Antigua

Antigua

Day one
A day of enchantment. Elie landed and we came straight here. Antigua is the old capital city and retains the layout and the public buildings of Spanish colonial times. The plaza - bounded by the thick-walled cathedral on one side and the arched porticos of the government buildings around the others. Civic regulations have held all the side streets to the forms of yesterday - single story stone and plaster structures with carved wooden doors and ornate grillwork over the windows. (Though the four-hundred year old internet cafes and McDonalds do strain credibility.) And all the streets are laid with cobblestones - a charming look that served the horse era well but turns a car ride into rough torture.

As we strolled the town, life unfolded around us. A group comes slowly along the street, a car in their midst. It's a hearse, and the thirty people walking behind (almost entirely women) are singing a hymn. Slowly they round our plaza and pass down a street. Hours later, on a darker street, we see lights approaching, like an Illuminares parade in Vancouver, but to a rhythmic clap, bok, bok, clap, bok, bok. A woman and young girl are hitting some percussion instruments, which turned out to be hollowed out turtle shells in big person and little person sizes, a dozen men and women carry burning torches or candles in varied glowing holders and all surround four men bearing a seated Virgin on their shoulders. Slowly they pass into the night.

In the main plaza young girls in long woven skirts and multiple-hued blouses approach us to buy scarves. Off to one side a TV camerman and two associates are getting young girls to do a walk past. For tonight's news? Could be - there appears to be some big event at the side of plaza later today. Two hours later as we return, the seats are starting to fill up and a marimba band is playing. We listen dreamily for a while and wander on. They were good, but the Hornby marimba players are better. An hour later we're back again. Police have sealed off vehicle access and the cameramen are all in place. Not for the marimba players, but for the vice-president of the country and all the bigwigs who are here to open an old colonial palace that has been restored. Or sort of. They haven't actually gotten around to completing the inside, but the front looks impressive so why not have a round of self-congratulatory speeches?

But our best unexpected delight came much earlier. It was on a bench in the plaza though I guess it could have happened anywhere. The fellow beside us pulled out a coin and started a little sleight-of-hand demonstration for one of the shoeshine boys that populate Latin American plazas. Coin disappears, comes out the kid's ear - that sort of thing. Then he moved on to cards and slowly the crowd began to grow. Curious teenagers in jeans. Old Mayan women in colorful headwear. A mother nursing a baby in a sling. An official from a nearby office. I made some offhand comment and he turned to me. Pick a card, any card. I show it to the folks behind me and slip it back into the deck. He puts his wallet bedside me and gestures at it (am I getting suckered into a wager?) "Tell me your card.". "No," mustering my Spanish, "you're the magician. You tell me." "Well, show it then. Everybody needs to see it" and he hands back the deck. I go through the deck and, of course, it's not there. Pointing at the wallet he instructs me to snap it open, look behind the bills, unzip the hidden compartment and sure enough....! As the crowd buzzes I look around. Maybe 25 people around this bench, with Elie and me the only foreigners. I think the crowd likes this fool-the-Gringo routine because now he puts two foam balls in my two hands. I saw him do this one already - somehow both balls end up in one hand of his victim. So I squeeze the balls tight. He's not going to fool me. He grabs my wrist and brings my hands together. "1....2....3!" Triumphantly I hold up my hands - both balls in their original place. Triumphantly he hold up his hands - he has my watch!


Day Two
This is a volcanic area. Three volcanos ring the valley where Antigua sits. One of them, Volcan Fuego, is continually pouring out fresh material. Volcan Pacaya, an hour and a half away (by questionable roads)
erupted in May. I know about the roads because hiking up Pacaya is one of the big things to do if you're in Antigua, and so that was our destination today. We don't go all the way to the top, but even along the side where we walked, black cinder rocks that a few months ago were molten lava, steam vents are pumping out heat. There was one open chasm into the interior that was giving off quite a bit of heat. I leaned carefully over to peer inside, shielding my face with my arms. Suddenly there was a blast of HOT air and I jumped back. Looking down I saw all the hairs of my arms had been singed off!
So that definitely was the place to perform what I understand to be the definitive Pacaya ritual: ten minutes later we pulled out the sticks and the necessary supplies I had acquired at the base and we roasted marshmallows over the volcano.

Avi