Church of San Francisco, Antigua

Friday

We slept 12 hours on and off and were ready to meet the group and leave for a day exploring Antigua on foot by 9am. First we met the guide, Miguel, and the other 10 people in the group. 2 Swiss, 1 Australian, 2 American, 1 Welsh, 4 English. They all seem cheerful and easy to be with.

I’m in a bit of a blur about where exactly we have been as we turned right and left, up and down, a lot on the cobbled streets in order to see the churches, squares and places of interest. We saw Mayan women working their way up the street, praying at shrines. One church had a black Jesus where women went up the aisle on bended knee and another a brown Jesus. Preparations were being made for Easter when there’s several days of celebration. The main square and cathedral were busy with school groups. It is the 480th year since the founding of the city. One of the churches had been badly damaged in an earthquake two centuries ago. In the street we saw a girl in a magnificently bling blue ball dress being photographed - it’s the thing to do for a 15th birthday - I thought she looked about 20.

We joined two of the women for lunch at a place where we paid $5 for a meal where we saw the tortillas being freshly made. Helen had an enormous chicken leg, Lindsey had spicy sausage and we got the veggie option - rice, pasta salad, tortillas and coleslaw with a watery black bean sauce. Carb overload.

We met some of the others in the square and got a bone-shaking ride over the cobbles to a coffee plantation. We were supposed to see the beans being picked but that didn’t happen. We did get guided through the whole process which was very interesting though it did cost $25 which was a bit steep. Some of the old machines were made in Aberdeen, but they have more modern ones now. We learned Arabica, the better type, is grown here whereas it is the cheap Robusta which is grown in Vietnam. (It goes to Nescafé we learned when we were there). I hadn’t known that though the dark roast has the stronger flavour, it has less caffeine than the light roast preferred by the Americans. We bought some in the shop.

We got back to the hotel and had to get reception to print 2 copies of all our Covid passes. Apparently having them on our phone isn’t enough. I think it will be another early night. We walked over 5 miles today all on cobblestones.