Guatemala

From Copán Ruinas I got a mini-bus shuttle directly to Antigua, Guatemala, with no bus changes and no pick-up/drop-off, so the trip was only about 6 hours.  The only mild stress of this trip was the border crossing.  Since I was doubting everything that I’d heard about/from immigration, I thought that they might look back at my Nicaragua date of entry.  Again, they barely looked and gave me 90 days more from that crossing!  We did pass through Guatemala City on the way, but nothing very noteworthy except the congestion.  Guatemala appears to be even more prosperous than Honduras based on billboards, franchises, etc.  The buses are also distinctive in that most all of the old school buses (aka chicken buses) have been painted and “pimped” with a lot of chrome, cowling, etc.  While there was an occasional colorful bus in Nicaragua, it seems to be the rule in Guatemala.

A couple of pictures of Guatemalan chicken buses.  Note the amount of chrome on grills, around headlights, on the sides and even on ladders to the roof.  The bus on the bottom also shows the cowling that was added to give the windows a streamlined appearance, although from the inside, the windows are standard, rectangular school bus windows.

Antigua is more formally called “Antigua Guatemala”, to distinguish it from “Nueva Guatemala,” the current Guatemala City.  It was formerly the capital of Guatemala and was called Santiago de los Caballeros at the time, but after several devastating earthquakes in the 18th century, the capital was moved and the city “abandoned.”  Some, however, stayed and rebuilt, so the city did not die completely.  In addition to earthquakes, Antigua also sits in the shadow of 3 large, active volcanoes.  After the partial abandonment, the population of the city was much smaller, so rebuilding was only partial.  Many of the churches and monasteries were simply left in ruins, while others were reconstructed on a much smaller scale amidst the larger ruins.  There are still many ruins, some stand-alone and some associated with active churches, many of which have been made into park-like areas.  Like Copán Ruinas, Antigua is now designated a UNESCO world heritage site.

Guatemala as a nation is heavily indigenous, much more so that Nicaragua, which had only a small indigenous population.  This is most evident in the clothing you see on the street, which is very colorful, but one can also hear non-Spanish languages spoken quite often.  While most indigenous women wear native traditional clothing, you can also see many men who dress traditionally.  While the population is majority indigenous, the prosperity is not distributed very well, so demonstrations and protests regarding indigenous issues are fairly common (more on this later).  There is also much more hard-selling of crafts than I had seen in Nicaragua or Honduras.  At times it was difficult to get a “no” accepted, especially if you have shown even the slightest interest in an item.

A couple of photos of some indigenous dress.  In the top photo, note that the standard color for mototaxis in Antigua was silver instead of red.  The bottom photo also shows a man in traditional clothes and both pictures show a baby being carried on the back.

Some boys on the street in traditional dress playing music for tips.

 The city itself is a wonderful place to wander with many interesting buildings and ruins to discover.  I say discover because there are so many, that not all appear on the tourist maps, so you end up stumbling across them by accident. There must be at least 2 dozen churches/monasteries/ruins scattered through the city. To the north is Cerro de la Cruz, a nice vantage point to get a panorama of the city and surrounding.  This guide book warned that you should only go here with a police escort, but it was early Sunday morning and I saw joggers heading that way, so decided to go alone.  It turned out that there were police posted halfway up and at the top, so it was probably the safest place in town at the time.  

A view of the city from Cerro de la Cruz with Volcán de Agua (3760 m) in the background.  The other volcanoes are to the right out of view.

Another view of Volcán de Agua with Iglesia San Pedro in the foreground.  This is one of the “minor” churches that was not even labeled on my map.

The city is laid out in a traditional Spanish colonial style with a street grid, a central park, a cathedral facing the park and various parks or plazas scattered throughout.  On one other side of the central park is the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, the capitol building for Guatemala until 1773 and opposite that is the Palacio del Ayuntamiento, the city hall.  In the park is an interesting fountain originally built in 1738.

A view of the Catedral de San José from the central park.  This was a bit unusual because the main entrance was not at the back, but at the side of the church.  The front is to the right as you see this photo.

A view back towards the central plaza from the cathedral entrance.  The Palacio de los Capitanes Generales is in the background.  Note the clown making balloon animals in the foreground.  Church steps and entries never seemed to be off limits for either selling or begging.

Another view of Volcán de Agua with the central plaza on the left.

The fountain in the center of the plaza.  The close-up on the right shows the interesting design of the fountain—sort of the Central American version of the famous Mannequin Pis in Brussels.  I wonder if anything like this could be placed in a public park today?

A view of the fountain and cathedral at night.

The three most notable churches are the Cathedral de San José on the central plaza, Iglesia y Convento de Nuestra Señora de la Merced and the Iglesia de San Francisco.  All three are built among the ruins of earlier churches and the ruins are also open for tourists.  San Francisco was perhaps the most interesting as it also had a small museum about San Hermano Pedro de San José Betancourt, whose bones are buried there, and who was just recently elevated to the status of a saint (2002).  Brother Pedro was very active in the founding of a hospital, schools and other social-service-type organizations and legend has it that he originated the Christmas eve posadas processions, a custom that later spread to Mexico and other Latin American countries.  The museum was interesting not only for what it contained, but also for its insight into the importance that many people place on the intercession of a saint to obtain a miracle.  Among the more interesting items were San Hermano Pedro’s underwear as well as the paint brushes used to dust his bones the last time they were moved.  One entire room is filled with letters, pictures and no-longer-needed crutches from those who were granted a miracle through the intercession of San Hermano Pedro.  His grave is a shrine is also located in the church.

