Guatemala City, Guatemala
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Got the news that the brake linings had arrived in Edinburgh. We decided in the end to hire a car for a week, we got it yesterday but just did some shopping. Today though we drove to the old capital of Antigua, it is mentioned in all the guidebooks as a must see destination and it quite deserves it. The main square is bordered by the Cathedral, the Captain Generals Palace and the old town hall. All of which date from the 1700s. The streets are still all cobbled and all the buildings retain their colonial look, partly because it is a Unesco Heritage sight. The cathedral was huge, with a big dome, 5 aisles and 18 chapels. This suffered in the 1773 earthquake and today it is still huge, but with only 1 aisle and 2 chapels. The rest has been left as it was when it collapsed. The town hall actually survived intact until the 1976 earthquake, although this damage has been repaired. As usual the rest of the sights consist of other churches, the oldest dating from 1579 and containing the tomb of the first Central American saint inaugurated in 2002
. All of the churches cover, or used to cover vast areas and incorporated schools, hospitals and monasteries or convents. Also all have suffered earthquake damage, mainly the 1773 quake. It is a very interesting town as usual made into a touristy place, and lots of Americans live there. Had a visit round the shops as well, I bought a lovely big blanket to go over the settee, like us the furniture is looking a bit worn, no comments please.July 9th. Today we went to visit the famous lake of Atitain, a very beautiful lake surrounded by three volcanoes, it was a little in cloud but that added to its fascination. It took us over two hours to get there, but worth the effort, we went through so many of the little towns and villages, all unique in there own way, bit scruffy and dirty some of them but that is life here. The children seem to work very hard, work at home doing all kinds of jobs and then off to school and then home to work again. Still as we say they don't know any different so its OK, they still seem very happy. Still cannot get used to the roads here, so many one way, want to go 5 miles it takes you 10.
10th- This morning we decided to take a trip to the Pacaya Volcano, this is the closest volcano that is still active. It is about 70 kms from the town, most on a good road but the last 10 to 15 kms on a dirt road. This road was quite badly eroded in places from the recent heavy rains, although they had a grader and roller fixing it as we went up
. On arrival at the visitor centre we were besieged by people offering horses for us to ride and sticks for us to walk with. In the end we saw a sign which Mike thought said it was 2.8 km walk up and back. Wrong again, it was that each way, still in the end it took us about two hours to get to the site of the main lava flow. This dated from 2002 and so was all cold; it was possible to go another kilometre to see the active flowing lava, which Mike decided to do. I declined because you have to walk over the old lava flows and the rocks are like razors, far too dangerous. Once at the lava site Mike saw one flow of lava about 6 feet wide slowly making its way downhill. It only existed for about 40 feet before it disappeared under the rock again. You were able to walk right up to it, but the heat stopped him about 10 feet away. In all it is quite an awe inspiring sight, even without the usual projected rocks and lava. Once Mike had returned it was just a case of a stroll back to the car park, only an hour away, and then the drive back to the garage for the night.
