The day was sunny and clear as I set off for Monterrico in a shuttle from Antigua. There was plenty of room on the mini-bus this Friday as Guatemala’s national elections were to be held on Sunday, September 11. By law, no alcohol can be consumed the day before the election or on election day itself, so Pacific Coast holidays on this particular weekend are limited to those attracted to the other wonders the coast offers. In addition, campaigning for four days preceding the election is prohibited, so for the first time in many days, the morning was free of amplified pickup trucks touting their candidates. It was my first view of one of Guatemala’s three active volcanos, Pacaya. With smoke rising from her peak, she was easy to follow among the neighboring mountains which dominated the first hour of our journey. As we got closer to the coast, we passed many trellised loofa plants, the long green loofa hanging below the yellow flowers of the plant. The loofas are hung to dry ibefore they’re eventually sold for use in scrubbing the skin. In contrast to Antigua, Monterrico was hot. I was happy to change into a light dress I’d brought from Hawaii. In Monterrico, the beach is dotted with small hotels, restaurants and tiendas. There are no big resortswhich disfigure so many vacation areas. I was immediately approached by two friendly local guides who were offering eco-tours of Monterrico. I signed up for a non-motored boat ride through the mangrove canals at sunrise. But over dinner with two French women travelers who had participated in the mama sea turtle tour the night before, I was persuaded to set off at 8PM that night with Eleazar. Selene and Catarina had warned me that the two hour beach walk would be “difficult,” though Selene was willing to do it again, having persuaded Eleazar to let her come along a second time for free. I was certain I would get soaking wet as the sky was heavy with clouds. In the distance, lightening would illuminate the ocean. The next night I would sit in a chair on the sand and watch the sky for two hours, as the streaks of lightening shot into the ocean and others crossed the sky horizontally like arrows. I soon understood why the walk was considered difficult. The sand was soft, making each step a meditation on the challenges of moving forward. I was soon drenched with sweat, (but not rain, as I searched fruitlessly for more solid footing. We walked in the dark, passing groups of men and boys who stood motionless as they stared at the incoming waves. The watchers were local residents, many of whom are fishermen no longer able to make a living from fishing, due to the diminishing fish population. Now they stay up until 1 or 2 AM, watching for a solitary female turtle to emerge from the sea and come far up on the sand in order to lay her eggs. In the past, they would have sold the eggs as food. Considered a delicacy, sea turtle eggs are believed to be aphrodesiacs. In addition, dogs and beach vehicles take a considerable toll on the eggs. Now that sea turtles are an endangered species in Guatemala, the tortugarias which line the coast pay local residents to sell the eggs to their reserves, where they are reburied in a protected area. The babys are released closer to the sea to protect them from the perilous journey on the beach. Even with this additional protection from predators, it is estimated that only 1 in 100 to 1 in 1000 baby sea turtles survive into adulthood. As we walked, moving away from the lights of the hotels and houses, I began to realize that finding a lone turtles as she made her joumey from the sea to make a nest was an improbable trek. It was possible that as we walked onward, a sea turtle had come out of the water behind us. Or that she might wait until midnight, or tomorrow, or even next month. But we were lucky. Eleazar spotted the butterfly tracks of the mother turtle. We were joined by the small group of egg collectors who had been watching this part of the beach. “See, she’s up there, searching for the right place to bury her eggs,” they told us, pointing into the darkness. I could only marvel at the acuity of their night vision as I could not see her. “Now we wait, maybe half an hour, until she finds just the right place to lay her eggs and then digs a hole for the eggs.” For the mother turtles walk and walk searching for the place that is right, though they have no "legs," only flippers for swimming in the sea. I gratefully sank into the sand to wait. Perhaps it was fitting that my beach hike too had been strenuous. Sea turtles return to lay their eggs on the same beach where they were born beginning when they are 25 years old and continuing every year after this. Sea turtles are also know to travel up to 10,000 miles a year. While they are astonishing swimmers they are also capable of resting on the sea floor. But as land reptiles which adapted to the sea at about the same times the dinasaurs began