Beverly Hills Meets Montreal's Old Port

After our surprise lunch, I packed up my stuff and jumped in the car with Luis and his wife Marivel, and we were off towards Antigua. The trip there was an adventure unto itself, as the effects of Agatha are still strongly felt on the major highways throughout the country. Large sections of road are covered in mud and stones the size of small houses, and opposing traffic has to merge into a two lane section of the road weaving in and out of the parts of the road that are still driveable. When we were about an hour away from Antigua, we heard a strange noise imminating from the underbody of the car, and soon realized that we had a flat. Perfection. Guatemala isn't the kind of place where you want to be stranded at nightime, let alone with a flat tire, an hour away from your destination, without a spare. I knew that we were in trouble when the closest group of people that we could ask about a mechanic were riding donkeys. However, there was a a stroke of good luck to our flat tire situation, as we happened to be only a short ways from a nearby garage, and although it was almost 10pm on a Friday, someone answered the door after we knocked for long enough. One hour, three coffees, and a few hundred quetzales later, we had a replacement tire on the car, and we were back on our way to Antigua. We pulled into town at around 10:30pm, and made our way to the restaurant were Luis and his wife were married at, owned by their friend Pablo.


El Sereno was simply stunning, and surpasses anything that I've seen in the Old Port in terms of beauty and being flat-out ballin'. I didn't take too many pictures inside, because there were couples snuggled up in various corners and I felt like my papparazzi flashes would not be highly appreciated. However, we did get a tour of the restaurant from Pablo, including the upstairs balcony bar overlooking the city, which you reach by climbing up cobblestone stairs burried under jungle-esque plants and surroundings.


The highlight of the restaurant is by far the grotto. Nestled in the far corner of the restaurant's courtyard lies a small opening to what would appear to be a wine cellar. With rock walls, dangling lights, a floor covered rose petals, and a candle-lit table for two, this even surpasses the time I made reservations at Newtown for the private table overlooking Crescent.

Myself with Luis and Pablo, the owner of El Sereno

After a glass of wine, we headed up and tried to find a hotel, no small feat at almost midnight in a town were its not especially safe to walk around after dark. With a lot of door-knocking and a little luck, we found a triple room, although a little more expensive than we had hoped. We took a walk around town, and although Antigua is by law a 'quiet town', where you actually aren't allowed to honk when you are in your car, there was a whole block of drunken foreigners partying hard. I must have seen more white people in 15 minutes of walking through Antigua than I have in four weeks of living in Xela, which was a little strange.

In the morning, we walked around some more, and explored a few of the beautiful churches and ruins that the town has to offer. The town itself is beautiful, with cobblestone roads, and buildings that look like they have been there forever, as well as some that obviously have been, based on their structural deterioration. At the same time, it really felt like I could have been walking through Old Montreal. The restaurants, people, and buildings were quite similar. Only the architecture was somewhat different, and being nowhere near educated enough to describe architectural traits, even that seemed close enough to pass.





Of all the buildings that I saw in my short time in Antigua, this one was by far my favorite. I have no idea what the name of this church is, or when it was built, by its facade was stunning. White lace details run across then entire building, and the level of the detail itself was amazing. Even the inside of the church was beautiful, although I couldn't go camera crazy out of respect to those inside.


We headed out shortly after lunchtime, and took the coastal highway back towards Xela, stopping for Chinese food along the way (which apparently is big in this country - chow mein is considered a 'typical' Guatemalan food from what I understand). Overall, I was glad to have visited Antigua, but also glad that I only spent a day there. It was beautiful, but in a plastic kind of way. Although I don't consider myself a local by any means, its nice to be able to walk around and completely immerse yourself in local culture. In Antigua, I just felt like I could have been in any metropolis in North America with an antique flair. I guess the clubs full of non-local drunks didn't help, nor did the lack of Spanish when you walk down the streets, but there was just something about it that felt fake. In the end, it made me happy to have chosen to study Spanish in Xela, where there are still foreigners, but fewer and further between. Nonetheless, Antigua still proved to be a cultural experience, albeit of a different variety than I have experienced so far here in Guatemala. Sort of like hard liquor, a little was nice, but too much would have made me sick. Here's to moderation...

My favorite picture from Antigua, with an underlying representation of the town itself.