Arriving in Antigua, one is immediately struck by the fascinating architecture and splendid monuments that permeates every corner of the city. The place is replicate with 17th and 18th century churches. There are so many churches about that one can hardly walk more than a few steps without running into one. About half of them are destroyed. The ones that are not are beautifully restored. It is a strange place, wholly different then the rest of Guatemala. The streets are clean, the garbage gets picked up, and the stray dogs disappear after dark. The history of Antigua is quite fascinating. Antigua was the center of power for all of Latin America from 1571 through 1776. During this time, the Spanish lavished seemingly limitless resources to beautify the city. They laid down cobbled streets, installed parks, a gorgeous square, many churches and even some public buildings. There were several earthquakes in the second half of the 18th century. The one in 1776 destroyed nearly everything and caused them to move the capital of New Spain to Guatemala City. For a couple of hundred years it was largely abandoned until the preservationalists moved in. The result is a perfectly untouched colonial city in the heart of Central America. While most people outside of Antigua have never heard of the concept of a zoning law, here they are strictly enforced with splendid results. Even the McDonald’s in town is inside of a spectacular old Colonial building with mahogany wood and a spectacular courtyard in which food is served that is not quite appropriate for a human consumption. The ruined churches might be the best part about Antigua. You can see the original bulk of the church and the convents and actually climb over gigantic pieces of masonry that were the pre-earthquake ceilings. The ruins for many of the churches are endless and they let you climb into hidden catacombs and jump up on ruined walls. As the Lonely Planet guide books says, ¨This is the perfect location to take pictures for the CD cover of your Goth band¨
After a few evenings out in the heavily touristed bars in town, I hooked up with one of the best Spanish schools in town. For about $160 a week you can get four hours of one on one instruction a day, free internet and free group activities most evenings to reinforce your learning. This also includes a family stay for the week with three meals a day. It all seems impossibly cheap, but I assure you, it is real. The family I am with has probably the best cook in all of Guatemala. We eat ridiculously well. In fact, I don’t think I have ever eaten this well for this long. The only problem is that she serves entirely too much food; three courses minimum for lunch and dinner. I have resorted to skipping meals to avoid ending up expanding around the middle. My room is humble, but I have a nice view out into the outdoor courtyard that also serves as their laundry room, living room and incidentally, the dog’s John. The family speaks only Spanish which makes the simplest of exchanges very lively. There are two other students in the house. A young James Bond type from Scotland and a Middle Aged contractor from Vancouver. We try to speak only Spanish in the house but we sometimes digress when we are overcome with the desire to have an actual conversation - something more than the series of cave man grunts and gestures we have been reduced to.
Today, I went to a ´football´match with the family’s eldest son. It was great fun; Antigua vs. a small Pacific coast town. Antigua won with one goal scored. The stadium was about 500 years old and the only side entertainment was a small band and man sitting next to me that insisted on blowing off about 2,000 exploding fire works from the very least provocation.
Tomorrow will mark my third week of Spanish classes. Learning another language is quite a bit more difficult then I imagined - not something I can conquer with pure will. As soon as I think I know something, I find that there is much, much more to know then I thought. It is essentially a never-ending task that can never be truly completed. You just have to push on until hopefully one day you get to a place where you can understand people and they can understand you. It takes a lot of time and a lot of patients.
My teacher is excellent. Her name is Karla. She thinks I am hilarious because I always make up funny sentences using the Spanish words, (exp. ¿Quien casa tu vive? Yo vivo en la casa de Batman). In another week, I think I will finally be able to tell the difference between my Hueves (eggs), Jueves (Thursday), and Huevas (slang for 'cool').
