Antigua

Wednesday (4/25) We arrived in Antigua excited to check out the town. We arrived at our hotel which was a cute hostel but rather small. The 5 of us shared a room with 2 bunk beds and one solo. Felt camp style for sure. We walked around the town to check it out. It is such a beautiful town with a lot to see. There are vendors all over the streets selling things from scarves and jewelry to agua pura. 

Overall the trip in Antigua was a lot of fun. We were able to see some amazing alfombras that were made painstakingly with colored sawdust and grass. Families are in charge of making these alfombras and will place ladders and boards across in order to perfectly place the sawdust. They use tons of bright colors and sometimes figurines. The interesting part is that they have place the alfombras in the middle of the streets before processions. Then, the processions come and walk over the alfombras essentially destroying them. They then clean the streets to start the process over the next day. There are 40 days of alfombras and processions in Antigua for the 40 days of Lent. Antigua has the biggest Semana Santa celebration in all of Central America.

The processions..…huge and elaborate floats carried on the shoulders of men or women.  For Thursday, they wore purple robes. On Friday, they wore black for the death of Jesus and the mourning of Mary. Then, on Sunday they wore white. All you can see is a sea of people in the appropriate colored robe with hazes of smokes, and the loud gong of drums.  There would be hundreds of people walking with the procession and many carrying incense to fill the streets (and lungs) with the smoke. It was amazing to watch because the crowd was virtually silent watching these processions and you could truly feel the impact that these processions had on the people. On Saturday it was the women who carried the floats and only women were walking in the procession, all the other days it was men only.  Easter will forever have a completely different meaning. These streets where not filled with easter egg hunts and easter bunnies covered in chocolate but with a completely religious meaning of Easter.

Over the course of the few days we were there we were able to indulge in some delicious meals, some legit coffee, and most importantly ice cream as a lunchtime staple. Who needs lunch when travelling on a budget, and ice cream is a perfect substitute for a real meal? Clearly not us gringas.

 Kate and I happened to stumble upon a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus as they took him off the cross. We also went to an old monastery converted into hotel where they were having mass, we quietly snuck in the back to catch a minute of their culture.

The markets were loaded with goods and vendors ready to barter. Perhaps my favorite lines from the market were “Pase adelante” (meaning come inside) “specialladyprice”  (yes they pronounce it like one word). There was a lot of “special price for you” “what you like” “what you pay” . There was also a labyrinth of an indoor market. Jenna and I were actually lost for a few minutes trying to determine how to leave. With that said, there were some great goods to be purchased and we didn’t practice much self control when bartering was an option. It’s amazing how you feel like you are getting an awesome deal when you talk them down from a much greater price, in reality the mark-up is probably insane and you still don’t get a great deal in the end, but man it feels good. Ha ha!

There were a few nights out on the town where we were able to go out and partake in some drinking and dancing. It was definitely an interesting scene but had some good laughs from it all. My favorite being Lori and I standing on the stairs looking for fellow gringas, and men kept approaching us to dance. I turned to Lori and with the most American accent I could muster I said “ No hablo…..No hablo….” Looking at Lori questioningly for the word espanol.  We had hoped this tactic would work, but unfortunately they knew a few words of English. They continued to ask us to dance, this time in English. We got pretty desperate and resorted to making up our language which I think was something between Japanese and Hawaiin….well these guys were pretty persistent and were using the universal language of body language. They begin moving their arms in a dancing fashion.  We continued to act stupefied by these motions and they finally gave up. As they walked away Lori and I burst into laughter. The best part being perhaps that after they left, still within ear shot the bouncer guy asked us to get off the stairs, all in Spanish, and all perfectly understood.

It was a lot of fun travelling and I can’t believe time is flying by! A little over six weeks of teaching left then let the travelling continue!!!