to go extinct, the sea turtles needs to breathe air, at least once an hour. Eleaza motions to us to come. Our turtle has already laid over eighty eggs, which have been scooped out of the nest through a second hole that the collectors have dug in the sand. The eggs are glistening white and seem to glow in the sand. As she lays her eggs, tears seem to pour down her face. Later I learn that sea turtles are known for crying, which is believed to allow them expel excess sea water. I know that taking the eggs to the hatcheries will increase the chances for their survival. Still, I am sad thinking of the care the mother turtle takes in locating her nest and the arduous task of coming so far up on the sand. She closes the nest by raising herself up and stomping the sand mightily with her flippers. Then she returns to the sea, her journey only slightly less arduous as she moves down the bank of sand and catches an outbound wave. Sea turtles live their lives as orphans. The mother will likely never see any of her babies, nor know if any live. The egg collectors tell us she had 92 eggs and they are happy because with the money from the hatchery they can buy food. The walk home is an eternity. The moon becomes an egg in my mind. It is midnight and I will be rising at 4:30 AM to watch the sunrise from the mangrove. By happy synchronicity, I was invited, along with other foreign students studying Spanish in Antigua, to attend a workshop about the kites (los barriletes) of Sacatepequez, led by Julio Roberto Astorias Chiquitó, a barriletero and the head of the Sumpango kite association. I was joined by other Spanish students from Canada, France, Korea, Germany, Australia, Argentina and the US as well as a few of our Guatemalan teachers. There were several workshop participants who had never made or flown a kite before! Julio spoke of the joy of flying kites as children and how we could recreate these feelings of simple entertainment and freedom through kitemaking now, regardless of our ages. He held up a simple kite a little over a foot in diameter for us to look at.
While the kites of my childhood were shaped like diamonds, often made of newspaper and sporting rag tales, the Day of the Dead kites of Sumpango and Santiago are round octagons made of thin tissue paper (papel de chino) mounted on thin bamboo sticks . Four of the eight sides of the kite are decorated with “fringe,” made by cutting the tissue paper into decorative strips, often incorporating the complex techniques of paper cutting which Latin America is known for. The tail is made of two three- feet lengths of tissue paper, also cut in original designs which flutter like leaves in the wind. Julio explained that originally the kites were made from banana leaves and the glue from onions, but with time and the increased size and intricacy of the kites, the kitemakers had adopted tissue paper and a glue similar to Elmer’s. Julio talked briefly about the kites as an important means of cultural identity for the Kak’icheqel Mayans, one of Guatemala’s twenty-two indigenous groups. Decoration of the kites often illustrates the Mayan belief of living in balance with the earth. Many elements of kite decoration incorporate the traditional Kak’icheqel designs which are found in Mayan weavings as well as ancient Mayan glpys. The kites also often addressinclude spiritual and political issues, such as human rights, respect for the earth and cultural recognition. But this was not a lecture, Julio wanted to teach us how to make our own kites! To begin, we were each given four bamboo sticks and a sheet of colored “papel de chino.” Before this, the only way in which I’d used tissue paper was for wrapping presents! Assorted paper cups held glue accompanied by shorter thin bamboo sticks for applying the glue. We each traced an octagon onto our paper using Julio’s model and assembled our sticks so that each point of our octogan was supported by one end of our sticks. We secured the sticks with a small bit of masking tape from the communal roll and then folded over a flap of tissue paper from the one inch margin we had been instructed to include when we cut out our octogans. Certainly the makers of the giant kites must develop considerable finess in applying glue with bamboo sticks! As I soon found out, too much glue wrinkles the paper and causes the colors to bleed through. Once we had the octogan kite structure in place, our creative adventure in kite decoration began. Helpful assistants had already distributed pre-cut zigzag shapes to represent the designs in Mayan weavings. As we had only two pairs of scissors for our group of twenty-five, there was plenty of opportunity to lay out our zig zags and to watch others experiment with paper cuts. As we soon found out, it was one thing to lay out the design and another to glue it in place. Achieving a regulated flow of glue on a thin stick is an art in itself! And once the tissue