Our final destination in Guatemala is beautiful Antigua, where we’ll spend the weekend, having covered over 1400kms on this leg of our travels, with our Intrepid group tour from Playa Del Carmen. We leave Panajachel after breakfast and arrive in the late morning, checking back into Posada Los Búcaros, where we had stored our big rucksacks for the past couple of days.
A number of our group have opted to climb one of the volcanoes an hour outside of the city, a few of them sporting rotten hangovers having stayed up drinking until the early hours. They head off for a very challenging afternoon while Coman and I join Aquilino and the rest of our gang to walk around Antigua’s cobbled streets under overcast skies and discover more of this historic city.
Founded in 1543 it was the capital of the whole of Latin America for over 200 years until three years after the 1773 earthquake devastated the city. One of the few buildings that survived relatively intact is just a couple of blocks from our hotel.
La Iglesia de la Merced is an icon of Antigua, its yellow facade decorated with brilliant white stucco work, with Mayan iconography subtly interwoven into its angelic representations by the local craftsmen, a fact which originally went unnoticed by the Spaniards. The unique decorative style has been named ‘rococco antigueno’.
It also sports golden lions around its dome, representing the fact that the Conquistadors were actually from the provinces of Leon and Castillo, as modern day Spain as we know it didn’t actually exist back then. So the ‘Spanish’ conquest is really a misnomer, with contemporary Catalans in particular resistant to the idea that they were somehow responsible for the genocidal destruction visited upon the New World.
Nevertheless it was the Spanish crown that ordered its officials to relocate the capital of Latin America to what is now Guatemala City, rather than try to rebuild Antigua, as the 1773 earthquake was the fourth and most catastrophic one to visit the area since the city had been established. From 1776 Antigua was pretty much abandoned until the 1930s when the president of Guatemala decided to restore it to its former glories, with work still ongoing to this day. The eruption of nearby volcano Fuego in 2017 with much loss of life, and the associated earth tremors, set much of the restoration back, but six years later the city is very pretty indeed.
Due partly to its geographical location in the valley but also to deliberate decision-making, there is no modern urban sprawl on the outskirts of Antigua, its city boundaries remaining as they were in 1776. So modern day Antigua is rebuilt as it would have been at the height of its colonial power, although with subtle changes.
One of the reasons the lions were built surrounding the dome of La Iglesia de la Merced was to provide both ventilation to the church and to ward off pigeons, as the lions’ open mouths produced a breezy whistling sound that scared them off. However when the restoration took place, locals couldn’t stand the constant high-pitched sound so they were blocked with concrete.
From La Iglesia de la Merced we walk through the famous clocktower arch and reach the central plaza where the Cathedral of St Josef dominates one side. Almost completely destroyed in 1773, the frontage remains with a small church inside but behind it are vast ruins to explore. Around the plaza are government buildings and shopping arcades and in the centre is a large and dramatic fountain, featuring water spurting out of women’s breasts. The plaza was also the spot where in 1697 the last Mayan king Can’ek, who ruled the island of Flores, was executed bringing an end to the last remaining independent Maya state.
Coman and I take a break for lunch at Fonda La Calle de Real, a famous restaurant serving Guatemalan specialities. We have vegetarian pepían, a rich sauce with cinnamon, chillies, nuts and seeds usually forming the base for chicken or pork dishes, and vegetable parrilladas sat in its beautiful courtyard. And like so many shops and restaurants the external frontage gives no clue of the grandeur inside with both Starbucks and MacDonalds housed inside beautiful buildings with courtyards and gardens, and only very subtle branding allowed outside.
After lunch we rejoin Aquilino and continue walking through Antigua, heading for La Iglesia de San Francisco. The church is not only renowned for its vast ruined cloisters but for having the relics of the first Central American saint, Hermano Pedro de Betancur, buried there. He was canonised by John Paul II in 2002 and is held in such high esteem that anyone wearing shorts is not allowed into the church and a no photo policy is in force. Outside the church is a shop selling candles shaped like various body parts that worshippers choose to pray for specific healing to San Pedro. They’re very colourful and yet amusingly superstitious.
The next day it’s beautifully hot and sunny and we take the chance to explore Antigua by ourselves, visiting the artisan markets and the bus station where the highly decorated local ‘chicken buses’ depart from.
Above us in the distance Fuego is belching big plumes of smoke, reminding everyone of its living presence and permanent threat. The destruction that has been visited upon the city is evident at our next stop, the ruined house of Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, who was a conquistador, author and historian and wrote The True History of The Conquest of New Spain. It’s next to La Escuela de Jésus, the old and impressive Jesuit college, which is currently hosting a number of wonderful photography exhibitions in its variety of rooms and courtyards.
From there we retrace our steps from yesterday, past both the Cathedral of San Josef and La Iglesia de San Francisco, which is rammed for its Sunday service, in our search for the ruined Dominican church which is now a museum in the grounds of the former monastery, which itself is now a luxury hotel, Casa Santo Domingo. We wander the streets of Antigua’s northern districts unable to find the entrance and eventually, heading down yet another alley, we find ourselves wandering through the tradesman’s entrance at the back of the hotel and climbing over locked gates to sneak through the ruined monastery and into the partially restored church and hotel gardens.
The grounds and buildings are beautiful, with intriguing statues, art and history all around, but we keep getting odd looks from the staff who can’t work out who we are, or how we got into the hotel, especially as Coman in particular is dressed more for exercise than the super-posh lunch they’re serving in the restaurant. Straightening our backs and exuding confidence, we stride through reception, past the liveried doormen, and out onto the street to continue our explorations.
Above Antigua sits Cerro de la Cruce, a large cross on a hillside from where one can get a great view of the city on the valley floor so Coman and I climb up the winding paths and stairs, only to find the cross itself is closed for redevelopment, with workmen landscaping a park around it. The views are lovely nonetheless and the hike up and down means we have quite an appetite, so when we pass a vegan restaurant called Once Once we peek inside and are welcomed into a charming garden space.
The menu looks fantastic and as it’s the 23rd anniversary of our meeting today, and also the eighth anniversary of our civil partnership becoming full marriage, we decide to push the boat out and treat ourselves to a swanky lunch, complete with glasses of bubbles to toast our good fortune. The Asian beetroot dumplings and cauliflower wing tacos are delicious and we get chatting to the glamorous mother and daughter beside us.
The mother was born and raised in Guatemala but the family mainly divide their time now between homes in Toronto, New York and Miami, and the daughter is getting married here in Antigua in ten days time. They’ve hired an entire luxury hotel in the nearby countryside for two weeks, and are flying in 150 friends and family from around the world for the big society event. They’re charming company but we can’t help wondering if they’re one of the twelve European-descent families who we’ve heard still control the political and economic life of Guatemala.
That night we rejoin our Intrepid group for a farewell dinner at La Posada de Don Rodrigo where cocktails flow and some of us join in with the masked dancers and musicians commemorating the mix of traditional Maya customs and Spanish influences that weave through the country. Aquilino even arranges an anniversary surprise dessert for us which is a lovely touch, and wonderfully rounds off our remarkable trip through Belize and Guatemala with him and our fellow travellers, who we now call friends.
We’ll miss them as we continue our journey tomorrow, with a flight from Guatemala City to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. However both new adventures and a new set of companions await us in a very different part of Central America. Our travels will take flight in the third blog of this trip entitled ‘Pura Vida in Costa Rica; Rainforests, Jungle, Volcanoes and Beach’.
