Antigua Guatemala

Thursday 7th January 1988

We had breakfast and checked out of the hotel for the walk to the Antigua Guatemala Bus Depot. It was a hot sunny day, and the Guatemalans were out shopping. The brightly coloured buses were waiting on the corner of Avenida 4 and Calle 15.

Surprisingly, the bus was only half full when it left. We went through heavy traffic through the extensive suburbs of Guate (Guatemala City). All the shops and workshops were gaily painted with pictures of their wares or services depicted on their walls.

The bus raced hairily along a well-tarmacked dual carriageway, challenging inertia on each sweeping bend. After fifty minutes we descended into Antigua Guatemala, luckily being forced to do so slowly due to “sleeping policemen” speed bumps in the road. Then it was on to the bumpy cobbled streets of the old capital city.

Antigua Guatemala, commonly referred to as just Antigua or la Antigua, is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala known for its preserved Spanish Baroque-influenced architecture as well as a number of ruins of colonial churches. It served as the capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Antigua Guatemala serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. It also serves as the departmental capital of Sacatepéquez Department. Antigua Guatemala means "Old Guatemala" and was the third capital of Guatemala. The city was laid out in a square pattern, with streets running north to south and from east to west, with a central square.

Both church and government buildings were designated important places around the central plaza. The first building of a cathedral was begun in 1545 with the debris brought from the destroyed settlement in the valley of Almolonga; however, its construction was hampered by frequent earthquakes throughout the years.

Antigua was the capital of Guatemala until the city was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1773 and the capital was moved to its current location, Guatemala City.

We got off at the main market and headed for the Hotel Placido on the Calle de San Sebastian. It looked expensive but a double room was only Q6.40 Guatemalan Quetzals. It had a delightful central garden and included free use of the kitchen, hot showers and a friendly family running it.

We went down to the market and spent an enjoyable time browsing through the blankets and leather work of the local indigenous Indians. We then bought an assortment of fresh fruit, which was so cheap that it was practically free, from squatting Indian women and went back to the hotel to prepare a fruit salad.

We got stitched up with the watermelon, which was unripe, but the rest was fine, especially the pineapple. We then went down to the green zocalo (town square) and basked in the sun before getting our hair cut, costing Q3 Guatemalan Quetzals each.

It is a very relaxed town with a mixture of tourists and travellers, mainly American, and the indigenous Indians. The huge Agua Volcano dominates the skyline to the south. The Volcán de Agua (also known as Hunahpú by Maya) is a stratovolcano located in the departments of Sacatepéquez and Escuintla in Guatemala. They do like a stratovolcano in Guatemala!

At 3,760 m (12,340 ft), Agua Volcano towers more than 3,500 m (11,500 ft) above the Pacific coastal plain to the south and 2,000 m (6,600 ft) above the Guatemalan Highlands to the north. It dominates the local landscape except when hidden by cloud cover. The volcano is within 5 to 10 km (3.1 to 6.2 miles) of the city of Antigua Guatemala and several other large towns situated on its northern apron.

The volcano was active in the late Pleistocene between 80,000 and 10,000 years ago but has not erupted since then. The local Kaqchikel people have always called this volcano Hunapú "place of flowers" or Jun Ajpu' "one hunter" (The calendar date for the sacred site; a typical method for naming sacred sites in Mayan cosmovision) in current Kaqchikel orthography.

The Spanish conquistadors also called it Hunapú until a lahar from the volcano on 10th September 1541 destroyed the original capital of Guatemala (now known as Ciudad Vieja) and the city was moved to the current site of Antigua Guatemala following this disaster. A lahar is a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley.

In the evening we went out and failed to locate any of the bars that were recommended in our guidebooks. We had an average meal in an Italian restaurant and went to the Jardin Bar on the west side of the zocalo. Here we met Kevin from Hackney in London, Ann with an eye drawn on the cotton wool pad sellotaped over her infected real eye and an assortment of other Brits and Europeans who were studying Spanish at the Central Linguistic School of Antigua.

The night developed into a drunken debauch. We drank beer in the Jardin Bar then moved on to Mio Cid’s where they had music and Cuba Libres for Q1.25 Guatemalan Quetzals. A Cuba Libre is a classic Cuban cocktail of rum, cola, lime and ice. The bar was named after El Cantar de Mio Cid, literally "The Song of my Cid " (or El Poema de mio Cid), also known in English as The Poem of the Cid. It is the oldest preserved Castilian epic poem (Spanish: epopeya). Based on a true story, it tells of the Castilian hero El Cid, and takes place during the Reconquista, or reconquest of Spain from the Moors.

We ran out of money at about 19:30 hrs. but I delved into my emergency cash supply and managed to change $20 American Dollars into Guatemalan Quetzals to continue the nights merriment. We went briefly to another bar, but it was too expensive, and we returned to Mio Cid’s.

Towards the end of the night (at about 01:00 hrs!) we talked to a Spanish teacher who agreed to give us private lessons in our hotel for Q4 Guatemalan Quetzals an hour. We got a lot of information from other Westerners about the schools and staying with local families for immersion learning of Spanish.

Most of the other students were seldom with the families but spent most of their time on the piss (out drinking and revelling), especially the Australian girls that we met. Antigua Guatemala was a party town. Just before we left Declan upset the Commie contingent, who were going to Nicaragua to do voluntary work for “the cause”, by saying that Margaret Thatcher was an O.K. Prime Minister in Britain. A good time was had by all, and we returned to our beds in the early hours of Friday morning.