Some of the Sights

Hi everyone,

It's been a couple of weeks since we posted last - we've been busy with work and errands but we've also been relaxing a lot. Still settling in... Ben's been playing poker with a group of ex-pats, we've been playing chess (I've never really played but I'm enjoying it), reading some books we've gotten around town at various bookstores.

I thought I'd posted some info about Antigua, the former capital city of Spain's Central American empire. The city was originally called Santiago, but when the seat of government moved to the next valley over (where Guatemala City is still located today) due to the continuing catastrophic combination of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and mudslides, the city became known as La Antigua, "the old one."

We went walking around some of the sights / sites from the early "Santiago" days. The city was always a big center of the Catholic faith, and was filled with churches, parishes, monasteries, convents, and a cathedral built by different Catholic orders. Me and Ben visited the remains of the Cathedral the other day:

Short history of the Cathedral.

The first Cathedral was built on the eastern edge of Parque Central (Central Park) in 1543. When that was demolished, a new one was constructed and opened for use in 1680. The domes of this building have long since crumbled down, and it went out of use after the great earthquakes in 1773.

A view from the front area (the left of the altar) back.

Most of the rubble from the earthquake has been cleared over the past couple of centuries(!), and archways and walls have been partially or totally reconstructed. They did let the pieces you see emerging from the left row of pillars remain. Weird to see the contrast and terrifying to imagine all of this crumbling suddenly to the ground in the quake!

Looking up, seeing the places where the domes would have been.

The Cathedral used to have over 50 domes or cupolas. Very impressive! There are also several crypts still beneath the floors. We walked down to see some empty rooms (not sure if these used to house bodies or?) and you could walk down under the main altar to see some stone figures of what I think was Jesus and Mary, covered by decades of soot from the candles that you can still light and leave to burn there. Supposedly, some of Guatemala's most famous personages, including Francisco Marroquin (founder of Antigua) and Bernal Diaz de Castillo (a famous chronicler of the Spanish "conquest" of the New World) are also buried beneath the floors.

Some of the old blocks that crumbled from the Archbishop's Palace next to the Cathedral. You can see the painted tiles and revealed red bricks (the entire building was locally-made brick covered with plaster and sometimes stucco detailing and tile).

Well, time to run out to the sports bar for the Packers game!
-Becky (& Ben)