Fiesta in Yaibay and Mixco Viejo
I opened my blog today and found all these strange responses... advertising blogs on impotency, weight loss, satellite dishes, mesolaphine or whatever the name, with notes that people who advertise these like my blog.... sorry guys but I don't need any of your products. If you've been really reading my blog, you would notice that I am going back to "pure natural" and don't use any of such... stuff invented by modern technology... And my blog really is just for my friends... as a means to communicate with them. It's like a personal letter to all people who are dear to me... please respect that...
On Thursday I went with Mike and Todd to the countryside again and we visited a few schools. As the winding, bumpy roads are also very narrow at one point we wanted to make space for the oncoming chicken bus and Todd wanted to get to the edge of the road as much as possible and took one "step" too far and we found ourselves hanging off the cliff, ready to tumble down a vertical cornfield. The men from the bus immediately got out of the bus, virtually lifted our car and put us back on the road. That was an adventure! I wasn't really scared because I felt, as Mike says, that "my time hasn't come." We went for beer afterwards to laugh it off.
I took Friday off for walking around Antigua and visiting the places which I haven't visited before. One of them, which I really liked, was Hotel and Museum Santo Domingo. The hotel and museum is in the ruins of a church and convent destroyed by an earthquake. It's the nicest hotel I have been to. The rooms and restaurants, bars, swimming pool, etc. are inside the ruins which in some places have been renovated and in some just left the way they were found after the earthquake. I went there during the day on Friday and then I took Mattieu there at dusk on Saturday and we spent some time there walking around the grounds. The place was preparing for a wedding and there were a lot of candles everywhere. What remains of the church is just an altar and the wall behind the altar - it was interestingly decorated with satin ribbons and roses. We walked around the fountains and patios and spent some time sitting on beautiful wooden benches on one of the patios.
Today Mike and his old friends George and Paul, Mattieu, Todd and his girlfriend Mary and I went to a town Yaibay (I am not sure of the spelling) for the yearly fiesta. We left at 7:30 in the morning and got there around 11:00. We were invited to the town by the vice mayor during our visit last Tuesday to the village in which the bridge will be built. The vice mayor greeted us and first we went for a drink of rum and beer (on empty stomachs...) and then to observe the festivities of dancing tauruses, fireworks and firecrackers and paleovoladores (I think that's how it's written). Paleovoladores are people hanging by the rope tied around their ancle from the top of a 25 meter pole and the rope slowly being unwound from the pole making them "descend" from the pole. It was very interesting. There were lots of people in the town and the center was extremally crowded. I took many really great pictures of women in their colorful clothing, men in their beautiful white hats, people dancing in extravagant costumes, babies tied to their mothers' backs, and fruit and vegetable stands on the market. Afterwards we went to dinner with the vice mayor and his people to a restaurant run by a person who spent some time in Providence in the US. It turned out most of the people from that town spend some time in Providence... After dinner we decided to go to see the Mixco Viajo ruins. On our way there we encountered a destroyed bridge with a minivan stuck in the mud. Mike had a caver's rope (since he is, among other things, a caver) and after many trials he, and all other people who were waiting to pass on both sides of the river, got the car out of the water. It slowed our journey to the ruins and when we got there, at 4:00 pm, they were just closing the gate... but we asked if we could, please please, go see them and they let us in. The site of the ruins is the most beautiful of all such places I have seen so far. Many factors contribute to it... when we got there it was raining cats and dogs so we started in a heavy rain and then the rain disappeared and there was moist stillness in the air... the quietness... the amazing view of the green mountains near and far... the remainings of a big city made of stone... As I said before, whenever I visit the ruins of buildings built by lost civilizations I think of the people who slaved building them... of all the suffering the building of these temples and cities cost... but at the same time the ruins are usually situated in such beautiful scenery that they amaze me... the vast flat clearings of grass and beautiful trees and the mountains in the distance, the clouds passing by midway the mountains, the other clouds passing by higher above, the bluest sky visible where the clouds are not blocking it... the different shades of green, gray and blue... it all made the place enchanting and spiritual. It's one of these places where you feel the power of creation... and although the world is a cruel place, you feel hope... that the power which created it can save this cruel word and that maybe it does know what it is doing...
