Antigua Guatemala, founded in 1543, was the seat of Spanish colonial government for the Kingdom of Guatemala, which included Chiapas (southern Mexico), Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The full title bestowed upon the city was Muy Leal y Muy Noble Ciudad de Santiago de los Cabal- leros de Goathemala, or the "Very Loyal and Very Noble City of Saint James of the Knights of Guatemala." For the first century of its existence the city was a modest place, but it has grown into the most important city in Central America, filled with monumental buildings of ornate Spanish colonial architecture. For more than two centuries, the seat of Spanish colonial government was the Palace of the Captains-General. Completed in 1558, the building has been repeatedly reconstructed and altered following damaging earthquakes. Most of the structure was destroyed in the 1773 quakes that leveled much of the city. The present palace is but a small remnant of the former complex. The palacio was yet again heavily damaged in the Feb. 4, 1976 earthquake. On the east side of the Plaza de Armas stood the great Catedral, inaugurated on Nov. 5, 1680, after 11 years of construction. This huge building replaced an earlier cathedral begun in 1542. Various notables from the Spanish conquest were buried here: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, conquistador and author of The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, lived out his latter days in Antigua and was buried in the original cathedral; the remains of the Don Pedro de Alvarado, the conquerer of Guatemala, were brought here in 1568 for re-interment. Laid out in a cruciform plan, bays off the side aisles contained chapels. This church was the largest and most lavishly furnished in Central America. The bishop's palace was built along the north side of the cathedral and connected to it. In 1717 the structure was badly damaged by earthquakes, but was rebuilt. In 1743 it was raised to the rank of a metropolitan cathedral and became the seat of the archbishop. In 1773 it succumbed to the Santa Marta earthquakes. The present day church is a reconstruction of a small portion --only as far back as the first two bays-- of the front of the cathedral. This reconstruction was completed in the 1820s, when the cathedral was converted into a parish church. The present façade differs only in minor ways from that shown in a 1784 sketch of the cathedral, and the lower story is very likely much as it was when first completed in 1680. The gloomy but impressive ruins of the giant nave can be entered today from the south portal, and are well worth the modest admission charge.
And so, when I started seeing the cables coming in, describing what was happening in Guatemala, I was just overjoyed, and I found it hard to believe that there had been no bloodshed, no armed confrontation.
E. Howard Hunt, on the political upheavels in Guatemala
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Antigua,
11.6-8.06
My city of ruins: The city has to rank as one of the most picturesque places in the world. Even the ruins, of which there are plenty, are impressive. Founded in the 1500s, Antigua was first obliterated by a volcanic eruption. It moved down valley some to avoid that problem, then was leveled by an earthquake in the late 1700s. The massive cathedral, sporting at one time 90 domes, lost every one of them in the temblor. It is a great tourist destination full of vendors catering to every need, from elaborate tours to jade gems to rudimentary shoe shines. Everything is for sale, and the city specializes in Spanish lessons and latin dance lessons.
Guitars dominate a shop window, a heroic equestrian statue offers
a focal point for a hillside park above the city as one of Antigua's
volcanoes fumes in the background.
La mejor: By 1773, in addition to the cathedral and government palace, the city could boast of more than 30 churches, 18 convents and monasteries, 15 hermitages, 10 chapels, the University of San Carlos, oldest college in the western hemisphere, five hospitals, an orphanage, fountains and parks, and municipal water and sewer systems. According to many authors, Antigua Guatemala in its heyday, with a population of perhaps 60,000, was surpassed in the New World only by Mexico City and Lima.
Vines drape doorways in courtyards, and even the stop signs add to the ambience, assembled from carefully fashioned tiles and incorporated into neoclassical building facades.
Rumblin', bumblin', stumblin': Throughout its history the city now known as Antigua Guatemala, or La Antigua, was repeatedly damaged by earthquakes, and always the Antigueños rebuilt, bigger and better. But on July 29, 1773, the day of Santa Marta, earthquakes wrought such destruction that officials petitioned the King of Spain to allow them to move the capital to safer ground, which led to the founding in 1776 of present-day Guatemala City. Antigua was left to rusticate, largely but never completely abandoned. Today its monumental bougainvillea-draped ruins, and its preserved and carefully restored Spanish colonial public buildings and private mansions give form to a city of charm and romance unequaled in the Americas. In 1979 UNESCO recognized Antigua Guatemala as a Cultural Heritage of Mankind site.
Personal spaces are seductive in Antigua. Wind chimes and wooden
columns add accents to hotel corridors. A hand-lettered sign offers
tortillas for sale.
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A lava flow from August cuts a swath through the verdent flanks of
Pacaya Volcano southwest of Guatemala City.
Beneath the volcano: Pacaya, one of a half dozen very active volcanoes in Guatemala and perhaps one of the country's more intriguing tourist attractions, formed in the last 23,000 years. It has erupted at least 23 times since 1565. Little is known about the early historic eruptions due to the remote location of the volcano.
It was dormant from 1860 to 1961, but the eruption in March of 1961 began without warning and lasted about one month.
Collapse near the summit of the volcano formed a pit crater the following year. The pit crater has been the focus of more recent volcanic activity and a cone is growing in the crater.
Since 1965, Pacaya has been erupting nearly continuously. Hundreds of explosions occur each day at Pacaya. Eruptions throw incandescent bombs hundreds of meters into the air and produce small aa flows. A terrible dirt road ascends the volcano's flanks only to arrive at a rudimentary park entrance complete with slowing rising new information center. From there, visitors climb a steep trail trailed by boys offering horses for rent to the vertically challenged. Climbing across steamy hot and razor-sharp lava fields, hikers can enjoy a photographically rewarding interlude observing crusty, glowing lavas flows creeping downhill.
Copyright Gary Olson 2006-2010
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