It’s a very long way from Puerto Quetzal to Antigua, particularly when there’s road construction, at least two hours in each direction. This was a very long day, but it was worth visiting Antigua at least once.
Along the way, we passed an active volcano, which let out a puff to celebrate its looming threat.
Antigua was the original capital of Guatemala. It’s situated between a collection of volcanoes, which turns out to not be a great place for a capital or any city, for that matter. The capital was moved to Guatemala City, and Antigua was left in ruins. Now the ruins have been both venerated and, to some extent, restored. Particularly interesting are new buildings that have been constructed inside of the ruined walls of the older buildings destroyed by earthquakes in the 1700s.
At Antigua, we transferred from the large bus to two smaller shuttles in order to get closer to the center of the city. From the shuttles, we proceeded on a walking tour that included churches and the colorful buildings and took us to the town square.
The city is quite colorful in the Caribbean style and constructed similarly to the French Quarter in New Orleans, with walls along the streets, narrow sidewalks, and then large and verdant courtyards back in the centers of the blocks.
All along the way, we were constantly beset by Mayans’ descendants selling handcrafted shawls, instruments, hata, and traditional Mayan iPhone cases.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the excursion was a visit to a jade factory. The owner of the factory has a 50-year history of archaeology. She and her husband set out to prove that Guatemala was the source of all of the jade in the Western Hemisphere, and did so back in the 1970s, even making the cover of the National Geographic. Her extremely well-spoken and educational introduction to her life and her factory were by far the best presentation we’ve had on this trip. We learned that true jade is white and learned about the different minerals that make it different colors. A large showroom displayed beautiful jade jewelry, but it is definitely not cheap.
Then we walked to a local hotel which had a beautiful courtyard where we had a buffet lunch of tortillas, beans and rice, plantains, chicken and carne asada.
After lunch, we visited a museum that had the fascinating concept of contrasting Mayan artwork with modern artwork about the same subject. The contrast between the clay figures and modern glasswork was striking
Then it was time for the long drive back to the port, which involved navigating roads under construction that were slightly rougher than traversing a typical strip mine.