Getting through customs and immigration was so simple in Guatemala City, even though no one knew what to make of our vaccination cards; after conferring with another worker who seemed equally uncertain they waved us through. A driver was waiting to take us on the ~45-minute trip to Antigua, and we arrived just before midnight. It was strange for us to go on vacation and sleep in a bed the same day we travel, since we're ordinarily on a 20-30-hour journey. One time zone difference, one hour behind, piece of cake.
Like so many places we've been, in Mexico, Central, and South America, and in China, the exteriors of buildings here are solid walls, with a door (sometimes a door within a larger, massive door) -- but once inside, the magnificent, open-air courtyard opens up and it's like being Alice, stepping through the looking glass. But if you think about it, buildings like this, with rooms around the square perimeter of the inner courtyard and solid exterior walls, have mostly dark rooms. The only window is the one opening into the courtyard, and I'm not a fan of keeping that shade open when we're in the room, so it was like being in a small box. Our room was strange, with one kind of chandelier-ey overhead light and no bedside lamp, a strange bathroom crammed right up against the bed, and the other bed crammed against the wall, but it didn't matter, obviously.
Our first morning we had breakfast at a table in the courtyard, and there was only one other group of people there that first day, a family of three. They left, and we had the whole place to ourselves. Which was kind of strange.
Antigua is such a charming city, with intensely old-cobbled streets and a large park in the middle of town, the zocalo. As usual, a large cathedral faced one side of the square, and what seemed like a huge administrative building was on another. Shops and restaurants lined the remaining two sides. One thing we really love about Antigua, and Cuernavaca, and Cartagena, is that the buildings are all painted such brilliant colors, and baskets of flowers hang all along the eaves. Huge bougainvillea drape over the walls too, so walking along the sidewalk sometimes requires a crouch.
Marc and I are often spatially challenged (but if I'm in the southern hemisphere, my spatial abilities seem to turn on....which must explain their backwardness in the northern hemisphere, which is where I live, unfortunately), but we instantly got Antigua, and wandered through the streets aimlessly. We didn't have a real plan for Antigua, except to find good food and to wander, and to find markets (him the local food market, me the textile markets) -- which, come to think of it, is the only plan we ever have.
We only had two nights and one full day, so Saturday was the day. We found the famous Santa Catarina arch, which is always the picture associated with Antigua (and see it up in the blog header?) and it kind of anchored us. Shops and restaurants were on that street, including the restaurant we wanted to try (Frida's) and the textile market I wanted to find (Nim P'ot), and it was a beautiful sunny day. I kept thinking about cold gray days with snow, back at home, and if I ever felt tempted to say, "Gosh, it's hot" I bit my damn tongue.
Mid-afternoon we wanted to stop for something to drink and people-watch, so we grabbed a table at Frida's, on the cobbled street. The young waiter was so kind as he taught me how to scan the code and pull up the menu on my phone, and endlessly apologetic when the first beer I wanted (a craft IPA) was sold out -- "We sold them all last night!" -- and then the second was, too, and somehow I was the communicator for us even though I don't speak Spanish ("No habla espanol, lo siento, solamente poquito," and that sentence itself proves the point). Somehow I understood enough of what he was saying, and he understood or redirected my understanding, and we navigated through. I forget what we look like -- it's just us, Marc and Lori -- but others see an old couple, him with white hair, and we always hold hands, and when WE see old people like that we always say, "Awww, look at that sweet old couple." Maybe the charming waiter thought that about us, too, and that's why he was so kind.
There was a street musician nearby, kind of meh, but as we left to head back to the square, I heard thrilling music just a little farther down the street. Bongas, a drum kit, a guitar, a trumpet, and hand percussion instruments, and a fantastic singer, and I was enthralled. Truly captured by thrall. I stood there listening and I looked up at the high blue sky and the big white clouds, and felt the Antigua cobbles under my sandals, and I felt the mask on my face, and I looked back at the main singer and my eyes filled with tears, and I felt the "click" of my inner camera, capturing everything that was there in that long, beautiful moment. The band turned its attention to me, and the singer was singing to me, and when the song ended, he spoke to me (something something Espanol something), and I said beautiful, or muy bonito, or something and the bonga player translated (Linda, I heard him say), and they all nodded at me and I nodded at them, and I THINK there were other people around us but I was not aware.
