After our trouble-laden journey, it was bliss to
arrive at the hotel in Antigua (a short drive from Guatemala City), have a
shower, grab a bite to eat (our first black beans of the trip) and then exit
out into the warm air to explore.
Picturesque is an understatement for the
town, Antigua, is the former capital of Guatemala, with cobbled streets,
charming colonial architecture and an easy-going, cosmopolitan ambience. We
followed the crowd down the grid of streets towards the main town squares, churches and
cathedral.
Antigua is nestled in a broad highland valley with
the surrounding slopes covered in pine trees and forest. Its apparent calm
belies a turbulent past – both socio-politically and as a result of its
location.
Huge cones of three volcanoes overshadow the town and they have
played an active role in its history. Volcán de Agua destroyed the first
Guatemalan capital and even now there are shattered remnants of once-stunning
edifices destroyed by earthquakes, mud-slides and eruptions. Volcán de Fuego is
still active today – snorting small puffs and plumes of gas and smoke into the
sky, a constant reminder of the potentially devastating impact of Nature.
People have learned to live with the threat and the
architecture reflects this – buildings are surprisingly squat
with hard cores
concealed within pillars to absorb shocks, buttresses and tapered arches to
withstand quakes and resist collapse.
(They remind me slightly of coping
strategies used by people under repeated stress – relying on support from
friends and becoming entrenched and immovable in the hope of remaining strong
and undamaged).
Our first stop was the church of La Merced – a fantastic
example of Antiguan Baroque. Buttermilk yellow - with exquisite, fine white plasterwork
decoration like the most elaborate of wedding cakes – some of the ornamentation
exemplifying the need of the Spanish invaders to connect with the local
community. For example the maize cob and cocoa pod (both sacred to the Maya) are
shown under the Virgin Mary, above the doorway, on the glorious façade.
The church was constructed by the Mercedarians (the
Order of Mercy was the first religious order to establish a monastery in
Guatemala) – they must have been a stoic and determined group of men, as three
temples or churches were constructed on the site, and each destroyed by quakes
or lahars, before the current building. The first church, completed in 1583 was
destroyed in an earthquake in 1749 and La Merced
as we know it was completed in 1767. There was a wedding occurring at the time
that we visited – with an elaborate banquet and decorations around the famous
fountain and under the Mayan-style arches.
We were welcomed inside the church, but tiptoed around and tried not
to disturb.
There is a famous figure of Jesus Nazarene, sculpted by Alonso de
la Paz in 1650, with noticeably dark skin that appeals to the local community -
it is paraded through the streets during Holy Week with thousands paying for
the honour of sharing the burden.
I was interested to see the faux mosaic
decorations on some of the pillars – these have been created out of small
pieces of paper cut from magazines by prisoners.
The church helped sell similar
artworks to the public, thereby raising funds to support convicts’ families –
the pillar decorations were a gift to the church from the prisoners by way of
saying “thank you”.
After La Merced we ambled down Antigua’s equivalent
of Fifth Avenue, lined with boutiques selling jade jewellery, art galleries and
a surprising number of western-style restaurants and cafes. We passed under the
Santa Catalina Arch
– inspired by the Corridoio
Vasariano above the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, it enabled the nuns to cross
from their secluded convent on one side of the street to their buildings on the
other without having to come into contact with people.
Just beyond the arch a group of children were re-enacting traditional Mayan dances.
The dance we
watched incorporated a Spanish style bull fight – a legacy from the Conquistadors and
subsequent colonisation.
Their costumes and movements reminded me of a
combination of Morris
Dancers and Pearly
Kings and Queens
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| British Pearly Kings and Queens Annual Harvest Festival, Guildhall, London Sept. 2012 |
We made our way to the main square, the Parque
Central.
This has always been the heart of Antigua – a
pleasant place to sit, stroll or observe. It is surrounded on four sides by
significant buildings – the Church represented by the Cathedral;
the State by
the Government buildings;
the Armed Forces by the ancient army barracks and military headquarters (the Palacios de Los Capitanes Generales); and
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| Photo by jRo |
on the fourth side Commerce, with shops and restaurants hidden under shady arches.
In the centre
of the square is a famous fountain depicting mermaids with water spewing like
milk from the breasts – a risky subject matter when it was initially conceived
in the 1730s (a time when women were shrouded from head to toe).
A local story
goes that there was a man with four daughters who were very vain. They all
decided that they did not wish to marry as pregnancy and childbirth would ruin
their good looks (especially their breasts during lactation). Their father
berated them for refusing to provide him with grandchildren and told them they
had hearts of stone. The following day when he awoke he discovered each of them
petrified in their beds and these girls were then placed as the figures on the
fountain.
We explored Saint Joseph’s Cathedral on the edge of the square. Originally the main entrance was up the steps from the square, but most of the building was destroyed in the devastating earthquake of 1773 and what now functions as the cathedral was once one of the side chapels. I have never been into a cathedral in which you have to turn sharply to the right on entering in order to enter the nave. The original aisle and former cathedral has been blocked up and the ruins behind are awe inspiring
It must once have been one of the most impressive cathedrals in all Central America but Nature is supreme. Pillars built to withstand tremors lie shattered on the ground
and the sky can be seen through the remains of the dome.
Only the crypt, with its two crematoria ovens, remains
as well as the former underground chapel, where the Spanish nobles worshiped in seclusion.
This cave-like place of worship has subsequently been retained as a shrine by the locals, with Mayans introducing a carving of the concubine of Pedro de Alvarado (the brutal Spaniard who conquered and ruled Guatemala). Luisa de Tiaxcalaa became in effect the third wife of Alvarado and bore him three children (his other marriages were barren). The complexities of Alvarado’s private life in some ways depicts the complications of Guatemalan history, but more of that to follow…
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| Don Pedro de Alvarado |
When we got back to our hotel we discovered that another
wedding was being celebrated and we were serenaded by the punctuating sounds
of firecrackers and the marimba, being played on the roof whilst a talented local pianist
competed with “Au Clare de la Lune” in the dining room.
A complex mix from various cultures, at times inspired and often discordant – in many ways a good metaphor for Guatemala.
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| Marimba player |
A complex mix from various cultures, at times inspired and often discordant – in many ways a good metaphor for Guatemala.
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| Views of Antigua |
