Antigua is by far one of, if not the, prettiest city I have visited in Central America. It, like Granada, is a colonial jewel. However, Granada lacks the setting and the culture that is so abundant in Antigua. Cobblestoned streets lined with multi-colored colonial buildings are juxtaposed against the gigantic conical shape of Volcano Agua and the traditionally dressed Maya women. Yes, Antigua is an incredibly touristy city with travel agencies, hostels, and tourist catering restaurants on every street and around every corner. Yet if you make the effort and take your time you will be able to see past all the gringo stuff and truly appreciate the city for all of its own beauty.
Overall I spent nearly 4 days in Antigua, the first few awaiting my sister’s arrival and the last meandering the streets with her. I had arrived midday on Friday, went on the volcano trek on Saturday morning, and left with my sister bright and early on Tuesday. As a result I got to see the city both during the chaotic weekend, during its procession-filled streets on Sunday, as well as on a quite Monday when the hordes of tourists had dispersed and all locals had returned to work and school.
I woke up twice before sunrise and headed out to wander the empty streets watching the town slowly wake up. On Sunday I misjudged sunrise and found myself in the main square while it was still dark. Having wandered around for some time I followed the locals who were heading into the main cathedral and there sat through a 6am service. I found this to be a good start to a day that the locals honor with massive religious processions.
Semana Santa (Holy Week) is their largest celebration here. It is marked with massive feasts and processions throughout the streets of Antigua. However, the weeks leading up to Easter are no less important. As it turned out every Sunday of Lent they hold processions that start at 11am and continue until 11pm. Every Sunday a different church organizes the procession. This week it was a church located several kilometers outside of Antigua and two massive floats along with several smaller ones were carried from it, into the city and through most of its streets, only to return back to the originating church at 11pm. The procession is accompanied by Roman-like soldiers, a marching band, and many people dressed in purple robes. They walk over beds of flowers painstakingly prepared in the hours before and seem to march for the 12 hours without stopping. It was an amazing sight to see and even more awe inspiring when I realized how long and how far they actually marched.
Even without the processions, weekends in Antigua tend to be quite chaotic. Antigua is located a mere 45km from Guatemala City and therefore makes a perfect getaway destination for Guatemalans. They flock to this colonial town en-mass on weekends, to enjoy the cleaner air, the good restaurants and the bars. The main square fills up both with tourists enjoying ice cream on a bench and with the vendors offering you their various wares. The indigenous Maya women, dressed in their intricately woven and incredibly colorful clothes, with their babies strapped to their chests or backs, holding their older ones by the hand, try to sell you their scarves, table runners and other weavings. I could spend hours sitting in the park and simple watch life pass in front of me, observing both tourists, gringos and locals alike.
In the evening I had arranged a private shuttle to pick my sister up from the airport in Guatemala City. She was scheduled to arrive at 9pm and after perusing the Guatemala City section in the Lonely Planet, I quickly decided that it was wiser to spend $25US to get her to Antigua that night than to linger in the city. As per the guide book, “Depending on who you talk to, Guatemala’s capital is either big, dirty, dangerous and utterly forgettable or big, dirty, dangerous and fascinating.” Street crime, including armed robbery, has increased there in recent years. Their local buses are temptingly cheap, but there are so many stories of robberies, pickpockets and even shoot-outs that it is not advised to catch them. And any form of public transportation around Guatemala City or even to Antigua stops around 8pm or 9pm. However, considering a regular shuttle service from Antigua to the airport costs $7US per person, having a private service that took me from Antigua to the airport, let me pick up my little sister, and take her safely back to Antigua for $25 seemed like a steal.
I did not give her much chance to rest up and get accustomed to the new setting. We were up by 5:30am the next morning to roam around Antigua at sunrise. This time round there may not have been any processions, but at least there were no clouds in the sky and the views were stunning. All three volcanoes were visible, with Fuego occasionally spewing its cloud of smoke into the sky. We roamed the town for most of the day, grabbing cheap yet delicious food amongst the locals at the municipal market, enjoying a fantastic coffee in a coffee shop that would give Starbucks a run for its money, and pocking our heads into the numerous churches and ruins all over town.
Antigua by far, was the most photogenic city I have visited in a long time. The photos which I have posted are only a mere sampling of the ones we took. Over 7 weeks of travel I had taken around 3500 photos. Over 4 days in Antigua I took 1200 photos.
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