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Guatemala City
My plane touched down in ¨Guate¨, (as the locals call it) this past Wednesday. All the guide books say that it is big, dirty, and dangerous. It is, of course, all of these things but to a lesser extent then one might imagine. I have seen bigger, more dangerous and much, much, dirtier, (Manila immediately comes to mind). I have chosen to come during the heart of the rainy season; in case this does not leave an impression on you, let me give you an idea of what I mean by rainy season. From early morning until around Noon you can expect two to three rain showers of up to 30 minutes in length. There is normally a brief smattering of glorious sun shine during this time. This is the time to get your shopping done or complete any business that necessitates a reasonably controlled climate. The afternoons in Guatemala present a vastly different picture. From about 2pm until the late evening it rains pretty much all of the time. The rain may stop for what appears to be an extended interlude. At which time you can see the tourists hopefully venturing out hoping to see outdoor sights and take pictures. Alas, their hopes are always quite literally dashed as the interlude is so brief that only a few rays of sunshine will present themselves before the next wave of rain descends upon them. Guatemalans know better. During the rainy season, they will stay at home in the afternoons, preferring to take care of any business during the somewhat more predictable morning hours. The sidewalks are always slick, almost chalk like. I made the mistake of wearing sandals on my first day - never a wise idea in a place where the average daily rainfall in September is more than 9 inches and the sidewalks frequently have giant holes that require immaculate vigilance in order to navigate.
Aside from the ever present rain, I have learned to navigate my way around this metropolis of Latin America. I learned how to take the city bus even though there are no schedules, signs or postings of any kind. One has the choice of either making a random guess or asking several people until one derives at a general consensus that this bus does in fact have a high likelihood of going where you want to go. If you are lucky enough to find a bus going to the right place, you are immediately presented with a further challenge of trying to obtain a seat without breaking one or more limbs, and, or completely bowling over an elderly indigenous Mayan Woman. I have so far escaped the formed, but not the latter. Another interesting thing about riding the bus in Guatemala is that the bus drivers, (aside from being insane) don´t actually stop for passengers. It goes something like this: you see the bus coming - indicate to the driver that you would like a ride. The bus driver will then slow down enough that you approach the bus with the vain hope that the bus will actually stop to pick you up. Then, just as you begin the boarding process, he will invariably speed up again, leaving you to desperately grasp for the hand rail and hope to heave yourself up and escape certain death. Once you have successfully obtained a seat, you are left clutching the rail in front of your seat with white knuckles while the bus driver tears through town at impossible speeds on ¨roads¨ that are often nothing more than mere piles of rock and gravel. It is actually very similar to riding a roller coaster; except it is not fun. The statistics are staggering - something like 1 in 10 Guatemalan buses will break down in any given day. It is a common sight to see a bus full of passengers while a group of young men work feverishly to ¨fix¨ a broken axle or repair a damaged wheel.
Guatemala City is broken up into a series of neighborhoods called Zones, (Zonas). There are two main areas of interest to tourists. Zona 1 and Zona 10. Zona 1 is the historical heart of the city. It houses the main square or Parque Central. Like all Spanish colonial cities; adjacent to the square there is the main city Cathedral, Military Headquarters, and Presidential Palace. The Presidential Palace is the architectural gem of the city. It is a large, imposing Spanish Renaissance / Neo Classical behemoth. It is said that hundreds of prisoners died during the construction which took place during the rain of one of Guatemala´s many dictators. They would not let anyone in at the time because of flooding from the endless rains. I tried to negotiate my way in but my grade-school Spanish skills did not help the proposition much. Also of note in Zona 1 is the large National History Museum. As is typical in the third world, priceless and precious artifacts and historical relics are sitting out in the open ready to be smugged by a tourists hand and readily assaulted by airborne elements. Still, there is a certain thrill to be able to actually touch the document that declared Guatemala´s Independence from Spain. If you tried that in the U.S., you would most assuredly be killed - and without Judicial proceedings.
I stayed in a beautiful old hotel called the Pan American. It was built in the early part of the last century and reminds one at ever turn that they indeed don´t make them like they used to. My room had an original rotary style phone and the bathroom had an actual foot feed for the dryer. Beautiful mahogany wood is the building material of choice and gleams splendidly at every turn. The absence of alarm clocks or actual closet space just added to the charm.
The other primary area of interest in ¨Guate¨is Zona 10. Locals call it the Zona Viva or lively zone. All the corporate office buildings are here. There is also a huge mall and many, many shops and restaurants. In the evening, it turns into something akin to the Guatemalan version of the Sunset Strip, with everyone out to see and be seen. In this place, you have to work a bit to find a place that is not teeming with very young tourists. I found a place that was just close enough to the main center to be fashionable but too far away to attract the tourists. There were mostly local well-to-do Guatemalans who where out for a beer to escape from their corporate or government office jobs. I found myself encased with a harem of somewhat older Women, (by Latin American standards) that seemed inexplicitly to relish my company. After much talk with little being said, (as is always the case in any bar near a corporate center) I was able to pry myself away and make my way back to my Hostel in Zona 10. My Hostel was clean and bright with a mix of foreigners from, (of course) Europe and America.
