Churches, Ruins & Volcanos

Travel & Shit

I don’t know why I thought Antigua would be hotter than the devil’s arsehole, perhaps because I was psychologically scarred from the oppressive heat of Flores and my internal organs were still soup, but it’s actually an utterly glorious climate. Hot in the daytime, chilly in the evenings, couldn’t plan it better if we’d sacrificed a goat to the weather gods. I’ve had to get my long sleeve out, I don’t go out without it now. It’s actually a really nice change from not being able to sleep because you’re lying in a pool of your own sweat the the sauna that is your hotel room.

That’s a bloke tying shit to the top of a bus as it bounces over the cobbles. I think you need a degree in insanity to work in public transport in Central America.

I think the only downside of Antigua is the cost of everything but we only think it’s expensive because we’ve been in Central America for about five months. If we’d flown straight in from Brighton we’d be splashing the cash around whilst loudly proclaiming to anyone that’d listen just how cheap it is. Eight quid for a full meal? Fuck it, I’ll have three! We did try and look for local food and you can get cheap feeds for around Q35 or Q45 but it’s not great and you’ll be ravenous again within the hour. We were going to go to the market for some almuerzo but a tour guide warned us off it, said it wasn’t good food, and I’m sort of regretting heeding his advice because local food served from a vat, eaten in surroundings with questionable hygiene, is my favourite type of food.

On a clear day you can wander around Antigua and take photos of Volcán de Agua with various pretty buildings in the foreground.

Anyway. The old city itself is UNESCO so if you own a property here you’re obliged to keep it to certain standard, at least on the outside anyway. We went on a walking tour with a chap called Erwin and he told us that behind the walls it’s a different story with a lot of the buildings being quite dilapidated. The whole ten block square area is cobbled too, it has to be to maintain its UNESCO status, but fuck me it’s a bugger to drive on. It’s not just a little bit cobbled, it’s aggressively cobbled, you could lose a small child between those buggers.

It’s impossible to take a photo that accurately demonstrates the sheer cobbliness of the roads. They slope into the middle to help with drainage.

The driver of the bus we caught from Guatemala was an utter maniac, tearing through the narrow streets over the cobbles. We were literally thrown into the air. We joked that being a mechanic in Antigua would be lucrative given the wear and tear on vehicles on this kind of road surface but it turns out the struggle is real. Erwin’s car is in the shop with an issue that was as a direct result of driving in Antigua and it’s going to cost him a few hundred dollars to fix. They’re digging the roads up one by one and recobbling them so they’re a bit less dramatic but that’ll take time.

They dig the cobbles up with a JCB then they have to be moved to the side by hand.
New cobbles. Not quite as photogenic but your ankles will be much happier.

So when the Spanish came over the mountains from Mexico they formed an alliance with the Kaqchikel Mayans who helped them conquer neighbouring tribes and established their capital which they called Santiago. Obviously colonising powers are not to be trusted and when the Kaqchikel realised they weren’t going to get any of the good shit promised to them they kicked off so that capital only lasted I think three years?

If you remain still at the main square for too long you’ll be descended on by sellers.

They moved it to the slopes of Volcán de Agua, called the city Santiago, and that lasted fourteen years before the water filled crater of the dormant volcano collapsed causing a devastating landslide. That’s actually how the volcano got its Spanish name. So once again they moved the capital to the site of what is now Antigua, called it Santiago because they’d had so much luck with that name, and it held for 230 years until it was battered by an earthquake in 1773 (there were many earthquakes but this one really fucked shit up) so they moved again to the present day Guatemala City, actually didn’t call it Santiago, and it’s been there ever since.

Volcán de Agua towers over Antigua Guatemala.

After the big earthquake the city was abandoned and the ruins fell into even more ruins until the 1830s when the city, as Erwin put it, began to wake from its abandonment thanks to coffee. Some ruins have since been restored and are used as businesses, many buildings are still ruined and you can visit them. Erwin spent three hours taking us around the city, plying us with information. He’s very knowledgeable. It was a LOT of information though and he did take us to a jade factory where we felt a bit pressured to buy stuff but it was very interesting.

Most walking tours seem to start from this stunner of a church. Iglesia la Merced. It was built in the late 1700s in a style known as seismic baroque which is baroque but make it earthquake proof. The walls are really thick and the columns you see at the front there are actually attached to the church. It worked, because when the massive earthquake in 1773 destroyed most of the city this bad boy survived.

