We stayed in an awkwardly romantic hotel, made even more awkward by the fact that a) it was Valentine's weekend, and b) I scored the upgrade room in a random pick. Dan and I had the extra extravagant room with a tiny jacuzzi for two, skylight over the tub/shower, and romantic music playing through hidden speakers. Would have been awesome if Jenna was with me instead of Dan (no offense, Dan).
The next day we had a choice of hitting up one of the volcanos or seeing Antigua. It was a tough call with only one day, so it was about half and half. I had already seen a volcano in Hawaii, so I opted to sleep in, have a lazy breakfast, and see the sights with Tim, Dan, Richal, and Tom.We started out down the street, and came across the Public Pilas (Pila is a traditional washbasin, and there were public ones around town, this is a particularly famous one). There were cars there, we just snapped this shot with the horse because it looked cool.
We walked around Antigua down the cobblestone streets with Richal, the structural engineer who has been coming and doing projects in Guatemala for many years. He knows the place very well, and made for a great tour guide. He took us to Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco (Church & Convent of Saint Francis). This was a church originally built around 1525, which had some run-ins with some earthquakes and floods over the years (apparently the Volcano nearby, when it erupts, sends a lake-full of water into the city). It was in the process of being restored. Hopefully 'restored' does not include reconstructing, as the ruins in their current state are fascinating to walk through. At 75 cents it was an unbelievably affordable stop.We spent a solid hour and a half there wandering around the ruins, above and below. Truly gorgeous.
Then we went and checked out Richal's favorite hotel to stay at, called Quinta de las Flores. I can see why he likes it, it is a gorgeous place, lusciously landscaped, fountains, great outdoor spaces and patios, and this playground with concrete slides (can't figure out what you're supposed to do on a concrete slide) and a sweet teeter totter.
We headed back toward the hotel, split up to go grab lunch, do some souvenier shopping, etc., and later Michael and I hit up the Convento de Capuchinas across the street from our hotel. It was also an amazing historic piece of architecture. This was a church and convent built in the 1700s, and is said to be the first 'apartment' building in the Americas, with a bathroom in every room. See if you can spot me in the photo below and to the left for scale. Nun 'apartments' on the bottom right.
There were some unconfirmed rumors of human sacrifice having occurred back in the day down in a lower chambers, where there was a creepy nun mannequin laying on a table with candles next to it. I don't know about that, but there was another eerie underground chamber below the nun chambers, shaped like a giant donut with a huge center column and vaulted in a circle around it. The acoustics and reverberation in this chamber was unbelievable. Apparently its kind of a mystery what the room was for, but here's a video of me demonstrating the echo with the only thing I could think to say.... "Luuuke, I am your Faaaaather"...
And we visited the well photographed yellow arch where I had a long debate with a street vendor in Spanish about how I really didn't want to buy a necklace. Tom (civil engineer) took the gorgeous photo to the right from the front door of our hotel (Las Capuchinas ruins are on the right).
Antigua was a great visit. I can see Guatemala being a good vacation spot for the slightly adventurous traveler. I would have loved to have had the time to see the Mayan ruins in Tikal and Lake Atitlan, which is supposed to be breathtaking. It was also a good way to begin the transition back to our relatively wealthy gringo lifestyles.
1 comment:
fascinating. love the old architecture. amazing the beauty that surrounds the people down there.
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