We docked this morning at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. As soon as the ship was cleared we were off for our tour of colonial Antigua, the former capital of Guatemala. The ride there was close to an hour and a half. The city is surrounded by three active volcanoes and several hundred years ago suffered significant damage from the eruption and subsequent mudslide of one of them. The capital was moved then.
The city was beautiful. Some of the old colonial buildings survived or were rebuilt. The original cathedral is partially in ruins but it was nonetheless interesting to see them. The city was getting ready for Holy Week and there were purple banners hanging from many windows to commemorate Lent. In the main church there was an elaborate carpet made of sawdust and seeds with fruits and vegetables strewn around the edges. This is a tradition in the city for Holy Week. Several of the streets downtown are closed to traffic and as we walked along we encountered a family group playing typical Guatemalan folk music. The two little boys playing the maracas and the marimba were very cute. One was 7 and the other 5 years old.
After our morning walk we had a lovely buffet lunch and some free time in an old monastery converted to a hotel. The grounds were beautiful with lots of flowers which perfumed the air. Within the grounds were a couple of small museums with sculptures and Holy Week artifacts.
The last stop of the day was a jade factory. Evidently jade is only found in 2 places in the world, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Guatemala. The jade in Guatemala was just found about 30 years ago by an American archaeologist. Evidently the indigenous pre-Colombian people mined jade and prized it but the Spaniards didn’t so the mines were basically lost. Some of the pieces we saw were amazing.
All in all we truly enjoyed our visit to Guatemala.
April 4 - Antigua, Guatemala
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