Marc had stepped back to sit on the curb, along with other people, and eventually I sat next to him and a couple stepped into the street and started dancing -- they were good, a samba (or mambo, I can't keep those straight), and honestly I could not have been happier.
Eventually we wandered back to the hotel to think about dinner, because we'd decided that Frida's was OK, but we hoped to find something a little better. Marc found a restaurant called Cactus and OOH LA LA. Shrimp and bacon tacos, and a beautiful little table in the window, facing the street, and a very kind waiter, and we wandered out into the cool night to find the zocalo and watch people for a while. We got some coconut gelato and fended off all the people trying to sell us jewelry and toys and refrigerator magnets and textiles -- easy, one no was all it took -- and eventually wandered back to our hotel.
We loved Antigua. We had good food and walked lots of miles. We did find the food market, which was completely outdoors and so not as claustrophobic to me as SEAsian markets are (until it got late enough in the morning that everyone was shouting their wares, and suddenly I swamped), and I did find Nim P'ot, which had extremely high prices but notes indicating the specific village of each textile so I could then go to the Atitlan villages for the ones I like most, and I did buy three scarves from Manuela, who wormed her way next to me on the curb with her lively eyes and decent English and beautiful scarves, and her sly way of talking sideways just to me as Marc was haggling with her over the prices. We were surprised there was no music IN the zocalo, as there is in Oaxaca and Cuernavaca.
We saw almost no tourists (well, visible tourists that is; there may have been tourists from within Central or South America), and when we did spot someone, they were always American, and more often than not, wore their masks on their necks. Every. Single. Guatemalan wore a mask, constantly. We did too, even when we were outside and there was no one anywhere around us. I tended to pull my mask down to take a bite or a sip and put it back in place to chew. Stores and banks are diligent about taking precautions; you can't enter without having your temperature taken and disinfecting your hands.
After breakfast Sunday morning -- fantastic huevos rancheros, with delicious black beans and caramelized fried plantains -- Dionisio drove us to San Marcos de la Laguna -- San Marcos, on Lake Atitlan. Once we cleared Antigua, it was a gorgeous 4 (and sometimes 5 or 6) lane highway, and we were speeding right along. Then we were climbing, climbing, climbing, and I glanced out my window and gasped -- clouds clinging to the tops of the trees, and a dropoff so deep I couldn't see the bottom -- and we kept climbing. You know that old saying, what goes up etc etc, and thus began our descent on the narrow two-lane but beautifully paved road.
SIDEBAR that's relevant. My favorite thing about Crete (well, one of them) was driving. It was like being in a video game, sharp S-curves, curves, hairpins, WHOA the mountain slid onto the road and it drops off squeeze through back to hairpins -- that was so much fun. I loved every second of it. And this road made Crete driving seem like a straightaway. I can't figure out the physics of it, but somehow it seemed like we were on a super tight spiral, each curve going around and without a breath going around again in the same direction, but that can't be true. It wasn't a series of switchbacks, dropping us down the steep mountain, it was a series of the tightest hairpins with very little road between each curve. The curves were banked, so as we went down, our van tilted slightly to the left, and down and down and down we went. Occasionally a motorcycle passed us -- surely a young man with a death wish -- and the curves were all marked "Curva Peligrosa" -- dangerous curves, even I knew that with my limited Spanish. Eventually Atitlan came into view, a beautiful caldera lake that is ringed by volcanos and towns and crossed all day by ferry boats, because across is much quicker than around.
Eventually we reached the bottom and started driving through the tiny little villages, and suddenly we stopped, and Dionisio said something long in Spanish -- cambio, I understood that -- and suddenly then we were out of the van and walking. We walked and walked, and the road turned to a dusty path, and we curved this way and that, trotting after Dionisio who kept looking back to be sure we were still there, and suddenly I wondered if he was really just going to murder us in the bush because SURELY we would've come to our hotel by then, and SURELY it wasn't in a place like this.
And so: San Marcos la Laguna and Lush, our truly lush hotel, tomorrow.
