Tuesday, Day 3 in Antigua
Aug. 12th, 2007 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
abracanabraUrf. So now I get to try and write up the last part of our trip in Guatemala way after the fact, just because, well, we got lazy and/or busy.
On Tuesday, Phil got sick, and we saw a colonial museum and the ruins of the convent attached to La Merced.
Phil was definitely feeling ill with digestive system woes in the morning, but he decided that he was feeling well enough to go look at something if it fairly close. First, however, we had to move to a new hotel, as we certainly couldn't afford the rates of the only place we'd been able to find a vacancy at on the weekend in Antigua. It was $50/night, which was more than we'd budgeted for hotel stay, and more than twice what the guidebook said it cost. Do not trust your guidebooks!
Our new hotel was Posada Don Diego, on the opposite side of town from the wedding festivities, near La Merced (in Antigua, one navigates by churches and ruins). When we acquired a reservation here, the English-speaker wasn't around, so it was "No habla Engles y no hablo Espagnol." Forgive the spelling; I learned a bit of Spanish by audiobook and haven't a clue about spelling. The woman we spoke with was one of the few in Antigua who a) didn't understand at least a little English, and b) didn't slow down her Spanish at all when talking to the touristos. We thought we'd negotiated a reservation for the remaining days of our vacation, but in fact they were booked in the weekend and so we only reserved a room for two days, after which we would have to move again. This ended up being a good thing--I would actually recommend staying in a few different places instead of just decamping to one and staying there for an entire week and a half. You see new things, get a little better feel for it, and you'll have a more even experience because of it.
Suitcases, backpacks, and ill Phil in tow, I stepped out of the old hotel just as a tuk-tuk was trundling by on the cobblestone row. I flagged it down, quite pleased that we wouldn't have to haul all our stuff across town to the new hotel. Amazingly, we and all our stuff did fit into the auto-rickshaw, though it was a bone-jarring ride.
Posada Don Diego, less expensive than our previous hotel, had some amenities it lacked, though it also had less charm. Free drinking water, coffee, tea, television in the lounge area, and "1/2 hour" (which could be stretched) of internet service were included with the room. There were sort-of-private bathrooms--one for each room, with shower and toilet, but they didn't lock from the outside and they weren't actually adjoining the rooms, so guests (including but not only us) not-infrequently used the wrong private bathroom. The rooms--faint, phantom urine smell in one corner of our room--and bathrooms were clean but not in great condition. The central courtyard was a narrow strip of green grass with a defunct fountain in it, but there was a nice breezeway around it, with chairs and benches and an eclectic library of books and magazines in all languages, including some we couldn't identify. Our small room was long, narrow, strangely angled and very high-ceilinged, with good furniture and some decorations. The gauze curtains were thin enough that after dark, if you had the lights on, you'd better not mind somebody being able to see you. The hotel was behind a small cafe that opened up onto the street, and the joining door between the two didn't lock, so security here was not that great, either, though Antigua really is amazingly safe.
We got there earlier than we could check in, so we left our luggage in the office and wandered out into Antigua. One of the museums next to the central square, located in the old colonial prison, is Museo de Santiago de los Caballeros", a historical museum about the colonization period in Guatemala. They have some truly gorgeous 17th-century oil paintings (I really hope they are reproductions, as they are not in a climate-controlled area or anything like that, and it was bloody humid), colonial-era furniture, a large selection of cannons, guns, swords, and other ironmongery, a set of chairs made of guns and sabers, and a mock-dungeon with scarecrows posed beside rusting manacles. While we were there, the place was descended upon by a horde of highschoolers on a school trip, diligently copying down the information printed on plates beside the exhibits, and tossing centavos to try and land them in the jar that was in the center of the museum's small fountain. Worth a visit, unlike the "Antique Book Museum" next door. I managed to sneak a few photographs, though they may have been technically not allowed.
Most of the days we were there, the rains came in the afternoon. After being caught in the deluge, we purchased a cheap, light green umbrella that lasted us the rest of the trip. It was also cleverly designed, for the cover could be stretched back over the tips and secured if a tip popped off.
It was just starting to sprinkle when we entered Ruinas del Convento Mercedario, the monastery ruins destroyed in the major earthquake of 1773 that are attached to La Merced, a colonial Spanish church that has been renovated since the last bout of earthquakes that created such picturesque ruins. It holds the largest fountain in Hispanic America, 27m and shaped like a water lily (traditionally a symbol of power for Mayan rulers). The main appeal of these ruins is not the ruins themselves (though they would be spectacular in any city other than Antigua), but the amazing views of Antigua and the surrounding volcanoes that one can see from the upper ramparts of the monastery.
Phil was starting to feel quite unwell at this point, so we returned to our new hotel and settled into the room. That evening, he finally conceded that yes, he should start taking the Cipro that my doctor had prescribed "just in case" for me. His doctor had prescribed him nothing. My doctor is awesome, his less so.
For dinner, I ventured into a more American sports-bar style of restaurant just off the small square near us (in front of La Merced), mostly because I didn't want to go too far but didn't want to eat at Kafka's again. This turned out to be a mistake. The almost-empty place should have tipped me off, but I went ahead and ordered a "Thai" stirfry. It ended up being practically raw vegetables with almost no seasoning on rice. Based on my experience and horror stories others have told, I'm going to make a strong recommendation against ordering Asian food in Guatemala, unless it is a specifically Asian place, and even then...there's a Asian-of-some-ilk restaurant there that is apparently terrible. I did get to see part of a WNBA Lynx game, though!
I took a takeaway box of rice to try and persuade Phil to eat something, as at that time he was refusing to eat anything but Canelitas, a packaged thin shortbread type of cookie. He did not like the rice, complaining that it didn't taste "right," but at least he ate something.
