Hola!
This morning was our last day in Antigua. We travel by tour van to Xela today at 2:30pm (dos y media de la tarde)! We spent the morning by walking around Antigua and had a chance to visit a colonial convent with a very famous round dome with a variety of small rooms around it. This was a very interesting structure now renovated in areas for government offices. We later found out that these small rooms which we thought were dormitories for the nuns were actually places of punishment when the nuns did something wrong. Our thought was "what would a nun do to be punished." So we aren't positive if that was just a story or fact, we think it was where they prayed and did work or study, but certainly an interesting idea.
We also had the opportunity to visit a weaving museum where we got to see all the different types of textiles from all the different areas of the country. They are all distinct and have a variety of colors and patterns. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but it was a very interesting museum. It described 3 different kinds of looms. The first was the waist loom that typically makes table runners and is limited by width. To create the shirts they basically make 2 identical table runner size weavings and sew them together. The woman we spoke with said it can take up to 3 days to simply prepare a waist loom with the background and to place the correct threads for the pattern. The waist loom has been used in precolonial times of the myans. The second loom was a large foot peddled loom which is typically used by men to make larger pieces like the fabric for women's skirts. This type of loom was introduced in colonial times by the Spanish. The third type was a mix between the waist and the peddled version but smaller and used mainly by women to make the head dressings. This art is not as popular as most women do not wear the head dressings on a daily basis. It was a really interesting museum and there was a ton of different fabrics, skirts, belts, art, and much more.
We then sat in the plaza and enjoyed the live music and people watching. Side note: we've sat at this plaza for 3 days and I just now noticed that the sculptures where bare breasted women.
We also walked by the large church La Merced....there was a graduation ceremony if some sort going on inside with beautiful music! Gramma likes this church because it looks like a wedding cake!
We also shared our last sangria in Antigua at a lovely little restaurant.
Our van picked us up around 2:30 and we arrived in Xela around 6:30pm. The van was the same type as our trip from Panajachel. The van only had 5 people in it, so about half full. Gramma leaned over to me and said she liked only having this many people and that we got lucky only having a few......so we ended up stopping at a texaco gas station for a bathroom break and came back to a full bus.....with a fussy baby right behind us! I'd say she jinxed it! We made it to the Hotel Villa Real Plaza which is right off the plaza! It is a lovely hotel with a lot of character. We are currently enjoying dinner at the hotel restaurant with some wonderful Guatemalan hot chocolate as the temperature here is cool. More pictures of the hotel tomorrow!
Buenos noches from Xela!
Gramma & Kristin
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment