later that they were full and that it had been a mistake. This happened yet again at about 11:00 on Friday, leaving me scrambling to find another option. We found one. I had to pay $70 for Andrew and I to sleep in a shoddy hostel for one night; in Antigua Guatemala! The three of us arrived back at the nicer motel we had stayed in at about 1pm. Audrey had arranged a taxi through that motel to take her to Guatemala City at 5:00. We decided to walk the city center and look around at the ruined cathedral and other pre-earthquake colonial buildings. We saw San Jose Cathedral. We walked the central park, which was already preparing for the flower festival. We walked by the Arco de Santa Catalina. We passed La Merced church, which seems to be still active, not just a ruin like the others. Finally, we went to San Jeronimo school before heading back to the motel at about quarter after four. San Jose and San Jeronimo, along with many other 16th century buildings in Antigua, were damaged and rebuilt multiple times following major earthquakes. These culminated in a series of massive quakes in 1773 that ultimately convinced the Spanish to relocate the colonial capital to Guatemala City. This is how Antigua got its name. Antigua just means “old.” So Antigua, Guatemala is just “Old Guatemala.” Large sections of the destroyed buildings are still standing. Some of the structures have statues of saints and religious figures, parts of which are still intact. Almost none of them have heads, as the weak points at the neck and wrist were the first things to break in a violent shake-up. Many of the arches survived. Large chunks of roof are occasionally present on the floor. A few moldings remain. The cathedral was an impressive building. We waited an extra hour with Audrey for her taxi and bade her farewell. Andrew and I strolled over to a local restaurant for some ghetto Chinese, then crashed out at our hostel. I was up pretty early on Saturday, anticipating going to the flower festival. It was about nine before Andrew was up and about, so we didn’t start so early, but I got a lot of farming done. We did eventually walk the streets for the flower festival. We never could figure out exactly what the big deal was. There was one pretty nice display right in the center of the main square. All of the other displays were relatively small, and seemed designed simply for someone to pose for a picture or selfie. The had an Alice in Wonderland theme. Many of them contained local business advertisements. There were even more vendors than usual. The city center was so crowded, you could barely scoot sideways down the streets. The ratio of people to “awesomeness” of the flower displays seemed completely out of proportion. I always find it interesting to observe events that people find captivating in other places. I have been to soccer games even though I don’t like soccer. It was interesting so watch people. Many of the tourists at least appeared to be Guatemalan or Central American. There were other tourists there for sure. I never figured out what all the hype was about. Even Andrew – a flower fiend – was itching to escape the crowds as soon as possible. I drug him around a few more streets than he wanted to squeeze through. Perhaps my recent experience being constantly pressed with people in Asia gave me a higher tolerance for crowds. We still went back to the hostel after just over an hour. We visited with some of the hostel residents. One fellow from Newcastle, England was hiking the volcano that day. Girls from Brazil and Korea shared with us how their jobs made it possible for them to travel. One was a digital tech nomad, the other had taken a one year gig with UNESCO. In very different ways, the were making their travel dreams come true in their twenties, without being destitute backpackers. Brenda, the Brazilian tech guru, worked solid eight hour days. She diligently researched her wifi access before heading to new places. She worked about 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily, and reserved long trips and most of her sightseeing for weekends, while getting a bit of local interaction in the afternoons. The Korean UNESCO employee just moved to Guatemala for the year, and was negotiating some living quarters struggles. She had come to see the flower festival from her base in Guatemala City. Andrew and I set out for Chichicastenango at about 1:30, but still could not escape the press of people. It took well over an hour just to get out of town. By the time we got to Chichicastenango, it was 5:00. We had hoped to arrive by 2:00 or 3:00. But we made it!