On Tuesday, Phil got sick, and we saw a colonial museum and the ruins of the convent attached to La Merced.
Phil was definitely feeling ill with digestive system woes in the morning, but he decided that he was feeling well enough to go look at something if it fairly close. First, however, we had to move to a new hotel, as we certainly couldn't afford the rates of the only place we'd been able to find a vacancy at on the weekend in Antigua. It was $50/night, which was more than we'd budgeted for hotel stay, and more than twice what the guidebook said it cost. Do not trust your guidebooks!
Our new hotel was Posada Don Diego, on the opposite side of town from the wedding festivities, near La Merced (in Antigua, one navigates by churches and ruins). When we acquired a reservation here, the English-speaker wasn't around, so it was "No habla Engles y no hablo Espagnol." Forgive the spelling; I learned a bit of Spanish by audiobook and haven't a clue about spelling. The woman we spoke with was one of the few in Antigua who a) didn't understand at least a little English, and b) didn't slow down her Spanish at all when talking to the touristos. We thought we'd negotiated a reservation for the remaining days of our vacation, but in fact they were booked in the weekend and so we only reserved a room for two days, after which we would have to move again. This ended up being a good thing--I would actually recommend staying in a few different places instead of just decamping to one and staying there for an entire week and a half. You see new things, get a little better feel for it, and you'll have a more even experience because of it.
Suitcases, backpacks, and ill Phil in tow, I stepped out of the old hotel just as a tuk-tuk was trundling by on the cobblestone row. I flagged it down, quite pleased that we wouldn't have to haul all our stuff across town to the new hotel. Amazingly, we and all our stuff did fit into the auto-rickshaw, though it was a bone-jarring ride.
Posada Don Diego, less expensive than our previous hotel, had some amenities it lacked, though it also had less charm. Free drinking water, coffee, tea, television in the lounge area, and "1/2 hour" (which could be stretched) of internet service were included with the room. There were sort-of-private bathrooms--one for each room, with shower and toilet, but they didn't lock from the outside and they weren't actually adjoining the rooms, so guests (including but not only us) not-infrequently used the wrong private bathroom. The rooms--faint, phantom urine smell in one corner of our room--and bathrooms were clean but not in great condition. The central courtyard was a narrow strip of green grass with a defunct fountain in it, but there was a nice breezeway around it, with chairs and benches and an eclectic library of books and magazines in all languages, including some we couldn't identify. Our small room was long, narrow, strangely angled and very high-ceilinged, with good furniture and some decorations. The gauze curtains were thin enough that after dark, if you had the lights on, you'd better not mind somebody being able to see you. The hotel was behind a small cafe that opened up onto the street, and the joining door between the two didn't lock, so security here was not that great, either, though Antigua really is amazingly safe.
We got there earlier than we could check in, so we left our luggage in the office and wandered out into Antigua. One of the museums next to the central square, located in the old colonial prison, is Museo de Santiago de los Caballeros", a historical museum about the colonization period in Guatemala. They have some truly gorgeous 17th-century oil paintings (I really hope they are reproductions, as they are not in a climate-controlled area or anything like that, and it was bloody humid), colonial-era furniture, a large selection of cannons, guns, swords, and other ironmongery, a set of chairs made of guns and sabers, and a mock-dungeon with scarecrows posed beside rusting manacles. While we were there, the place was descended upon by a horde of highschoolers on a school trip, diligently copying down the information printed on plates beside the exhibits, and tossing centavos to try and land them in the jar that was in the center of the museum's small fountain. Worth a visit, unlike the "Antique Book Museum" next door. I managed to sneak a few photographs, though they may have been technically not allowed.
Most of the days we were there, the rains came in the afternoon. After being caught in the deluge, we purchased a cheap, light green umbrella that lasted us the rest of the trip. It was also cleverly designed, for the cover could be stretched back over the tips and secured if a tip popped off.
It was just starting to sprinkle when we entered Ruinas del Convento Mercedario, the monastery ruins destroyed in the major earthquake of 1773 that are attached to La Merced, a colonial Spanish church that has been renovated since the last bout of earthquakes that created such picturesque ruins. It holds the largest fountain in Hispanic America, 27m and shaped like a water lily (traditionally a symbol of power for Mayan rulers). The main appeal of these ruins is not the ruins themselves (though they would be spectacular in any city other than Antigua), but the amazing views of Antigua and the surrounding volcanoes that one can see from the upper ramparts of the monastery.
Phil was starting to feel quite unwell at this point, so we returned to our new hotel and settled into the room. That evening, he finally conceded that yes, he should start taking the Cipro that my doctor had prescribed "just in case" for me. His doctor had prescribed him nothing. My doctor is awesome, his less so.
For dinner, I ventured into a more American sports-bar style of restaurant just off the small square near us (in front of La Merced), mostly because I didn't want to go too far but didn't want to eat at Kafka's again. This turned out to be a mistake. The almost-empty place should have tipped me off, but I went ahead and ordered a "Thai" stirfry. It ended up being practically raw vegetables with almost no seasoning on rice. Based on my experience and horror stories others have told, I'm going to make a strong recommendation against ordering Asian food in Guatemala, unless it is a specifically Asian place, and even then...there's a Asian-of-some-ilk restaurant there that is apparently terrible. I did get to see part of a WNBA Lynx game, though!
I took a takeaway box of rice to try and persuade Phil to eat something, as at that time he was refusing to eat anything but Canelitas, a packaged thin shortbread type of cookie. He did not like the rice, complaining that it didn't taste "right," but at least he ate something.