paper with glue is applied, there is no sliding the design into a more perfect symmetry! Everyone seemed to be completely absorbed in their process of creation. I was reminded of my classes as a communication professor at the University of Hawaii, where I led my students in making and flying kites as an exercise in cross-cultural communication, collaboration and the ongoing value of play in our lives. There as here, the kitemakers were totally captivated by the opportunity of making art that takes to the skies and dances with the wind. The went quickly and the workshop was done before many of us had finished our long tails. Some people wanted only to hang their kites on the walls of their homestays, while Julio helped those of us who wanted to fly our kites punch holes (again with a sharpened bamboo stick) into the face of our kites and attach the string for flying. Julio himself is passionate about los barriletes – both in terms of the joy they bring to all peoples and in their cultural significance for the Kak’icheqel Mayans. He happily agreed to talk with me more about the kites of Guatemala and to show me the giant kite his group is making when I return to Sumpango on Saturday to meet again with Oscar’s group. He even offered to lead this workshop again for the participants in my tour! By the time I headed home, kite fringe fluttering in the air as my kite took to the breeze, I worried a bit about the gathering clouds, so often a harbinger of rain these September days in Antigua. Still, I couldn’t resist stopping to see my Guatemalan friends along the way and showing off my kite. And staying to hear about the kites they had made as children. And for once, the rain held off . Mily and I have been tailing the kites of Sacatepequez, Guatemala. Mily tells me she used to come to the kite festival in Sumpango when she was a child and that it is a happy memory of time with her mother. We take two “chicken buses” to get to Sumpango, so called either for the chickens which ride them to market along with their vendors or for their diminutive size. On the first bus we are squeezed in like sardines, six adults across and maybe two or three children more. In this regard these US school buses with their narrow aisles are perfect for transport in Guatemala Milly and I procure the edge of a seat each and press the inner sides of our bodies together, supporting ourselves with one rear cheek on the seat and the other suspended in air. Guatemalans often greet each other with hugs and pats and on the bus everyone is pressed unapologetically against someone else. Still more people wiggled past us, including the ticket taker whose job is to remember those who he has already received 4 quetzales from as well as those who boarded on intervening stops. When he is not collecting money he stands in the open door of the moving bus, leaning out into the street to chant “Sumpango, Sumpango.” He is the “fetch and carry” for the driver as well, filling a bucket with water at the gas station and pouring it over the radiator when the bus overheats in a gushing cloud of steam. It is not the main market day when we first visit Sumpango and so there are only a few women outside with bundles of vegetables and large baskets of strawberries. Like Antigua, Sumpango is also surrounded by lush green mountains. Mily and I walk up all three flights of stairs in the market on a quest for brewed coffee in the few small restaurants with their long mostly empty tables. On this matter Mily is even more insistent than I as I will drink a cup of NesCafe in a pinch. But there is no “real” coffee to be found and we head to the municipal building and get directions to the library. The library is small with many tables and a scattering of books. When Mily asks for a history of Sumpango we receive a sheaf of stapled pages. We learn that 92% of the population in Sumpango are Kaqchikel Mayans. In Mayan, Sumpango is known as the “stomach of the hills” and indeed the carrots and cabbages in the market were the largest I have ever seen. There are a only a few paragraphs about los barriletes gigantes, which unlike many Mayan traditions is a more recent addition, added 120 years old and specific to only two Mayan pueblos, Sumpango and Santiago, Sacatepequez. There is little additional information about the origins of the kite festival in the library. I am eager to meet some of the makers of the giant kites and hopefully to see the kitemaking first hand. We return to the municipal building for more information. The man we ask says, “just a minute please,” and brings us two chairs to sit in before he hurries off. He returns quickly with a young man, Oskar Yuk, who beckons us to follow him to his own tiny office. “We only work on the kites at night and sometimes on weekends, so you can not see our kite now, though we are working on it as it takes many months to complete. But I have here on this computer