Guatemala Day 8: Las Capuchinas Convent

Built in 1736 using the latest techniques to avoid earthquake damage, the Convent of the Capuchinas mostly survived the 1773 earthquake that led to the abandonment of the city.

I took a dozen pictures of the cloister, every one a different angle with different flowers.

The most interesting feature of the convent is the circular tower where 17 of the most devout nuns would be locked in (after purification in special baths) for the forty days of Lent with a VERY limited diet. They spent their time praying the rosary.

Of course, the roof to the circular tower is gone.

Each cell had a drop toilet into a sewer of flowing water with a vent above.

Here is a restored cell. (Bathroom on the right, storage on the left. The nun is NOT real although several of us were startled by her presence.)

Some of my blog readers made sure I saw this great garden view from one of the cells.

Beneath the circular tower was the wine cellar for communion wine and bread. The church requires wheat in the host, and wheat was not grown in the area for a couple hundred years after the arrival of the Spanish, so it all had to be imported. No local grapes or wine in the early days either.

Upstairs is a museum of 18th c religious art--the period just before the city was abandoned. No photos allowed in the museum, but I couldn't resist another view of the cloister.

The church associated with the convent is in ruins. Young men were scrubbing modern graffiti from the walls of the balcony while we were there.

Around every corner there is another lovely garden like this one behind the laundry.

I'll keep my washing machine, thank you.

Guatemala Day 8: Exploring Antigua

At 9 AM we set off on foot. Just walking the streets of Antigua is an aesthetic experience. The dormant Agua Volcano due south of the city is a good point of orientation.

Fuego Volcano, the only active one is the area, could be seen spewing smoke at various times throughout the day.

Some of my fellow travelers have begun reading this blog. They sometimes pointed out interesting things to photograph like these window ornaments.

We started in the central plaza.

There Guillermo introduced us to some of his friends and together they showed us how to tell the difference between fabrics woven traditionally and those made using a treadle loom.

The Cathedral faces the square.

We thought at first that the cathedral was closed, but Carlos found a side door open. The reason the front doors were closed was this restoration project.

Only a small part at the front of the cathedral has been restored.

Most of the nave looks like this.

Antigua is a UNESCO site. Much has been restored, but much is still in ruins. UNESCO says that adds to the charm of the city.

Although most of La Merced church was destroyed in the 1976 earthquake, the eclectic facade survived.

We also visited the Convent of the Capuchinas, but THAT merits its own post.

Like our hotel, most of the shops and building in the center city were private homes of wealthy Spaniards in the 16th to 18th centuries, built in the Sevillian syle around courtyards. You can wander into any with an open door. Lunch was at Restaurant Las Antorchas, another of these beautiful courtyard homes.

In the afternoon Steve and I did some wandering, including hot chocolate in the courtyard of the Chocolate Museum. Steve got boring old "classic" brought in an ordinary ceramic mug with hot milk in a plain glass pitcher. (Ok, so he had to mix his chocolate and milk.) I tried the Mayan chocolate. Much more interesting--melted chocolate, hot milk, ground chili peppers and honey for me to mix to taste in a cool pottery mug. OK, so I probably put in a bit more chili than I should have, but WOW! Definitely worth the experience.

Guatemala Day 7: Getting to Antigua

Following our unexpected morning, we left Villa Maya at 1 PM for the ten-hour trip to Antigua.  We got word that the barricade had been taken down and after about an hour we began meeting the long string of cars and trucks that had been delayed in the opposite direction. We were very grateful not to have spent the morning sitting in the sun along the road.

When we stopped at a Texaco station for what Guillermo called “a wee-wee break,” he said he hoped there would be toilet seats in all the stalls. Caravan provided toilet seats a couple months ago, but some disappeared. I thought it was cool that Caravan would invest in the places they frequent to make them more desirable, not just for their own clients, but for others as well.

While we waited for everyone to be ready, we watched some cowboys wrangling a cow in this truck. She wanted to lie down, but if she did, she would soon be trampled by the other cattle as they shifted in the confined space. Guillermo pointed out that the cattle had probably had five or six extra hours in the back of the truck waiting at the barricade.

The dinner that had been planned for our hotel in Antigua was rescheduled for the restaurant where we stopped for a break on the way north—the peacock place. It was served quickly. The taste was fine, but they obviously had had it ready for us for a while.

We arrived at Hotel Porta Antigua a little after 11 as expected—probably the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in, but then I have been enamoured with courtyard houses since high school Latin class.

Our room has a fourteen-foot ceiling and a fireplace.

I took this of the reception area the morning after we arrived.

A corridor goes under the street to another part of the hotel where the resturant is.

That courtyard is lovely at night.

But the pool is pretty ordinary compared to ours. Too bad it is too chilly to want to get wet.

Still, the other part of the hotel is pretty nice in the evening at dinner time.

We met at 9 AM for a walking tour of the town. That merits not one, but two, blog entries.

Guatemala Day 7: an Unexpected Morning

Due to a protest march and blockade of the road back to Guatemala City, we ended up with an extra morning at Villa Maya. Here's how some of it went.

The birders went out anyway and after about half an hour the rain let up, so I followed, taking my umbrella as well as my phone/camera, and hoping I had enough mosquito dope on. I never found the birders, but it was a great time to stretch out those tight muscles from yesterday's exertion.

This is a pretty civilized trail for a walk in the jungle, but I was alone and didn't want to get lost. Guillermo gives us warnings like "This trail does not go all the way around the lake; you must turn around and come back." Then he reminds us that behind all advice there is a story. I didn't want to be his next story.

