Antigua and my final week in Guatemala

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With my Guatemala tour completed I was travelling solo again. Before I embarked on the Guatemala encompassed tour I had already decided that I would stay on in Antigua for another week’s one on one Spanish tuition. Time hadn’t changed my mind so I re-registered with the same Ixchel Spanish School that I had attended 3 weeks prior. This time I signed up to live with a local family hoping that this would provide me with a cultural insight into Guatemalan family life. I have mixed feelings what happened next. I have no complaints about the family themselves, all very nice people and the host mothers refried beans were the best that I had tasted. The room was clean and comfortable too. There were also host showers! However this family lived in a house so large that there were 2 courtyards within the property’s grounds and the family all spoke good English as they were all well travelled and one of the daughters lived in California (this might explain why the host family were rarely seen wearing clothes by brands other than Abercrombie and Fitch). Sadly this was not the cultural experience that my tour time abroad had left me yearning.

I decided to gee myself up by subscribing to another volcano climb as I had enjoyed the previous one so much. As I mentioned in my first blog entry, Colonial Antigua is surrounded by 3 volcanoes. Volcan de Agua is the most climbed of the three owing to its gentle slopes and great birds eye view of Antigua (you can see for about 100+ miles in all direction from the top on a clear day). I however was feeling a little more ambitious and subscribed to a gruelling 7 hour climb up the taller Volcan de Acatenango. The climb would include an overnight stay at the summit 4000m up and a front row seat overlooking the neighbouring, highly active, ever erupting and aptly named Volcan de Fuego (Volcanoe of Fire in English). The lure of catching an eruption and sunset in the same photo was intoxicating. The climb was due to start in a week!

I won’t bore you with details of my Spanish lessons. May it suffice to say that my new teacher was not as proficient at speaking English as my previous one and consequently I was forced to speak Spanish and only Spanish for the entire lesson. It was hard work (4hrs a day) and often left me feeling drained but as a result I progressed much faster and my confidence grew substantially.

In the afternoons (after my Spanish lessons had finished) I did a plenty of sightseeing.

When I wasn’t retaking photos of monuments and buildings previously photographed on a cloudier day (It’s always sunny in my photos), I was using my time to visit the other main attractions which comprised mainly of churches. Taking advantage of the good weather, I decided to climb a neighbouring hill to the city’s main a vista point Cerro de la Cruz, named after the giant concrete cross erected there by the Spaniards during the Spanish conquest. This place awards all goers with a fantastic view over all of Antigua and provided unrestricted views of the surrounding volcanoes.

Of the 3 big churches that I visited, my favourite was probably La Merced. Fully restored after suffering earthquake damage, this church boast one of the most intricate and impressive facade in the city making it the finest piece of religious Colonial architecture that I have seen on my travels. Apparently if you look at the intricate carvings on the outside you can see the outline of a Corn Cob, which was added rather sneakily by the Mayan labourers that built the church. I should add that Corn was considered a scared food by the Mayans and it seems fitting that they squeezed a little Mayan sacred imagery into a church of alternative religion that they were being forced to build by the conquering Spaniards. Whilst the church is still used for Catholic services the attached monastery has been allowed to decay over the year. Despite that there is one other really impressive feature within the ruined grounds - a giant, 20m in diameter three tired fountain called Fuente de Pescados (fountain of fish) which the Mercedian brothers of the monetary used to breed fish. Quite clever of the monks I think. Charlie Dimmok eat your eat out.

My visit to the San Francisco Church in the South East of the city was enjoyable also, but for different reasons. Arriving in the late afternoon, I paid my money and entered the ruins of the attached monastery. Here I found pictures of Central Americas first saint, a Franciscan from the Canary Islands called Hermano Pedro de Betancourt who was credited by locals as possessing powers of miraculous intervention by the faithful. There are hundred of plaques that give thanks to his services within the grounds. Within the grounds I also found the entrance to the onsite museum. However on approach to the museum the door was shut in my face. It turns out that the helpful lady at the ticket office had neglected to inform me that the site was due to close 5 minutes after my arrival. Determined to get my monies worth (the ticket cost about 33p) I wandered around the ruins (there were no gates or doors to prevent me doing this), which despite their tattered appearance still carried many original features and made the visit worthwhile. I learned later that day that the museum was poor to say the least, with very little information being presented in English, so I didn’t really lose out and I didn’t bother going back as a result.

I also visited the City’s main cathedral, the Cathedral of San Jose. Despite the meter plus thick walls (earthquake proof apparently) most of this Cathedral stands in ruins a due to a big earthquake in 1773 (and several before in 1583, 1689 and 1717). It must have been huge in its glory days. About 30% still functions as a Cathedral today and this small, restored and lavishly decorated proportion is big enough to sit about 600 church goers. The completed cathedral, would have sat well over 1000. It looked particularly impressive at night thanks to a string of lights that illuminate the front facade

It was a quiet week on the social front as a lot of the people that I had been out partying with in my first week in Antigua had moved on and my new housemates were of a fundamentalist Christian, I don’t drink alcohol, persuasion - yes they were both from the mid west region of America. Those “do you believe in dinosaurs?” and “what was sex education like for you at school” conversations were eye opening and controversial. I did go out to the cinema one night to watch the Jonny Depp film “Blow” with some guys from the school. This was probably the highlight of a quiet week as not only did I enjoy the film, but the theatre was awesome. Imagine if you will a room no bigger than a garage with a big regular TV at one end, and lines of second hand sofas in front. Now add a couple of red curtains draped over the TV to create that cinema feel and a man selling popcorn and drinks. Every house should try to replicate these surrounds - comical, original and highly amusing all at the same time.

My social life picked up on the last couple of nights when I checked myself into the popular Black Cat hostel. Finally I was amongst drinkers, dancers and people who knew about football and the world cup! Having watched England (on my own as Guatemalans didn’t care too much for England or Portugal) crash out the day before I was grateful to watch France beat Brazil over many a beer and a bit of good banter. Thanks to the strong Aussie and English presence in the hostel, these afternoon football drinking sessions often became messy affairs. On the last night which was the most drunken of all thanks to an all day bender (football started at 12 noon in Guatemala) - I partook in good old game of bollocks which to those of you that don’t know basically involves screaming bollocks at the top of your voice for no apparent reason. Lucky that I was leaving for Peru early the next morning!

Oh, one last thing. I never did climb that volcano. It turns out that the tour was undersubscribed so the not worth running. Hardly surprising. In hindsight who honestly wants to complete a 7 hour climb up a steep hill. Actually I do - maybe I’ll return to Guatemala one day to finish it off properly.

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