Antigua

Re picture problem, I have given up on BlogGo. Am trying a new app : Blogo.

We left at 9:00 a.m. as per schedule for our walking city tour. Breakfast was a bit hit-and-miss; my Spanish must have caused confusion. We had hot water this morning, it was there last night I'm sure but I had turned the tap to the left instead of to the right ... Mind you, I thought RED meant hot, and BLUE was cold. It seems that RED means stop (no water) and BLUE means ?? - GO??

We visited lots of churches including the Church of St Francis dedicated to Guatemala's only saint - Santo Hermano Pedro. The attached convent has been destroyed by earthquakes.

There are great views from here to three of the volcanoes towering over Antigua. One of these is active: Pacaya.

There was a food market in action opposite the church - tortillas, blood sausage, pork, chicken were all being cooked.

From here we took a wander along cobbled streets which are ankle-wrenchingly difficult to walk. The footpath is generally easier but being a Sunday, there are lots of people about (and this only gets more so as the day progresses) so one often has to go on the road.

We walked to Catedral de San Josè, a Roman Catholic church also badly damaged by earthquake in 1773; in 1743 it had been one of the largest in Central America.

We went to a chocolate 'museum' and a jade workshop. Finally, another church - La Merced - which is very attractively baroque.

And we enjoyed some snacks from street vendors along the way (e.g. nuegados which are like a sort of doughnut without the hole) and some yummy sweets from a pasteleria (cake shop) in the main plaza (plaza mayor or parque central) which is spacious and very attractive and today, filled with women in colourful local dress selling their wares, mostly shawls, fabric, food, bags, etc. Horse carriages too!

The Calle del Arco area is very touristy. Arco de Santa Catalina (the Santa Catalina Arch) was built in the 17th century; it originally connected the Santa Catalina convent to a school, allowing the cloistered nuns to pass from one building to the other without going out on the street.

We headed finally to a place for lunch but I wasn't in the mood for a full-on meal and it was expensive and no incluido. It was pretty clear that Carmen was getting a 'cut' wherever we went ... We took our leave and the girl that was on our tour who had wanted a photo taken of her in front of every monument, church, scene that we stopped at - she nearly drove me nuts. The tour was meant to finish at 1:00 p.m. anyway and we had to head back to our 'temporary' hotel to move our bags to the next one (where we have 2 nights).

This was a bit of a saga also but no fault of the woman at Casa Rosa where we had stayed last night - she was more than helpful.

Our room wasn't ready at El Convento so we went back into the main plaza and beyond to a cafe that I had read about and had a yummy lunch of tomato soup and a delicious toasted sandwich all for Q70 ($US9 roughly). One main course at the place Carmen had taken us for lunch was Q198 ($US26.50). Go figure!

It's a pretty town:

Local pikkies:

We wandered back to our hotel buying some street food and drinks along the way for a 'picnic' this evening back at our Very Nice hotel. We have been given a top room to make amends I suspect for the stuff-up with hotels here.

We have walked our feet off today so we are looking forward to chillin' out with the cold beer (a mixed drink for me) we had bought at a nearby "bottle-o".

We have just 'enjoyed' a skit by Alex Baldwin taking off Trump on Saturday Night Live on US TV doing his phone call with 'President' Turnbull which Trump supposedly hung up on Turnbull. It's big news there.

The hotel has just delivered some little sweets ...