pictures of our kites from before.” I am immediately enchanted by the photographs. The kites resemble large paintings, like murals. It is hard to believe that they are not drawn or painted but are instead composed of thousands of pieces of “China paper,” cut so as to create the designs in a multitude of colors, then glued onto the base, an enormous circle of paper. Oskar tells us that each kite has a spiritual and philosophical meaning connected to Mayan cosmology, the earth, the stars and also themes of the future. One kite features a large figure of a women, the mountains and stars and a spiral of Mayan glyps. Another shows the shadow of a famous Guatemalan poet and a stretching tree. Oskar tells us that achieving the effect of a shadowed figure is their special technique and again it seems incredible that the figure is actually made of paper. Each kite is nearly 50 feet in diameter. And like the smaller flying kites, there are messages to the ancestors which will be carried by the wind on this special day when the spirits of those who walked before are closer to the realm of the living. There are several groups in addition to Oskar’s making the giant kites. These enormous t kites are not flown, but are mounted on huge bamboo frames and pulled upright for the festival where they are part of a design competition. But in this process of mounting and raising the kite upright is the same challenge that besets those who will fly smaller kites – the wind and the weather. A enormous kite can be torn by the wind in the process of moving it from horizontal to vertical, destroying months of work. Fortunately this has not happened to Oskar’s group in the four years they have come together to make the kites. Oskar’s group has about 20 members, including his brothers, his niece and their friends. Oskar tells us that the group collectively decides on the design. And they not only work on weekends and at night, but they work all night long on many nights, cutting and gluing and creating the intricate motifs of the kite from the thin, colored papers. Indeed there were amusing photos of group members who had fallen asleep where they were working, a bucket of glue beside them! Looking at the photos, I could not help but be moved by the sheer beauty of the kites and the incredible devotion of the kitemakers. Much of the money for their creation is raised and donated by the kitemakers themselves in honor of this creative and meaningful tradition. The actual kites will be seen for only a day on November 1 and then burned. Oskar invited us to return on a day later in September to watch them work, which we happily agreed to do. Mily and I visited the La Iglesia de San Augustin Obisbo where we paused to take in the vista of the mountains surrounding Sumpango and the women below with their bundles of food wrapped in woven cloth,es. Inside la iglesia, a sweet shaded quiet, statues of virgins and the Christ child, and lit votive candles with their flickering prayers. I have journeyed to Lake Atitlan where I am staying in an acquaintance’s bungalow located in a Maya Kichiquel barrio in Panajachel, the largest town on the Lake. As I write I am oh so grateful for the music on my computer and my earphones! It turns out my temporary accommodations in this “basico” room with bed, chair, toilet and cold water shower share a wall with the community sports field! In fact, it’s almost like being in the game. Last night I could hear the whistles, grunts, shouted names and the thud of the soccer ball against “my” wall until the game shut down at midnight. Today when I got back from wandering Panajachel there was even more noise as the playing field became the stage for a political rally. The art of the portable loudspeaker is something that Guatemalans have really mastered. You don’t even have to attend the rally to hear the political speeches for the upcoming national election in the middle of September. The light coming over the mountains this morning was exquisite though and the relative silence was indeed golden. Unlike many places in Guatemala where indigenous people have lost their land, my acquaintance, a long time expat in Panajachel, says that many Mayans in this area have been able to get legal title to these lands where the Mayans have lived for thousands of years. The houses here are made of concrete blocks as opposed to some of the poorer and more tentative tin dwellings I passed on my shuttle trip here. The Mayans in this area have a reputation as skilled and mighty builders. It is easy to imagine the ancestors of these peoples constructing the architectural wonders of the ancient Mayan pyramids. I do not think I could ever tire of watching the Mayan women in their corte skirts, intricate huipils and thin soled sandals. On top of their heads, they carry enormous bundles the size of clothesbaskets, their mysterious contents secured in woven cloth. Their load rests, unsecured, on