Antigua is the first colonial style town that we have visited in Guatemala. It´s perfect grid of cobblestone streets and many plazas would have you thinking you were in Spain. Antigua is surrounded by at least three volcanoes, a few still active, and you can see plumes of smoke rising out of their craters often. It is a beautiful charming little city and a great place to spend the holidays. Antigua was alive with many tourists and tons of Guatemalans, who came to Antigua for the festivities. We arrived in the early afternoon and after checking into a hostel we all ran to the first wine and cheese shop we could find before they all closed for the holiday.
We went out to a fancy Christmas Eve dinner with our traveling companions from Lanquin and then returned to the hostel to enjoy the rooftop bar they had. All night fireworks where being shot into the skies all over the city. After hearing rumors of a finale at midnight DJ decided to stay up and see if it was worthwhile. Everyone abandoned him except for one crazy old British guy who basically scared everyone he came in contact with although he was harmless and extremely funny and cynical. Sure enough at ten to midnight the city exploded with thousands of fireworks. The whole perimeter of the city seemed to be armed with as many fireworks as any fourth of July celebration. But, as we would soon find out, this was only the beginning.
Christmas day begins with a trip to the local artisan market and a stroll through the city. Then we regroup for a wine and cheese picnic on top of the mountain with a great view of the city. Our friend Sailor was staying in a part of town called ¨la Colonia¨ and he claimed that there was going to be a big fiesta and parade with more than 15,000 people that evening. We weren´t disappointed. Sure enough, there was a huge celebration complete with floats, a band, and all the cheap tacos, popcorn, tortas, corn on the cob, and waffle covered sausages you could eat. Oh, and there was a huge fireworks show too. But even more interesting than the fireworks show was a game being played in the streets. A man would put a huge metal frame shaped like a bull over his head. The frame was rigged to shoot fireworks in all directions. Similar to the ¨running of the bulls,¨ people would run up to the guy when the fireworks where being lit, and run for hell when the fireworks finally started shooting right at them. The closer to the fireworks you got the more the crowd cheered. We were the only group of travelers we saw the entire time we were at the street festival and it was quite an interesting spectacle.
