The beautiful earthquake city

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Hola, from happy Antigua. We are loving it here. It was established in 1543 by the Spanish as the capital of Guatemala, and at first glance nothing much has changed. The streets are all narrow, cobbled, and it is filled with beautiful old buildings and churches. The centre of town is a gorgeous park, not too large, but plenty large enough for a crowd of people to congregate and watch the world go by. On the northern side is the Cathedral, which has a spectacular gold altar. I was terribly impressed with this and tried taking a photo, but it doesn't really do it justice.

Antigua was the capital until the mid 1770s, when an earthquake destroyed the town and the capital was moved to Guatemala City. The remnants of this earthquake, or other ones, is evident as at every other turn it seems, we also stumble across the ruins of a former glorious building. It is a lovely town that really grows on you. You can't see terribly much of its beauty though, as being built by the Spanish it is, unsurprisingly, very European, with all of the really beautiful courtyards being internal, so from the outside you need to use your imagination. However Lucy and I visited the Casa Santo Domingo, which is now an luxury hotel set amongst the ruins of the Santo Domingo monastery. There are a number of archaelogical relics, so Lucy and I happily spent an hour or so imagining what it used to be, looking at the crypts, kind of creepy with the dead bones still there, and also perusing the museum. Really fascinating. Later that day we had a private tour of Las Capuchinas, which was inaugurated in 1736 by nuns from Madrid but badly damaged in the earthquake. It is currently being restored, but was is really lovely. Our private tour was funny, because we thought it was closed until a man bounded up and unlocked it and offered to show us around. Our thoughts immediately sprang to banditos, but whatever, he had a key! I confess we were both relieved when some other people came through as well though. However he did a great job taking us through the place and explaining what each part was. Of course it was in Spanish so we are a bit vague about what exactly we were seeing. He did show us a round, natural ampitheatre, which was used as a retreat for two days and nights of praying, dormitories, cemetery, gardens for prayer and a very strange place that was sort of a cellar with a large round central pillar. He then demonstrated monks with their arms wrapped around the pillar. We've still got no idea what went on there!

Our semi-Spanish has led to some quite amusing experiences. We visited another church, San Francisco, yesterday morning and inadvertantly donated Q20 to what we think was a political party, when we thought we were paying an entrance fee. I also have been doing lots of sign language trying to buy a cable for the camera so I can load photos. At the last place I had the presence of mind to ask what the word was, to be told that it is "un cable". Hmmm. Saying English words with a Spanish accent has worked for me in the past so I'm not sure why I didn't try that a little earlier!

New Year's Eve here was a real spectacular. Unfortunately I wasn't very well and went to bed about 8.00pm and slept through the whole thing. Well not quite. I woke up to the sound of church bells ringing and of course the fireworks and thought, that's midnight. I checked my watch, but no, only 10.00pm. Back to sleep, when of course the whole thing was repeated again at 11.00. At 12.00 it was much the same but went on twice as long. A shame I missed it, but even from my sick bed I could semi participate! Jack and Lucy said it was a blast {pun intentional! and sorry about the strange brackets but the other ones aren't working}.

This morning while Lucy conquered Volcan Pacaya {which you can read about in her blog, lucyrid}, Jack and I went to a coffee plantation. It was absolutely fascinating, Dad would love it! The one we visited was a medium sized plantation, I think he said it was about 900 hectares. Most of the plantations in Guatemala are medium sized. During the height of the season it employs an additional 150 seasonal workers to pick the crop. It is incredibly labour intensive, starting from the beginning, as the arabica plants, which are the better quality ones, are grafted onto the robusta plant, the hardier coffee plant, by hand. Women do this work as they have smaller hands. Apparantly they can do between 1000 and 1200 per day, wow! The coffee beans themselves are bright red when they are ripe, and they are then all hand picked so that only the ripe ones are picked. The pickers go over the trees several times until all done. These are the "cherry", which contain the beans. They are covered in a sticky residue, which we all tried, and to my surprise it's sweet. It then goes through quite a process, which I confess I wasn't listening to properly, until they are left with the green bean, which is how it is exported. The importing company usually roasts it itself. The green beans are shipped in 150 pound, or 69kg, sacks, which is the standard international measure. The current price is improving for coffee, now getting around $US120 to $130. In the mid 90s prices were half that, and plantation owners were walking off the land or converting to another crop apparently. The plantation that we were at sells its premium beans to Japan, which can get $US250 or more per bag. Nothing seems to be wasted. The cherry, which holds the beans, is used for fertiliser. Other byproducts are turned into something that looks a bit like straw, and they use it in their stables for the horses. I was fascinated by the whole process. Happily the tour ended with an espresso.

Then this afternoon Jack and I walked up to the "Cerro de la Cruz", the hill of the cross. It is, as the name suggests, a large hill with a cross on it, overlooking Antigua from the north. We got a fabulous view from up there, looking towards Volcan Agua in the south. When the cities were built by the Spanish, they were all laid out in a very logical grid pattern. From north to south the streets are Avenida 1, Avenida 2 etc and from east to west they are Calle 1, Calle 2 etc. It's really easy to get around. Although despite that, from the outside everything can look a bit the same and we have all had some moments when we weren't quite where we thought we were! This afternoon I had a mild panic when I couldn't find where I'd dropped off Lucy and my laundry this morning. Given all my clothes bar a clean pair of pyjamas and the smelly things I'm currrently wearing were there, you can imagine my relief when I found it again.

Tomorrow we're off to see my brother Jorge. I shouldn't really call him that as people might get the wrong idea! But he is the boy that Dad has been sponsoring in Guatemala for about eight years now. It involves us taking a chicken bus to the nearby town of Escuintla, however the roads are flat and it's only about an hour's drive. However I am looking foward to going to visit him. Not sure if we'll get a chance to post after this, and then Friday we are heading off on our sailing trip until next week. So next post, if not tomorrow, there will be plenty to write about!

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Photos

Antigua's famous arch
This is a landmark in the town, just up from Parque Central

La Merced
This church is about a block from our hotel.

Hill of the cross
This is me, obscuring the great view!

Las Capuchinas
Me and Lucy on our private tour

Picking coffee
Incredibly labour intensive....

Coffee in its many forms
From the berry to the cup.

Drying the coffee
My coffee obsession continues. I was fascinated! So labour intensive. No wonder it costs $4 a cup back home. I suspect not much of that reaches the workers.

Enjoying the hotel
This is me at out hotel. The masks behind me you see all over the place.

Evening lights
It was hard to take a good photo - but at night the trees in the main square were all lit up. It was gorgeous.

In a small village outside Antigua
This gorgeous cathedral is one of the oldest.