Anyway, here are some photos of some of the places we went with Erwin before we thought climbing up a volcano was a good idea, and a few places we went to after we’d come back down from the volcano, our legs still hadn’t forgiven us, and we were hobbling around the ridiculous but very pretty cobbles looking like we’d shat ourselves.

Arco de Santa Catalina. Erwin told us this used to be a bridge. On the right hand side was a convent which needed more space but the only space available was across the road. The nuns were cloistered, they couldn’t be seen, so the bridge was built so they could move from one side to the other out of site. It’s not a bridge any more though. It was destroyed in the 1773 earthquake and restored in 1833 when the city started to be reinhabited. The convent on the right is now a restaurant. I waited three fucking days before it was clear enough to take this photo.
Iglesia y Convento de la Compañía de Jesús. The Jesuit ruins. The Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish colonies in 1767 and, of course, the earthquake of 1773 did the rest. Erwin said the Jesuits were expelled because they were shit hot on education and knowledge is power and the Spanish didn’t want people getting too educated. Not sure how true that is though. Behind this facade is a workshop school where people can learn various trades.
Ice cream seller at the main square. A few of them sell their wares out of tiny camionetas, which you might know as chicken buses.
San Jose Cathedral used to span a whole city block. You could open those three doors and each one would have a huge aisle going to the back of the cathedral. I think you can guess what finished it off. Hint: 1773. These days the front part is a church and you can visit the ruins behind it.
The ruins of San Jose Cathedral. The nicer brick work at the top there is restoration, it has to be restored according to how it was originally built with the same types of materials.
Okay this fountain in the main square features three young, top less women holding their boobs. Apparently it tells the story of three women who had babies but they didn’t want to breastfeed them as they didn’t want to ruin their bodies so they were turned to stone. The moral there, ladies, is your only purpose in life is to have a sprog hanging off your tits.
And yes, they are spouting water from their nipples.
Iglesia de San Francisco, partly ruined in, you guessed it, 1773. Other earthquakes have taken chunks out of it too.
You can explore the ruins of the San Franciscan monastery. It’s quite interesting and on a clear day you can get a good view of Fuego.
El Tanque was a place people could come and do their laundry. Not sure it’s still used though. On a clear day you can see Fuego erupting.
I’m just not going to get bored of this volcano. As seen from El Tanque.
There’s a viewpoint you can climb up to for a cracking view over the city called Cerro del Cruz. We chose to do this the day after we got back from Acatenango because apparently we hate ourselves.

So yeah. Big love for Antigua. It’s just an easy place to be, surrounded by eyehole fodder. If you’ve got a bit of spare cash you’ll have a great time eating and drinking and exploring. It’s doable on a budget, the attractions aren’t expensive and walking around is free.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”


Antigua Guatemala, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala

Stayed at: Hotel Vista Al Cerro, Antigua Guatemala

Hotel Vista Al Cerro. Actually really nice but it’s just a room. You don’t have access to the kitchen and there’s no proper common area to hang out. There’s a tiny roof terrace with incredible views of two volcanos but all the chairs are broken so you can’t actually relax up there. Shower is hot and WiFi works well, room service is daily. Fine for a few nights unless you want to save some money by cooking.

Useful shit to know…

How To Get From Biotopo Del Quetzal To Antigua

  • Between Ranchitos Del Quetzal and the Biotopo there’s a small bus shelter. Wait here and hail the next bus or colectivo to Guatemala City (Guate for short).
  • It cost Q100. I’m not sure how much it should be but that’s too much. I later found out it’s only Q75 all the way from Cobán to Guatemala.
  • It took about three hours and 50 minutes.
  • We were dropped at the Monja Blanca yard (14.632845, -90.512787) and hailed an Uber to take us to the terminal we needed, marked on Google as “Buses hacia Occidente”. Coordinates 14.61541, -90.536178.
  • The Uber cost Q26.52 but of course this can surge. It took around fifteen minutes.
  • You’re going to catch a chicken bus, a camioneta to Antigua from here.
  • We asked another passenger how much it should be. He told us Q20 each and this is actually what we were charged without fuss.
  • It took 1.5 hours and we were dropped close to the bus terminal at the west end of town.
  • You can book walking tours on GuruWalk.
  • They’re tip based but Erwin does as for a minimum of Q100 per person.
  • Another platform is Free Tour and a friend of ours found a really good guide called Klaudia through that.
  • Erwin was full of information but Klaudia apparently spoke a lot about local Mayan culture.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.