Near the hotel the yellow gravel trail twists back and forth. It reminded me of a park trying to fit a 1-mile jogging path into limited space, but I suspect it is to that birders can get a variety of views without leaving the path.

Nice views back toward the hotel.

On the way out I came to a clearing with some sort of foundation. I wondered what building had been abandoned. I returned on a road that passed closer and found it was not an abandoned foundation, but a helocopter pad. Nice to know we wouldn't have to do that long winding road in an emergency.

Time to pack the computer so the luggage can be loaded for departure after lunch. It will be a long day.

Guatemala Day 6: Cultural Show

This evening some local teens put on a cultural show. Very nicely done although the music cuts could have stood some work. At times they ended their dance and left us hanging without a cadence to the music.

They began with a Mayan blessing of the space including, incense from a local tree.

The first part of the show was Mayan traditional dancing.

Modern Guatemala is a mixture of many different cultures including that of Seville, Spain. Steve had told me about a cultural show he had seen on a previous visit with these very full skirts. I'm sure my granddaughter would love one.

At the end of the show, they invited us to join them. Some of our people really had the moves, including our guide Guillermo in the foreground

Day 6 was supposed to be the long drive back past Guatemala City to Antigua. Wake up call was 5 AM with suitcases outside our doors by 5:30 for a departure at 6:30.

We departed on time. But thanks to social media, a few miles up the road Guillermo got word that a town along the way is disgruntled about not receiving the road improvements they have been promised for the past ten years. Can't say that I blame them. There is a demonstration in town--including blockading the highway until 2PM. The "alternate route" is not tenable, so we had the choice of sitting in the bus at the road block in the middle of nowhere for hours or returning to the hotel. Guess which one we chose?

We got our rooms back. I had been sorry not to spend more time exploring the beautiful grounds. Now we have the opportunity. Of course, this means we won't reach Antigua until midnight. The reason for the early departure was to avoid Guatemala City rush hour. I guess we will do that, but on the opposite side of the rush than intended. Adventure. :-)

I had intended to go for a walk when I finished getting the blog up. Of course, as I finish, the rain begins. Can't complain after such a beautiful day yesterday.

Guatemala Day 6: Tikal Archaeology Park

A sunny day in the rain forest. Not what we expected. The forecast was 30-40% chance of rain, but we didn't see a drop until we got back to the hotel ready to swim!

Tikal was the main motivation for the trip. Steve was here with Katie and Adam 15 years ago (following an OC confence where they helped with logistics.) He remembers the freedom to scramble as in Great Zimbabwe. It's still like that although we had a guide who gave us lots of information and time limits for our scrambling so we could move on the the next part of the park. We did NOT see everything.

The civilization flourished here from 300 BC to AD 900. We know a lot of specifics because of Mayan written records in inscriptions. They had a strong view of history, a highly developed calendar and dated all their monuments with birth and reign of kings.

We started with this scale model of the park which I include here to give you an idea of the extent. One of the ladies told me she had been expecting "a pyramid." The someone said something about wanting to climb pyramid 4 (foreground.) "You mean there are 4?" As you can see from the model there are a lot more than 4 buildings.

This temple, impressive as it is when you first enter the park, doesn't merit a name on the map except that it is part of Complex Q.

Below is Temple I. I was so excited that I took a bunch of pictures of the back of it before we ever came around to the front and the massive plaza that it faces.

Opposite Temple I is the smaller Temple II.

You can climb Temple II from the back on shallow wooden steps. "Shallow steps" is very important because climbing the tall steps to the Northern Acropolis just about killed my legs.

From the top of Temple II you an see Temples III and IV rising out of the jungle in the distance. (This was taken with telephoto; they are really further away than they look here.)

Temple II on the right, Temple I hidden by the trees on the left. I'm not sure which temple is straight ahead, but it's part of the Central Acropolis. This is taken from the North Acropolis with the really high steps. Someone told me that they weren't originally so high. What we climb on today is the inner structure. The actual steps were much lower, but they must have been terrifyingly steep. Hard to imagine taken them in full royal regalia.

Here we have the view from the Central Acropolis, with Temple 1 on the right. I didn't leave nearly enough time to explore the palaces on this side.

Temple III has only had its top exposed (behind the trees at the top). You can glimpse a bit of the side of the steps peeking out of the undergrowth that covers most of it. Remember, this whole city was lost for almost a thousand years, all Indiana Jones.

Many of the monuments are only partially exposed or completely covered in earth and greenery.

The Plaza of the Seven Temples, like Stonehenge, was designed to show the solstices and equinox and tell the Maya when to plant. The sun rose through these notches on certain days.

Temple IV is the tallest. We may be seniors, but a lot of us climbed the 187 steps--modern wooden ones against the jungle-covered sides of the pyramid.

The view from the top includes Temples I and II (close together to the left), Temple III and I think the Grand Pyramid off to the right with the point right at the top of the canopy.

There is a wide buffer zone around the park. I suspect that is to provide us with this uninterrupted view of the jungle from the tops of the pyramids. It would kind of spoil the feel to spot towns and hotels from up there.

Lunch was another open-air shelter. Delicious as usual. Two bottles of water per person to prevent dehydration.

I’m not a big souvenir buyer, but I have been fascinated with the Mayan writing system. On the wall leading to my office at home I have some parchment, some papyrus, a couple posters of illuminated manuscripts, and an Ethiopian story painted on cloth. I thought this replica of a page from the Dresden Codex would be a nice addition to my collection.