velvet or woven headbands. It’s as if the bundles float above their heads as they weave through kids, dogs, bikes, tuk tuks and tourists, walking on cobblestone streets and foot paths without tripping or even glancing down at the uneven ground. There continue to be Mayan calendar “day keepers” in this area and consistent ritual is a part of life for many people . The Mayan shamans are becoming more vocal about their understanding of the 2012 prophesies of the Mayan calendar. Some of these Mayan shamans now offer ceremonies to foreigners as well as education about the Mayan calendar and the living Mayan culture. I will make several visits to Lake Atitlan as I explore contacts for this aspect of the BFGT tours. This afternoon I wandered Panajachel , a center for much of the Mayan artenisia from this area. It was captivating to immerse myself in the truly remarkable handwork of the Mayans: masks with animals and multiple faces, wool soaked in volcanic water made into ponchos and thick blankets, weavings made into jackets, shirts, headbands, table clothes, purses, travel bags and even bookmarks with small Mayan woven dolls attached to them. There has also been a creative explosion in beadwork and jewelry, with very attractive and unusual beaded bracelets and necklaces for sale in several tiendas
The artenisia has both evolved and diversified since I was here in 1995. There is a stronger movement for fair trade here and more opportunities for children to attend school. But still there are children nearly hidden under piles of weavings, their hands full with bookmarks and bracelets, walking up and down the artenisia street all day and late into the night selling. Also in evidence were Argentinean fire dancers who dance with sinuous grace while swinging lit torches and an all-woman marimba band pwith one of the most accomplished marimba players I have encountered so far playing in one of the many local cafes . Tomorrow I will get a closer look at Lake Atitlan as I board a local boat across the lake to San Pedro, one of the many pueblos on the shores of this lake which Aldous Huxley called, “the most beautiful lake in the world.” When I came to Guatemala, I was interested in continuing my study of Spanish with a Guatemalan teacher who would be able to help me increase my fluency and who might also be a guide for me in deepening my understanding of Guatemalan culture and in finding places and people of interest for the tours I am leading. I was truly fortunate in finding Mily, my teacher through Escuela de Español Cooperativa in Antigua. She’s had over twenty years experience teaching Spanish and was immediately excited about the tours. She has a lively interest in teaching and in her own country and is an intelligent and progressive guide, in harmony with my own interests. One of her first suggestions was that we take a field trip to Jocotenango, where an Antiguan coffee farmer, Ricardo Pokorny, has created a museum of music, culture, and coffee. Jocotenango is a scant 3 kilometers from Antigua so we took the local bus. Though it is close to Antigua, the setting is much less cosmopolitan and the mountains seem only a step away. We arrived before the museum was open and so we wandered among the adjacent horse stables which are part of a project in equine therapy for disabled kids. Each stall had a bright hand -decorated sign with the name of each horse. A few kids were there, mucking out the stalls. When it comes to museums, there are basically two kinds. One kind resembles a textbook, full of dusty signs and displays of artifacts behind glass. La Azotea is the other kind, one which takes great care in providing contextual and accessible exhibits and excellent bilingual tour guides. We began with the museum of musical instruments. Our first guide not only discussed the pre- Hispanic instruments of the Maya, but played each of them too! Flutes are called divine instruments in the Popoh Vuh , the Mayan creation story. Our guide played one of the ancient ceramic flutes so we could hear this ancient celestial sound. Today Mayan ceremonies still use the flute as well the ancient drums. But it’s the marimba that holds the most enchantment for me, with it’s cheerful , mellow tones which are made by hitting long wooden keys. Guatemala is a natural home for the marimba, with its unique native tree, the horminga, known as the “wood that sings,” due to it’s fine tonal quality. Many marimbas have long gourds of graduated sizes attached to the keys for resonance. Lengths of bamboo are also used to amplify the sound. There is still some debate over the exact origin of the marimba. Some Guatemalan’s claim that marimbas existed in pre-Hispanic times and were destroyed, along with nearly all of the Mayan writings, in the Spanish inquisition. Others credit the the African slaves who were brought by the Spanish to work in the sugar plantations in Guatemala with introducing