Antigua, Guatemala tour

Another day in Guatemala...

Ella presents our breakfast bread to us this morning:We were picked up this morning for our tour of Antigua by our guide, Reuben. It was so wonderful to see him- he was our guide 6 years ago! It was fun to visit with him again. We first drove out to Cuidad Vieja- the old city. This city was the original capital of Guatemala before it was destroyed by an explosion of the Agua Volcano (so called because it had a lake on top of the volcano. It overflowed and they believed it erupted water). The first cathedral built in Cental America is here, built in 1534. It is said that there were originally 13 steps leading up to the Cathedral, after the mud flow there are now only 1 and a half steps.

After Cuidad Vieja, we drove up to Carolina's in San Antonia de Aguas Calientes. Carolina is an accomplished and awarded weaver, and she dressed us all up in traditional Mayan clothing.




We watched some of the women weaving outside the shop. Although the patterns and weaves of the fabrics from various villages are centuries old and still woven on looms by hand, there is a modern touch here... yes, that's a cell phone in the basket of yarns. :-)
We ate lunch at Posado de Don Rodrigo where we enjoyed watching and listening to a marimba band.

Antigua Central Plaza, Palace of the Captain General

We visited two cathedral ruins- both built 400-500 years ago but destroyed in the earthquakes.

We finished off at the House of Jade. Guatemala is one of the few places in the world where jade is found, and it ranges in color from the pale moon jade, to blues and lavendar (discovered 8 years ago), to the traditional green, a vibrant emerald green (very expensive and rare), to black. 5 years ago they also discovered a vein of orange jade in Guatemala. Jade was very precious to the Mayans, and they have many masks, ornaments and jewelry carved from jade. Some even ornamented their teeth with jade! Nowadays, they use diamonds to cut jade as it is a very hard material, but of course, the Mayans didn't have diamonds (or metal). There are some theories as to how they must have cut and carved the jade, and all of them are very time consuming- from rubbing the stone with leather cords to cut it, or using the slightly harder black jade to carve the green jade, or even jade on jade. To see the detail of their designs and carvings, it's amazing to consider how they were made without the tools we have available today.
Our tour finished with a big rain storm, and we were back at our little villa.

The kids are so tired and "done." Patience with each other is wearing thin and the ability to listen and respond to mom and dad without a meltdown is diminishing. After our tour today, we got back to our villa, ordered Domino's Pizza delivery right away, got into PJ's and had a fun, noisy, rowdy night here where we can't disturb anyone. The best part... all the kids were in bed by 7 pm. :-)
Tomorrow we have a relaxed day to sleep in and do whatever we want. The only thing on the schedule is to make sure we get over to Casa Santo Domingo to see the grounds and museum, and eat lunch there. It's a former monestary with incredibly gorgeous grounds, and in all our visits, we have yet to eat there!
By the way- I added the photos to yesterday's post...