Day 11: Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Puerto Quetzal is Guatemala’s largest Pacific Ocean port. It is important for both cargo traffic, and as a stop-off point for cruise ships. It is located in Escuintla department, alongside the city of Puerto San Jose, which it superseded as a port in importance to the country’s maritime traffic during the 20th century. The port serves as a gateway to its inland attractions such as Mayan antiquities, colonial cities, rain forests, and volcanoes. As with most Central American countries, the population centers are located in the more temperate central highlands, rather than along the humid, tropical coasts. Guatemala is considered by many to be one of the world’s most beautiful countries. Volcanoes, mountain lakes, and jungles, combined with a population that is mostly of Indian descent, make this a unique land. Geographically, Guatemala is the northernmost country in Central America. It contains over 50,000 square miles of varied landscape, from mountains and rain forests to crystal clear lakes and picturesque rivers. Guatemala is the most populated of all Central American nations, and is the only one that is largely Indian in language and culture.

Because we turned around to head back south we crossed back over the timezone and set our clocks back last night. Yeah! for another hour of sleep. We awoke and got read for our day trip. We choose to do do an 8 hour trip that was titled Past & Present Colonial Antigua. This day trip will take us to the city of Antigua. The only knowledge I had of Guatemala was an obscure reference in a TV show Square Pegs. I was looking forward to learning more about this country.

The shore excursion brochure describes this trip: Journey to the colonial capital of Antigua at 4,500 feet above sea level via a scenic 90-minute, narrated drive through Guatemala’s lowlands. Keep an eye out for magnificent views of volcanoes, cattle and sugar cane plantation. At 5,000 feet above sea level you will discover Antigua, the colonial jewel of the Americas. Once in Antigua, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, you will visit Central Park and enter the Cathedral. Then, visit the famous Capuchinas Convent for a unique insight into convent life of colonial times. Your next stop will be at a local restaurant where you will enjoy a local meal with many options, and some free time to explore on your own. Before returning to the ship, visit the famous Jade Museum & Factory where fine jadeite jade is transformed into works of art (jadeite jade is found mainly in Guatemala and Burma). You will learn about jade and its elaborate history within the Maya civilization.

We disembarked from the ship and boarded our bus. Our bus ride took us from the port to the center of the country in the mountains. We drove through many coffee plantations as we ascended up to the town of Antigua. As we left the lowlands we traveled around and between two active volcanoes.

The country has over 30 active volcanoes. We drove between two of the tallest ones. The two volcanoes are named Aqua and Fuego. Their names mean Water and Fire. Both of these volcanoes were erupting every 15 or 20 minutes as we drove around them. In these photos you can see the smoke plumes. It was an amazing sight to see as we have never seen active eruptions. We have only seen lava flows in our previous vacations to volcanoes. Our tour guide told us that on her 50th birthday her friends took her to climb Fuego. She said it was the best day of her life. It must be quite the hike to climb up the side of an active volcano. Especially if it was erupting smoke and ash several times an hour while you where ascending.

As we continued traveling, we passed a lot of coffee plantations. One of the countries largest exports for Guatemala is coffee. Apparently, the volcanic ash and the elevation are the perfect conditions for growing coffee.

The coffee plants are planted beneath these trees to provide additional shade. As we climbed higher towards the town of Antigua, the plantations started to thin out and eventually disappeared completely. We could see the beginnings of homes and the outside walls of the city of Antigua. Most of the homes are made of stone and the roads are the original cobble stones. The streets are VERY narrow and lined with cars. Several times we had to maneuver very carefully down some roads in our bus. In one case we had to finagle the bus and several cars in and out of crevices so that we could all pass by. I was totally impressed at how they were able to get past, and nobody got upset. It was just a way of life they deal with.