the marimba. Regardless of its early history, the marimba has been embraced by both the indigenous and the Ladino populations since the 1500s and is an integral part of many Mayan traditional dances. Marimba music is also heard at all important celebrations and fills the cafes and walking street of Antigua with its captivating sound. The museum also includes cultural dioramas which feature some of the traditions and lifestyles found among the twenty-two different Mayan groups who inhabit Guatemala. One exhibit featured Maximón, the cigar smoking, rum drinking figure associated with healing and good luck. I visited Maximón in Santa Cruz on Lake Atitlan when I first visited Guatemala. He is tended by Mayan spiritual leaders, confrades, and is visited by Mayans and Ladinos alike with prayers for healing and luck. I was delighted to see a diorama of the giant kite festival in Sumpango over the Day of the Dead, since Mily and I will soon journey to Sumpango to make connections with some of the kite makers for the October tours. The museum exhibit showing the traditional dress of the Kaqchikel Mayans. In the display, figures stand in the cemetery wearing the traditional dress of the Kaqchikel Mayans, holding the strings to their distinctive round kites which send their prayers to the ancestors on the winds. The museum itself is set on the grounds of a working coffee farm and naturally included a museum dedicated to coffee. Guatemalan coffee is ranked the third finest in the world and is a major export. Guatemalans are big coffee drinkers themselves, but most can only afford Nescafe, made, we learn on the tour, from the lowest quality of beans. The museum itself is set on the grounds of a working coffee farm and naturally included a museum dedicated to coffee. Guatemalan coffee is ranked the third finest in the world and is a major export. Guatemalans are big coffee drinkers themselves, but most can only afford Nescafe, made, we learn on the tour, from the lowest quality of beans. The coffee on the Azotea farm is shade grown, with bananas, avocadoes and other fruit and native trees hovering over the coffee plants. La Azotea uses a natural spray of cayenne pepper and water to control insects. One coffee plant provides beans for about 40 cups of coffee or twelve cups of expresso. In Guatemala, the beans are handpicked by Mayan women who receive only $5 for every hundred pounds they pick. The men rake and dry the coffee, often working twelve to fourteen hours a day. Given the high price consumers pay for a cup of fine Guatemala brew, the economic importance of Fair Trade coffee, where workers receive a larger percent of the coffee profits, is significant. We tasted coffee beans and watched the process of roasting the coffee, which takes only several minutes. Then we walked through the coffee farm, where many of the shade trees were labeled. The tour ended on a perfect note with a demi-tasse of freshly roasted, perfectly brewed coffee which Mily and I savored on the patio. It was one of the best cups of coffee I have ever had. Perhaps you’re wondering about the most exotic and expensive coffee in the world? A sign at the museum noted that Kopi Luak, with only 1000 pounds harvested annually, sells for upwards of $600 pound or $100 cup depending on where you buy it. Produced in Vietnam and the Phillipines, this coffee bean has some help achieving this distinction, as it has first been eaten by Asian Palm civets, partially digested in their stomachs and then collected from their fecal matter. (Civets resemble mongoose, so maybe Kona coffee growers can see if the local mongoose population has any affinity with their already tasty brew.) In the meantime, I’m more than happy drinking the world’s third finest coffee, fresh from the trees to the cup in Guatemala, with a little marimba music on the side. It was easy to catch a shuttle to Antiqua from the airport in Guatemala City. And yet at first it was hard to pay much attention to Antigua itself, even though it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But I found Antigua’s natural setting so captivating that my first impression was being held in a ring of lush green mountains. As a resident of both Hawaii and of the Pacific Northwest, I’m no stranger to vistas which include awe inspiring mountains and even active volcanos. But Guatemala. the land of “eternal spring,”is unique. Cradled in the Panchoy Valley,12,325 foot inactive Agua Volcan rises to a dramatic peak. While Agua Volcan appears to be the highest mountain in the vicinity, in fact Acatenago to the west, at 13,900 feet, is even higher. Next to Acatenango are the active Fuego Volcanos. Like Hawaii’s Kilauea, Volcan Pacaya emits slow flowing lava and it is possible to get quite near the lava with a reasonable uphill trek. I have met travelers who have even roasted marshmallows over the hot spot at the top of Pacaya! I settled for a shorter excursion