Day 26 - Exploring Antigua and its surroundings
We started out our second day in Antigua by going to visit Cuidad Vieja, which was the capital before Antigua, which was the capital before Guatemala City. Sometime in the 1500s or 1600s?, Cuidad Vieja was destroyed when the lake in the Volcan de Agua's crater broke and flooded the city with water and mud, covering it entirely and killing everyone. This is the only part of the old city that has been uncovered. It's part of a church.
After exploring Cuidad Vieja, we drove up to a cross on a hill overlooking Antigua. It was a pretty steep hill, so Abuelita said she's stay at the top (you had to walk down to the cross...) When we got down, we looked up the hill, and there was Abuelita, coming down on her own, using her umbrella as a walking stick! 
Our next stop was Las Capuchinas, the ruins of a convent. The most interesting part of the ruin in a tower where the nuns' cells were. They looked almost like caves in a circle. Two of the cells were fixed up to show what they might have looked like, but mostly it just made you jump when you saw a nun sitting on her bed!
This I found extra creepy... Around the base of the tower where the rooms were, they had these indentations - it seemed like one per nun. I guess it was their form of penitence (flagellation?) to stand in here and water would drip on their head. Ugh. How awful.
After our historic outing, we went back to our little house and I made arroz con pollo for everyone. It ended up being more arroz than pollo, but tasty nonetheless. In the evening, we went out for dessert to a rooftop bar called Cafe Sky and watched the sunset.
There wasn't much sunset to see actually, so we spent our time watching a lightningn storm over the volcanoes. It's hard to photograph lightning...
After our flan and tiramisu, we went to the Hotel Santo Domingo, which is beautiful at night -- all lit up with candles and such. The pictures didn't really come out. The hotel is built on ruins, so we did a little exploring. David and Pamela were a little more adventurous. David actually jumped a small fence and went into the catabcombs, but retreated quite quickly when the motion sensor light came on and he was looking at a skeleton!
After exploring Cuidad Vieja, we drove up to a cross on a hill overlooking Antigua. It was a pretty steep hill, so Abuelita said she's stay at the top (you had to walk down to the cross...) When we got down, we looked up the hill, and there was Abuelita, coming down on her own, using her umbrella as a walking stick! Our next stop was Las Capuchinas, the ruins of a convent. The most interesting part of the ruin in a tower where the nuns' cells were. They looked almost like caves in a circle. Two of the cells were fixed up to show what they might have looked like, but mostly it just made you jump when you saw a nun sitting on her bed!
This I found extra creepy... Around the base of the tower where the rooms were, they had these indentations - it seemed like one per nun. I guess it was their form of penitence (flagellation?) to stand in here and water would drip on their head. Ugh. How awful.
After our historic outing, we went back to our little house and I made arroz con pollo for everyone. It ended up being more arroz than pollo, but tasty nonetheless. In the evening, we went out for dessert to a rooftop bar called Cafe Sky and watched the sunset. There wasn't much sunset to see actually, so we spent our time watching a lightningn storm over the volcanoes. It's hard to photograph lightning...
After our flan and tiramisu, we went to the Hotel Santo Domingo, which is beautiful at night -- all lit up with candles and such. The pictures didn't really come out. The hotel is built on ruins, so we did a little exploring. David and Pamela were a little more adventurous. David actually jumped a small fence and went into the catabcombs, but retreated quite quickly when the motion sensor light came on and he was looking at a skeleton!posted by Samantha at
7:13 PM
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