We stopped the bus on a side street and unloaded. We walked about a block to the Capuchinas Convent. We took a tour of the Convent. We learned that the Convent had survived a major earthquake where the majority of the second story was destroyed. On the second story you could see where the walls had fallen and the floor had risen from the earthquake. The Convent is undergoing a complete refit and refurbishment. The view from the top was incredible. You could see the mountains and the volcanoes. After the tour, we walked around the streets where we went into one of the local shops that had just about everything in the world. All of the items are made in Guatemala.

We boarded the bus and went to the jade museum and factory. This factory was owned and operated by Mary Lou Ridinger who discovered (re-discovered) jade in Guatemala. Nobody in the country believed that she had found jade in the country, because all evidence of the wealth and beauty of the jade was wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors and their conversion to Christianity. They were given the option of continuing to worship idols and be put to death or convert. What would you do with those options? The mines and treasures were buried or destroyed and all of the oral tradition was lost.

Mary Lou appears to have started a blog, but gave up after a few postings. There was a documentary done as well but I was unable to find the article or show. A youtube video was done that talks about the jade there.

We arrived at the jade factory and received a informational presentation by Mary Lou. She told us about how she got started and how hard it was to convince anyone that there was jade in Guatemala. After several years she was successful in finding the jade in the country. She showed us how to tell the difference between real and fake jade.

After the tour we spent some time browsing through the shop. They had a lot of lovely jade that I wish I had more money to purchase. We ended up just purchasing a pair of ear rings for Angie.

They had a lot of things to choose from. They had statues of

animals and masks. There were quite a lot of rings and earrings. The rings and earrings ran the gambit of low cost to very expensive. They had a lot of pendants of letters, numbers, astrological signs and just about every animal known. The most expensive items seem to be their statues and masks. Some of these masks costs as much as my last car. I wish I could have purchased a jade mask for my mask collection. Alas, it was not meant to be. Perhaps on a future trip. Angie made her purchase and we went to check out the museum. The museum had some dioramas of early Guatemalan life and some artifacts found in the country.

After the jade factory tour, we re-boarded the bus and headed to lunch. Our lunch was at a really nice hotel. The hotel had a lovely pool and gardens to walk around in. They had a buffet lunch setup for us. The food was very delicious and the desert was yummy. The best part of the meal was they had REAL coke, made with cane sugar, not corn syrup.

After lunch we walked around the grounds and checked out the hotel. This is really a nice hotel and I would love to come back here to stay for a vacation.The lobby of the hotel was very cozy and nice. The area was open so that the breeze blew through and kept it cool. The lobby also had a very nice looking candle wall. You an see a picture of it below:

We left the hotel and went to the city square. Here we sat and relaxed as we waited for our bus to take us back to the ship. The square had some people selling fake jade (which we learned from the jade factory and our guide) and other jewelry. Some people were selling musical instruments as well as blankets and scarfs. All of the items were made in Guatemala by hand. Unfortunately we didn’t see anything that we had to have. The bus arrived and we boarded for our return trip. We had an interesting trek out of the city. Again, the narrow roads made it interesting to leave and turn corners. We had to back the bus up one because one of the roads were closed.

On the way back we saw more volcanic eruptions. I would love to come live here for a few months just to film and photograph all of the volcanic activity in this country. On the way back we saw another coffee plantation that had a lot of beautiful white blooms. I wonder how much of the coffee that is grown here is actually drunk by the Guatemalans? We half expected to see donkey’s carrying bags of coffee down the side of the road, but that would be in Columbia 😉

Once we left the city of Antigua, the ride back was uneventful. I even managed to get 20 minutes of sleep on the bus. We returned to the ship and boarded. We went back to our cabin and put away our stuff that we had with us for the day. We changed cloths and went up on deck for some afternoon tea and attend the sail away party.

Tonight’s entertainment was Brad Cummings, a comedian/ventriloquist. I thought he was pretty good, but Angie (I found out) is not a fan of ventriloquists. I found a youtube video of him here:

Dinner was good as always. After dinner we went up to the crows nest to listen to music and have a drink. It was a nice finish to the end of one of the best shore excursions we have had. I am really happy that we made it to Guatemala and look forward to a return trip at some point in the future.

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