A view of the ruins connected to the cathedral.  The current church is only a fraction of the size of the church before 1773.

Many churches use the adjacent ruins as a place for storage.  Here are some of the items that were recently used for Lenten processions thought the city.

A couple of views of Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Merced, perhaps the most beautiful church in Antigua.  At the top is the exterior with the entrance to the convent on the left.  The bottom shows the interior courtyard of the convent, which is only partially restored.  The fountain is supposed to the largest in Central America.  You’ll also note a young couple holding hands in front of the fountain.  It was quite common to see young “novios” hugging/cuddling/kissing in churches, parks and other places.  In fact, several churches specifically had signs stating that such behavior is inappropriate and I once saw a couple asked to leave due to PDAs. 

A view of the current Iglesia San Francisco on the top.  You can get an idea of how the church is pieced together with older ruins and new construction. At the bottom is an overview of the ruins of the old convent.  Note the park-like character of the ruins;  there were even picnic tables in a couple of places.

Another ruin, the Iglesia del Carmen, with a handicraft market in front.  You can get some idea of how colorful the locally made fabric and crafts are.

The Arch of Santa Catalina which spans a pedestrian street in Antigua.  The arch was built so the nuns could pass from one side of the street to the other without having to come into contact with the riffraff in the street.

A museum that I found very interesting (though its content was rather scattered) was the museum at the former Convento Santo Domingo.  This complex is now part luxury hotel, part  museum and part park-like ruins.  The museum is actually several museums together:  a pharmacy museum, a contemporary art museum, a handcraft museum, a silver museum, an archeology museum, a colonial art museum and what I found most interesting, a pre-colonial art/modern glass museum.  The latter displayed works of pre-Columbian art juxtaposed with modern glass pieces that used the same motif or theme as the pre-Columbian piece.  Unfortunately, photography was not allowed.

The ruins of the Santa Domingo church that are part of the museum/hotel complex.  This area is set up for a wedding, but is also a conference/meeting room for the hotel.

These had to be copied from the internet since photography was not allowed, but these are a couple of examples that show the a pre-Columbian piece paired with a similarly-themed modern piece of glass.  There were others that I personally  found more compelling, but this is what I could find online.

From Antigua, I took what was referred to as a “Pullman” bus (just an old school bus from what I could tell) to the town of Pahajachel (or Pana for short), located on the shores of Lago Atitlán in the Guatemalan highlands.  The lake is noted for its beauty and being nestled among several large volcanoes.  Unfortunately, the weather was very cloudy my entire stay (I was only there a day), so I only caught a brief glimpse of the volcanoes as I was leaving town on the bus and the weather partially cleared.  Pana itself is basically a tourist town, something akin to the Dells in WI or Estes Park in CO, and not particularly pretty or interesting to me, but certainly loaded with hotels/restaurants, which makes it an easy place for tourists to visit.  For me, the more interesting part was the lake, the scenery and the small communities scattered around the lake.

This is a street view of Panajachel.  It is basically a series of hotels, restaurants and souvenir/craft shops.  If you look down the street, there is another mototaxi.

Here are the views of the lake that I had.  The top is how it looked for the day I was there and the bottom, taken from the bus, shows the partial clearing as I was leaving.

Here are a couple of view of Laga Atitlán that I got from the internet so you can see what the lake should look like in good weather.

My plan had been to take a ferry across the lake, but the weather was so cloudy/misty that I decided it wasn’t worth it, so I just did some walking along the lake and around town and did manage to find a few interesting things.

This is a mechanic’s shop that I thought had an interesting motto:  Jesus repairs your soul, and we (repair) your mototaxi.

A reminder of how hard life can be for some in many parts of the world.  Here are people mining sand and gravel by hand from a river bed.  They dig and throw the sand/gravel mix against frames with wire to sort for size, then hand load in pickups.  On the far bank, you can also see some dramatic results of erosion.

In my wanderings along the lake, I walked by many mansions that were separated from the street by walls and gates.  Security seems to be a big concern in Central America, whether it’s simple barbed wire around a campesino’s home, guards with guns at banks and stores or walls and gates around wealthier homes.  Because of the street’s incline, here I was able to peek over the wall a bit.  The lake is to the right and the wall is topped with a combination of razor wire and flowers.  The two together stuck me as an interesting contrast.

I didn’t run in Central America even though my plantar fasciitis seemed to be improved.  Somehow it seemed inappropriate to run recreationally when most of the people around me had to work so hard just to survive.  It seemed like it was almost flaunting the fact that you had enough time and energy to go out and run.  Anyway, in Pana I did see that they are having a Marathon (and half) around the lake.  It should be a beautiful run, but undoubtedly a bit hillier than I would prefer.

 From Pana, I caught another min-bus shuttle directly to San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, in order to save a few hours.  They scared me with the bus as I was instructed to be ready at 5:45 am, but the bus was actually scheduled to leave at 7:00, so I was waiting for almost an hour and thinking that they had missed me.  We were supposed to arrive in San Cristóbal at about 3 pm, but just before the Mexican border, the traffic stopped completely.  It turned out there was a demonstration by an indigenous group that was completely blocking the highway and we would have to wait until they decided to end it.  (Fortunately, unlike my experience in Nicaragua when a demonstration blocked the highway, this bus did not abandon us!)  After about a 2-hour wait in the sun, the demonstration ended and we were able to proceed to the border.  The border crossing went smoothly and we transferred to another mini-bus in Mexico for the final leg of the trip.

On the left is the line of cars/trucks waiting for the demonstration to finish.  You’ll note the lack of available shade!  On the right is the Mexican-Guatemalan border heading of the hill at La Mesilla.