This morning started out with a bang. Fifteen minutes before we were to go meet in the lounge for our tour, Sara realized that we were booked on a different tour that left 45 minutes earlier. (She forgot to check the tickets. Never, never do that!) With the skill of someone accustomed to racing from gate to gate in an airport when a connecting flight arrives late, she navigated from the closed shore excursions' desk on Deck 4 to the reception desk to the Cabaret Lounge on Deck 5 to use her best persuasive skills on an unsuspecting crew member to make the changes that were needed to get us on a tour that had no openings and was to leave in five minutes. Fortunately, Princess Cruises agreed that the customer is always right and got us on the tour bus to Antiqua, for the 90-minute ride.
After the bus made a very tricky three-point turn to drop us off at the entrance to the city, a tour guide boarded the bus to give us a map for a self-directed walking tour. Once in the city, we were happy to learn that government-approved tour guides were waiting to help us tour the city for $10 per person. Our tour guide Luis was accompanied by his 18-year-old son who is a student tour guide in training, planning to follow in his father's footsteps figuratively and literally.
Antiqua is one large museum. The lecturer at the port talk had called the city an oasis in a largely underdeveloped, extremely poor nation--a Fantasy Land that Disney would have created that was named a World Heritage Site in 1999. He was somewhat right but if Disney had really created Disney Antiqua, rollercoasters would have connected the steeples of the numerous Catholic churches, Jesus and his band of 12 roving disciples would have been a cabaret act, the Guatemalan singers and dancers would perform hourly in the city's Central Park, the uneven cobblestone streets (built under the influence of an Italian designer) would be smooth and flat, and the peeling paint on the city's buildings would be freshly retouched every night. Even though Antiqua is not the real Quatemala, it is well-worth seeing.
Guatemala is on the Mayan calendar, with 65 percent of its population being of Mayan descent. However, the Olmecan civilization from central Asia settled the country (jade is the sacred stone of the Mayan civilization and is sold everywhere) and the pyramids are like those of Bangkok in Thailand. The Mayan calendar has 18 months of 20 days, with five sacred days, and after 5525 years will be finished on December 21, 2012. We all need to stay turned to learn what happens at the end of the Mayan period.
Luis showed us a private house, which is now a charming bed-and-breakfast (Casa Lefebvre) telling us to explore every room because "This is your house!", the former Santo Domingo Convent, which is now an upscale hotel that still boasts some of its original furniture and chimney, and one of the 17 schools in the city that teaches Spanish and attracts people from around the world with its reasonable rates.
We then toured the yellow-painted La Merced Church, known for its striking architecture, large fountain and Holy Week procession. Carpetmakers weave a large carpet in the middle of the street, which the city's residents pay $10 per person to carry as funeral music is played. On a near-by pedestrian street is the Santa Catalina Archway, which connected a church and cloister and was commissioned by the woman mayor of Antique in 1685. It seemed that the nuns used to cross between the two structures on an open walkway and the young men would wait under it at the moments the nuns crossed (to look up their habits). The mayor decided that this practice had to be stopped by ensuring that the nuns could cross the street without coming in contact with the general public.
When we turned the corner to the Central Park, we thought that we were in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and its central square. We enjoyed the Plato Typico at Chimuno's Cafe and saw the long line of workers from the coffee farms waiting for the bank to open so that they could cash their paychecks. Central Park, which was the heart of Central America when Antiqua was the capital of Central America, is surrounded by the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Palacio de Los Capitanes and the Royal Hall.
Ken's souvenirs from the trip are a T-shirt advertising the local Gallo beer and a six-pack of Gallo beer.
Thank you for the blog of your world cruise. I will be following along on your adventures. The picture of the horses tied up with the cars in the background really made me laugh. It's fun to read about the local beers that Ken gets to sample. I don't know if a world cruise will be in my future, but for now I look forward to your posts. Take care. Joanne
ReplyDeleteP.S.: BTW, I'm from Philadelphia, PA and on (Sat.) Feb 6, 2010 our city was hit by a nor'easter/ blizzard dumping 28.5 inches of snow. On (Wed.) Feb 10th our city is expected to be hit AGAIN by another nor'easter/blizzard with upwards of two more feet of snow. I thought I would share this weather news to you both.