Antigua

Looking out over the valley toward the volcano in the morning was some beautiful sight! We sat on the roof of our hotel Lazos Fuertes and enjoyed the sun several mornings while watching the buses and trucks below us bring their fruits and vegetables to the market which is about 2 blocks from us. So much horn blowing!! It´s a very lively place!
This ancient colonial town was once the capital of this whole area which took in Guatemala, Honduras and part of Mexico. The Spaniard conquerors wanted a reminder of home, so their architecture is very Spanish. The buildings are painted beautiful colors with mostly white trim and lots of wrought iron over the windows, on balconies, and around entire areas which are like our yards, but inside high walls. In fact, most of the homes are very plain on the front, but once the doors are opened, the inside pops out at you like a surprise gift. There can be masses of flowers and grass in the center, surrounded by rooms of the house. Of course, there is poverty here, too, although we haven´t seen much of it here in Antigua. The churches are mostly painted beautiful hues of yellow and melon with white trim, unless they have been practially demolished by the earthquakes. Many of them are in the process of being rebuilt and are interesting to wander around.
One day we went to a coffee plantation which was extremely interesting. Besides having a well planned area of how coffee is produced, they also had several museums dedicated to the Maya. Our favorite was a museum of musical instruments which included several dioramas of their festivals and religious rituals. Of course, they had free coffee tastings at the end of your tour, and the coffee here is world-reknowned. We were free to wander and were able to take in as much of the process as we wanted, so we spent several hours there, ambling from the shade grown coffee with red berries ready for picking, to the drying coffee beans being hand raked by several Guatemalan men. The fragrance was overwhelming!
Our favorite restaurant Inglesia Santo Domingo had been an old convent now turned into an upscale, romantic hotel (way too expensive) with park-like grounds complete with parrots in trees! We could enjoy the food, however, and walking among the beautiful flowers and water features brought us to another museum area of the old, crumbling church. There was also a candle factory that originally produced about 700 hand dipped candles per day just for the hotel, but they had added a gift store for the public, so we went in to see the production process and ended up in a purchase, of course!
So many things to see here that we could stay longer, but we hear that Lake Atitlan is the most beautiful area in Guatemala, so we must move along. Hasta luego!