Antigua Walking Tour

kicked started our moring at the corner cafe for a few belts of coffee. We noticed television cameras, music, barriers lined up, waiters dressed with numbers on their backs carrying trays of various bottled drinks. Now understand this is 7:30 am and music is blasting on the streets as police and soldiers complete with AK 47' s strapped across their chest watch the crowd. After much bungling of the language, we found our that is it a yearly race where men and women have to run a 15 block course while carrying trays of drinks. The winner gets something, not that we found out what but everyone seemed to be having a great time. I sat down in the park and got a shoe shine from one young kids hustling for work. I have been getting a shine a day not because my shoes do not look good but because of wanting to help these kids hustling for a buck.

We finally meet up without tour guide Elizabeth Bell, resident, noted Antigua historian. Our first stop was city hall to see council in session and meet the Mayor, maybe. I was not enthused about our first stop. I could care less about meeting the Mayor or watching congress in session. Fortunately, the Mayor felt the same way about us as he never came out. The next 3 1/2 hours we visited, palaces, Cathedrals, church ruins, historic hotels, an interesting pre-Columbia museum and a Jade factory.

I think I mentioned the interesting low, squat small windows one or two story houses that open up into waterfalls, flowered gardens, and living space. The building are build low due to earthquakes. Antigua gets many sight tremors and has had some mayor quakes, so this type of building survives best. I believe this was taken from the Moorish influence in Spain when they reigned in the country.

I never knew there were many different colors and types of jade. I always thought green when thinking of Jade. Jade comes in white, black, various greens, lavender etc. The most interesting fact was that translucent jade is by and far the most expensive jade. This is the Jade of eternal life the Mayan Kings wore. When you lift the jade piece and shine a a light behind it you can see though and noticed its translucent qualities. I know about clothes, but not about jewelry. Small translucent jade earrings were anywhere between 12-24 hundred dollars. Necklaces were in the thousands. The stuff sold on the streets is of a different cheap stone just call jade because of the association of color.

City Hall

Cathedral San Jose Ruins