on my first day though, content with climbing to the roof of my hotel to more fully enjoy the 360 degre view and also to look down on the tile roofs and the inner courtyards of the city. The grand arch of Santa Catalina and the ornate church of La Merced dominate the skyline of the city. The bells of Antiqua's churches punctuate the mornings and evenings. From the roof it is also possible to see evidence of the city's colonial architecture as well as the remaining ruins from the 1773 earthquakes. Across the cobblestone street from my hotel room I hear the soft and regular sound of hands patting. Two women wearing Mayan skirts (cortes) and blouses (huipils) slap the maza, the cornmeal dough, into flat round tortillas which they place on the brazier to cook. These tortillas are made fresh every day by women in the doorways of tiendas and then sold, warm, to the surrounding families to stuff like tacos with frijoles and rice or to fold and dip into savory bowls of soup. The streets are lined with dwellings and shops, each demarcated by a different color of paint. So that looking down streets one sees what appears to be a continuous wall, painted blue, rose, red, yellow, orange and peach -- interrupted by recessed windows or long metal or wooden doors or the open entryways of tiendas. The tiendas are small, specialized local businesses -- small food stores and laundries, coffeeshops, hotels, bakeries, language schools, restaurants, internet cafes, candy sellers, motorcycle repair shops and venders of office supplies and photocopies. The smell of freshly made bread, pan, is an irresistible lure into one of the many panaderias, bakeries. But there is more than fresh bread inside. Flaky pastries with sweet layers of frosting; croissants plain or with ham; empanadas with apple, pineapple or strawberry filling and chocolate cupcakes or donuts fill the cases. Antiqua is also well known for her pastielles or cakes. These line the pastry cases like glistening gems , covered with chocolate glaze from local cacoa beans and accented with slices of fresh oranges. Other cakes are topped with sugar- glazed kiwis, bananas, limes and strawberries all arranged in an artistic bouquet of color on the white frosting. Many of the cakes are sliced into individual pieces which are sold separately. Of course, in the name of research for my tours, I must try one (a day)! In the morning the soft scratch of brooms made of long lengths of straw is the daily sound of workers and shop keepers sweeping sidewalks and the footpaths of the parks. Antiqua has many pleasant and well-maintained parks which are well -used by both residents and visitors. In fact, my favorite post- lunch past time is to read for a half hour in my nearby park. Cotton candy vendors roam the parks carrying trees of pink and blue spun sugar enclosed in clear bags. Young lovers kiss without pause or self-consciousness as workers with machetes weed the flowers and ornamental plants. Groups of men meet and talk over newspapers. Women sell roasted corn, chile relleno sandwiches, peeled pineapple and papaya topped with a spoonful of chile while children play with brightly colored balls. Foreign students emerge from the nearby language schools to smoke cigarettes on the benches and clear their minds of wriggling conjugations of verbos while Guatemaltecos pass on the street, the white sticks of lollipops protruding from their mouths. Sometimes I am serenaded by a group of primary school children wearing pleated skirts, dark pants and white shirts under school uniform sweaters. A few of the children carry drums while others tote metal instruments shaped like lyres, but with metal bars like xylophones, played by striking the metal keys with mallets. Their teacher leads them in “Are you sleeping, brother Juan?” and “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” The lyres make a sweet chiming sound, like hundreds of little bells. Antigua is a city with mixed population of Mayan indigenous peoples, Ladinos and also foreigners who come to learn Spanish or to explore Guatemala, a county which remains "off the beaten track" of international tourism despite it's rich cultural heritage. The people here are welcoming and curious about where I have come from and why I am in Guatemala. Every day I exchange greetings with nearly everyone I pass on the street, "Hola, Buenos Dias," we each say with a smile. Antigua is a wonderful base for my exploration of Guatemala, not only because the city herself holds endless treasures but also because Antigua is well located for exploring the surrounding pueblos including the home of the giant kites of Sumpango~! And yes, for learning more Spanish, tambien. |
Louise "Luisa" Wisechild, PhDI first visited Guatemala in 1995 as a member of the Vashon Island sister city delgation to Santiago de Atitlan, Guatemala. Archives
October 2023
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