July 08, 2004
In the land of volcanoes, firecrackers and spontaneous parades
I have been hesitant to write as of late because I have been stationary in Antigua, Guatemala for the past month. Antigua is an interesting little place that deserves a little explanation. It was the colonial capital of Guatemala (or whatever the Spanish called it in those days!) - so all of the buildings are really old looking, and the streets are cobble stone. However, the city was devastated by a couple of major earthquakes so the government moved to a different location. All the old buildings that weren't destroyed by the earthquake remain in their original form (with some refurbishing I suspect!). Even the McDonalds is in an old building. There are areas of town that have not been fixed up and are nothing but piles of rubble. It is interesting walking down this one area I frequented often (my favourite water hole was in that neighbourhood) at night...looking on either side of me in this one alley both of the buildings are dilapidated. I honestly feel like I am walking through a neighbourhood in Beirut or Baghdad. This little town is definitely I tourist spot and not a true representation of Guatemala (although it did have the armed guards with shotguns everywhere like the rest of Central America), but I still have a special little spot in my heart for it.
I have been occupying myself as of late with the overwhelming task of
learning Spanish. I am not sure what my expectations were before coming down here, but learning a new language is challenging. Maybe my mind doesn't work very well that way. Essentially you have to regress to kindergarten and learn the most basic things. For me it seemed like every time I learnt something new and started to understand it I would learn an exception that sort of made what I learnt the week before only sort of useful. I spent four weeks at a school in Antigua and had a wonderful teacher who put up with my never ending questions and poor pronounciation with admirable vigour. Despite the difficulties, I have a rudimentary understanding of Spanish and understand a lot more reading and listening than I can speak.
One of the strangest things about town was the unusual amount of
parades that happened out of the blue. I would be walking through the central park on a wednesday and for some reason a marching band would be circling the park. My favourite though was the local beauty pagent parade where the local chicas drove around the park throwing candies at pedistrians. The weirdest thing was that they were on the back (or sometimes front) of pickup trucks with scenes designed (one chica was dressed in green and on a lily pad ). It was random, at least to me.
Another thing that takes time to get used to is the incessant firecrackers being throw and lit in Central America. There is no hour of the day, or day of the week, that is exempt from the firecrackers. The first time that I heard them was on mother's day, which is a big day down there because the men are pretty lazy and the women do everything in the house (at one house I stayed at when I helped with the dishes the men actually couldn't believe it and kept trying to coax me away). Anyway, the noise woke me up at about 4am in the morning and the first thought that came to my mind was: REVOLUTION!!! It took me a couple minutes to plan my escape to the Canadian embassy. I did eventually realize that there was no revolution and I was a bit of a wimp.
I made a couple day trips from Antigua but nothing that really worth a lengthy note (I do know how to babble...). Some ruins here, a market there, a beach over there.....etc etc. I am home now so this will be the last note until I am off again (september).
All the best,
Dan
Posted by insideoutmag at 06:39 AM | Comments (2026)