On Thursday I went with Mike and Todd to the countryside again and we visited a few schools. As the winding, bumpy roads are also very narrow at one point we wanted to make space for the oncoming chicken bus and Todd wanted to get to the edge of the road as much as possible and took one "step" too far and we found ourselves hanging off the cliff, ready to tumble down a vertical cornfield. The men from the bus immediately got out of the bus, virtually lifted our car and put us back on the road. That was an adventure! I wasn't really scared because I felt, as Mike says, that "my time hasn't come." We went for beer afterwards to laugh it off.
I took Friday off for walking around Antigua and visiting the places which I haven't visited before. One of them, which I really liked, was Hotel and Museum Santo Domingo. The hotel and museum is in the ruins of a church and convent destroyed by an earthquake. It's the nicest hotel I have been to. The rooms and restaurants, bars, swimming pool, etc. are inside the ruins which in some places have been renovated and in some just left the way they were found after the earthquake. I went there during the day on Friday and then I took Mattieu there at dusk on Saturday and we spent some time there walking around the grounds. The place was preparing for a wedding and there were a lot of candles everywhere. What remains of the church is just an altar and the wall behind the altar - it was interestingly decorated with satin ribbons and roses. We walked around the fountains and patios and spent some time sitting on beautiful wooden benches on one of the patios.
Today Mike and his old friends George and Paul, Mattieu, Todd and his girlfriend Mary and I went to a town Yaibay (I am not sure of the spelling) for the yearly fiesta. We left at 7:30 in the morning and got there around 11:00. We were invited to the town by the vice mayor during our visit last Tuesday to the village in which the bridge will be built. The vice mayor greeted us and first we went for a drink of rum and beer (on empty stomachs...) and then to observe the festivities of dancing tauruses, fireworks and firecrackers and paleovoladores (I think that's how it's written). Paleovoladores are people hanging by the rope tied around their ancle from the top of a 25 meter pole and the rope slowly being unwound from the pole making them "descend" from the pole. It was very interesting. There were lots of people in the town and the center was extremally crowded. I took many really great pictures of women in their colorful clothing, men in their beautiful white hats, people dancing in extravagant costumes, babies tied to their mothers' backs, and fruit and vegetable stands on the market. Afterwards we went to dinner with the vice mayor and his people to a restaurant run by a person who spent some time in Providence in the US. It turned out most of the people from that town spend some time in Providence... After dinner we decided to go to see the Mixco Viajo ruins. On our way there we encountered a destroyed bridge with a minivan stuck in the mud. Mike had a caver's rope (since he is, among other things, a caver) and after many trials he, and all other people who were waiting to pass on both sides of the river, got the car out of the water. It slowed our journey to the ruins and when we got there, at 4:00 pm, they were just closing the gate... but we asked if we could, please please, go see them and they let us in. The site of the ruins is the most beautiful of all such places I have seen so far. Many factors contribute to it... when we got there it was raining cats and dogs so we started in a heavy rain and then the rain disappeared and there was moist stillness in the air... the quietness... the amazing view of the green mountains near and far... the remainings of a big city made of stone... As I said before, whenever I visit the ruins of buildings built by lost civilizations I think of the people who slaved building them... of all the suffering the building of these temples and cities cost... but at the same time the ruins are usually situated in such beautiful scenery that they amaze me... the vast flat clearings of grass and beautiful trees and the mountains in the distance, the clouds passing by midway the mountains, the other clouds passing by higher above, the bluest sky visible where the clouds are not blocking it... the different shades of green, gray and blue... it all made the place enchanting and spiritual. It's one of these places where you feel the power of creation... and although the world is a cruel place, you feel hope... that the power which created it can save this cruel word and that maybe it does know what it is doing...
posted by Asia Kabat at 7:42 PM
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