Antigua walking day

Guatemalan breakfast! Jody had eggs, frijoles, and fried plantains (which I ate). I had pancakes with fruit. Everything was plated nicely, and we got to eat in the sunny inside patio garden of our hostel.

Then we started our day-long walking tour of Antigua. The historical area of interest is very small, like ten blocks by eight blocks, but our route did some zig-zags and c-curves so that we could see everything. We saw several decrepit colonial buildings that had fallen in a past earthquake, several churches, a water reservoir with built in stone wash basins which are still sometimes used by the locals to launder clothes, and lots of park. Wandering the streets were many Guatemalans hawking necklaces and carved flutes.

One cathedral-- Catedral de Santiago-- was mostly destroyed in a huge earthquake in the 1800s, but the destruction has been maintained and even cleaned up a bit for the sake of tourists who pay to see fallen pillars and a domed ceiling which is missing the ceiling. You can see the brilliant blue sky through giant circles and stand in spots of sunshine below. The brick seams holding together empty air space remind me of the Door of No Return from Harry Potter. One section of the church has been overcome with weeds and grass and it is here that I get to utilize my mini travel tripod and we take our first self-timer picture. It is probably brighter and warmer now than if the building had still been intact. The Spanish were not known for their windows. In fact, when we visit a section which was untouched by the earthquake and is still used as a church, it is dark and gloomy with unlit, vaulted ceilings.


Off to the market! An outdoor market like you see in every country! It starts off with touristy crafts and T shirts near the outside, but as we wind our way into the maze inside, we see all sorts of electronic goods, fruits and vegetables, underwear stands, pirated CDs including Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked in Spanish, and little useful/useless shit that would otherwise be sold in the dollar store at home. We buy some fabrics and are overwhelmed. A highlight is a little girl selling a bowlful of tiny turtles. We also see women making blue-corn tortillas. The dough mixture looks gray and lifeless, like clay. Very unappetizing.

Then we go to Nim Po't, an indoor crafty market which is quiet and airy and has price tags. Since everything was shelved nicely and items were artfully hung on the wall, I thought everything would be pricier, but we found a lot of stuff that was dirt cheap. Here is where I bought presents for y'all! In addition to little wooden toys and brightly colored woven things, there were walls full of masks, statues of saints, little wooden animal figurines, and little packages of coffee.

Lunch was SO FREAKING GOOD. We ate at this place called La Comida de Guatemala, and we had roasted vegetables and rice. Which is not completely Guatemalan, but! The desert! Fried plantains in mole sauce! Mole sauce made from chocolate, tomatoes, chilies, and cinnamon and sprinkled with sesame seeds. After eating the plantains I basically spooned the rest of the sauce into my mouth until there was nothing left.

Other foods we had along the way included guacamole flavored Tortrix brand tostitos (delish), handmade tortillas from some ladies in a room off the street (kind of bland), chocolate gelt with a picture of a Mayan warrior on the wrapper (tastes just like American gelt), a mini green marzipan pear, and the most delicious little creamy chocolate ball I've ever tasted. We could have bought some avocados and mandarins from the Mayan ladies walking around and balancing those big old baskets on top of their heads, but they were all gone by the time it was lunchtime.


Brief aside: You are not supposed to flush toilet paper here; you leave it in a little trash can in the stall. It means that you can use as much TP as you want, just oodles and oodles and large wads of it if you want and there is no worry that it could clog the toilet! It actually feels kind of luxurious.

After eating we wander around a bit and see a restaurant sign in Hebrew. 'Raelis! They're everywhere! We probably won't run into many of them, though, since they like to go off the beaten path and do things on the cheap themselves, while WE are being safe and sticking to touristy areas and hiring guides, etc. We also find a bookstore so Jody can buy a Spanish-English dictionary and I learn the word “canela” for cinnamon. We organize our volcano tour for tomorrow and headed uphill for a panoramic view of the city. Alas! We were too late. Even though we are near the equator, because Antigua is surrounded by volcano mountains, the sun sets early (6pm) and so it was dusk by the time we were halfway up. It seemed foolish to continue, in light of all the mugging stories, so we turned back. We did pass a random old church facade standing in ruins and weeds right beside a basketball court. That was surreal and reminded me of Ayutthaya in Thailand. Even though this church was at most 500 years old (colonial Spanish), they are so poorly maintained that they look ancient.

When we get back to the hostel, Jody unpacks her bag several times looking for various items, each time fretting and talking to herself. This was the exact same routine that she performed every evening in the Nederlands. My stuff remains in waterproof sacs in my pack except for toiletries and daypack essentials, which I dump on the foot of my bed or the night table. There is no need to unpack since I am basically going to wear the same thing tomorrow. We light Hannukah candles, and I shower and blog.