A trip to Antigua

8/21/10

It's time I tell you about the other four Food Security volunteers that live in San Bartolome with me. Cara Allan is from southern Jersey, we’re talking Cape May south. She did crew at Rutgers and she’s very smart when it comes to agriculture which will be a great help. Eric Womack (no relation to Bobby Womack) is from Virginia Beach and went to Old Diminion. He sports a thick handlebar mustache and knows a bunch of crazy biological facts about all sorts of animals. He does bird and insect calls. Yea, it's pretty sweet. The other two girls in our group are both from Washington. Britini (or Margarita) Port is a Huskie and is definitely a hipster regardless of what she says (she wears flannel and listens to Yeasayer, point and case). She's really cool to talk music with and has traveled all over the world. Also she looks like Lindsay Lohan (I'm not saying that to be insulting, she's very pretty. The resemblance is just uncanny). Jaron (or Elizabeth) is also from Washington but went south for school (she's a Sun Devil). She's very athletic and played water polo in college. She's very smart and well read. I've made a list of awesome books she's recommended. We're not exactly the Breakfast Club but we're a pretty diverse group all brought together by a similar passion. It's interesting having two West Coasters around because they always ask me about the East Coast as if it's some foreign land. Luckily we're all on about the same Spanish level so if I completely butcher a word, I don't feel too much shame.

We took a "Spanish field trip" to Antigua this morning. It’s an interesting place. The first sentence about Antigua in my Lonely Planet Central America travel book reads as follows: "In all the long, boring discussions about where the 'real Guatemala' is, you can be sure the word Antigua has never come up." While I'd say that's a bit of a harsh statement, after visiting I can understand what they meant. Antigua is definitely not like anywhere else in the country. It's clean, well regulated, and touristy. And while I don't particularly like being a part of the whole tourist trap scene, Antigua is definitely a place to see. It's the center of colonial Guatemala, cobblestone streets lined with 18th century churches and municipal buildings, the whole deal. With all of this great colonial architecture under the shadow of four huge volcanoes, it's not surprising that Antigua is one of the country’s biggest tourist/expat spots. We saw so many other gringos walking around that it felt kind of awkward. It was a mix of American families on vacation, Europeans and travelers drifting through wearing shirts emblazoned with that famous image of Che Guevara, the great Argentinean doctor who led revolutions all over the world but whose face is sadly now more of a fashion icon than a symbol for revolution. Cliché Guevara if you will. Anyways, Antigua is beautiful and definitely a place to see if you're visiting Guatemala. It reminded me of Grenada, Nicaragua only busier.

It was interesting to see the colonial historical sites. Guatemala has such a rich history. Much of that is the history of the Mayans. I almost feel like I should have seen Apocalypto before I came here (even though it was made by a psycho). Unlike the Incans and the Aztecs, the Mayans weren’t killed off, they were more decentralized. The other day I was listening to Neil Young’s epic “Cortez the Killer,” about the European who did the Aztecs in. Cortez actually had some interaction with the Mayans but not to the same bloody extent. About 60% of Guatemala’s population is indigenous (almost 40% of that Mayan) giving it the highest percentage of indigenous peoples in Central America. The other 40% of Guatemalans are Ladinos (a term specific to Guatemala). I’m looking forward to becoming more familiar with the Mayan culture as most volunteers are placed in the Western highlands which is where the highest concentration of Mayans are found.