One of the ladies from the other night happened to be going to Antigua the next day. So in the afternoon, I was able to hitch a ride to the beautiful colonial city of Antigua. But that is the story for another day....
Aside from the ever present rain, I have learned to navigate my way around this metropolis of Latin America. I learned how to take the city bus even though there are no schedules, signs or postings of any kind. One has the choice of either making a random guess or asking several people until one derives at a general consensus that this bus does in fact have a high likelihood of going where you want to go. If you are lucky enough to find a bus going to the right place, you are immediately presented with a further challenge of trying to obtain a seat without breaking one or more limbs, and, or completely bowling over an elderly indigenous Mayan Woman. I have so far escaped the formed, but not the latter. Another interesting thing about riding the bus in Guatemala is that the bus drivers, (aside from being insane) don´t actually stop for passengers. It goes something like this: you see the bus coming - indicate to the driver that you would like a ride. The bus driver will then slow down enough that you approach the bus with the vain hope that the bus will actually stop to pick you up. Then, just as you begin the boarding process, he will invariably speed up again, leaving you to desperately grasp for the hand rail and hope to heave yourself up and escape certain death. Once you have successfully obtained a seat, you are left clutching the rail in front of your seat with white knuckles while the bus driver tears through town at impossible speeds on ¨roads¨ that are often nothing more than mere piles of rock and gravel. It is actually very similar to riding a roller coaster; except it is not fun. The statistics are staggering - something like 1 in 10 Guatemalan buses will break down in any given day. It is a common sight to see a bus full of passengers while a group of young men work feverishly to ¨fix¨ a broken axle or repair a damaged wheel.
Guatemala City is broken up into a series of neighborhoods called Zones, (Zonas). There are two main areas of interest to tourists. Zona 1 and Zona 10. Zona 1 is the historical heart of the city. It houses the main square or Parque Central. Like all Spanish colonial cities; adjacent to the square there is the main city Cathedral, Military Headquarters, and Presidential Palace. The Presidential Palace is the architectural gem of the city. It is a large, imposing Spanish Renaissance / Neo Classical behemoth. It is said that hundreds of prisoners died during the construction which took place during the rain of one of Guatemala´s many dictators. They would not let anyone in at the time because of flooding from the endless rains. I tried to negotiate my way in but my grade-school Spanish skills did not help the proposition much. Also of note in Zona 1 is the large National History Museum. As is typical in the third world, priceless and precious artifacts and historical relics are sitting out in the open ready to be smugged by a tourists hand and readily assaulted by airborne elements. Still, there is a certain thrill to be able to actually touch the document that declared Guatemala´s Independence from Spain. If you tried that in the U.S., you would most assuredly be killed - and without Judicial proceedings.
I stayed in a beautiful old hotel called the Pan American. It was built in the early part of the last century and reminds one at ever turn that they indeed don´t make them like they used to. My room had an original rotary style phone and the bathroom had an actual foot feed for the dryer. Beautiful mahogany wood is the building material of choice and gleams splendidly at every turn. The absence of alarm clocks or actual closet space just added to the charm.
The other primary area of interest in ¨Guate¨is Zona 10. Locals call it the Zona Viva or lively zone. All the corporate office buildings are here. There is also a huge mall and many, many shops and restaurants. In the evening, it turns into something akin to the Guatemalan version of the Sunset Strip, with everyone out to see and be seen. In this place, you have to work a bit to find a place that is not teeming with very young tourists. I found a place that was just close enough to the main center to be fashionable but too far away to attract the tourists. There were mostly local well-to-do Guatemalans who where out for a beer to escape from their corporate or government office jobs. I found myself encased with a harem of somewhat older Women, (by Latin American standards) that seemed inexplicitly to relish my company. After much talk with little being said, (as is always the case in any bar near a corporate center) I was able to pry myself away and make my way back to my Hostel in Zona 10. My Hostel was clean and bright with a mix of foreigners from, (of course) Europe and America.
One of the ladies from the other night happened to be going to Antigua the next day. So in the afternoon, I was able to hitch a ride to the beautiful colonial city of Antigua. But that is the story for another day....
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