GUATEMALA – Land of Eternal Spring…and Volcanoes – Part I

(PART ONE OF THREE PARTS)

It’s November and once again the cold and gray here in Minnesota, USA have rekindled the wanderlust. So I’m off to Guatemala—for no better reason than that I’ve heard it’s beautiful and I know several people who’ve been there—and loved it.

This region, much of it forested and lying at elevations above 5,000 feet, has an ideal, spring-like climate all year round. That’s why Guatemala’s known as “The Land of Eternal Spring.” And why it’s ideal for travel.

Oh, and I hear the way Guatemalans speak Spanish is relatively easy for a Spanish learner to understand.

You see I’m sticking to the tried-and-true format I’ve used for most of my Latin American adventures. I find what looks like a good language school; I sign up for a couple weeks of intense one-on-one classes; and then I see if I can find decent lodging and flights.

This affords me a ready-made home base, a circle of potential friends, and a focus for days that otherwise might overwhelm me with options.

An unexpected highlight of this trip is that my daughter, Amanda, has decided to fly down from Boston and join me for a week.

 I’m easily disoriented. Until I realize that
 El Agua, the most prominent of the volcanoes
 surrounding the city, lies due south.

POLITICAL INTRIGUE
As late as two weeks before I leave home, I’m unsure if it’s really wise to go. Not for concern with my and Amanda’s safety as much as with our ability to get around—even from the airport in Guatemala City to Antigua, the town where we’ll spend most of our time.

The problem is that, since last June’s general election in which the progressive, anti-corruption candidate for president easily prevailed and the sitting president seeks to invalidate the results, working Guatemalans, led by several well-organized indigenous groups, have been protesting by, among other tactics, setting up roadblocks around the country—as many as 70 at one time. 

Fortunately, one of my neighbors works for a local college’s international program, which sends student groups to Guatemala. She’s been able to get up-to-date, first-hand information, and informs me that the protest organizers, seeing that the current government plans to come down hard on them, has switched its focus from rural highways to Guatemala City’s government-buildings zone.

As it turns out, we encounter no protesting of any kind, anywhere we go.

GETTING MY BEARINGS
I arrive in Guatemala City just after dark in about as good shape as one could expect after a 12-hour day of travel. My destination—where my Spanish school is located—will be the former colonial capital, La Antigua Guatemala, a mile-high city of 50,000 surrounded by volcanoes just west of Guatemala City.

My ride, a private shuttle arranged by my Antigua hotel, is right where he said he’d be, and after nearly an hour in surprisingly slow traffic for that time of day, we pull up to my home for the next two weeks, the Posada de la Luna, a lovely, unpretentious little hotel with just seven rooms less than a mile from the town’s Plaza Mayor or central park.

(It’s nice arriving on a Friday, leaving me the whole weekend to explore and get oriented before my classes begin Monday morning.)

La Antigua, at least size-wise, is a wonderfully walkable town. Stroll about a mile in any direction and you’re in the suburbs. So, making Plaza Mayor the hub of my wanderings, I trace “spokes” out from there in the four cardinal directions.

At first, what with all there is to see and photograph, I’m easily disoriented. Until I realize that El Agua, the most prominent of the several volcanoes surrounding the city, lies due south. 

Speaking of the volcanoes, I’m disappointed not to actually see any of them in its entirety for the first four days of my visit. The rainy season here should be over by now, so I’d expected more sun. Locals explain that the cool (mid- to upper-60’s) temperatures, low cloud cover and frequent drizzles and mists are due to an unusual cold front affecting all of Central America.

    We walk to El Jardin, a botanical garden
    where all the school’s classes take place.

BREAK A LEG
As easy as it is to reach any corner of Antigua walking, that’s how treacherous the footing is. Every single street and many of the sidewalks are paved in cobblestones, and, with the frequent light precipitation, they’re wet. 

A tourist gawking and taking pictures on that terrain is a recipe for a turned-ankle disaster. So I’m constantly reminding myself: Want to look? Stop! Want to snap a photo? Stop! (Turns out that’s impossible, so it’s just pure dumb luck that I avoid a sprain.)

ANTIGUEÑA SPANISH ACADEMY
My first Monday of language school I head to the address where I think my classes will be held. Instead, I find a cramped little second-floor office with a line of about 50 Guatemalan women—and a few men—winding down the stairs and out to the street.

Turns out this is just the administrative office, and these are the teachers, waiting to be assigned their students for that week. I pay my tuition for the first week and then meet my teacher, Sheny. She takes me back down the stairs and we walk nearly a mile through the back streets of Antigua’s northwest corner to what they call El Jardin, The Garden, where all the school’s classes take place.

It’s kind of a small, enclosed park, a bit like a botanical garden. Not one with identified plant species, but it’s lush with tropical foliage and flowers: palms, bromeliads, orchids and other gorgeous flowers. And there are a couple of two-story buildings with broad, open-air, tile-floored galleries.

During breaks students and teachers gather in groups, stroll around the gardens or climb a spiral staircase to a rooftop terrace. There's also a snack bar.

Every Spanish school I’ve ever attended offered both group and individual classes. But every school in Guatemala, it seems, provides only one-on-one instruction. Also, those other schools have usually had somewhere between ten and 20 students. So I was surprised to find El Jardin’s buildings and paths lined with at least 60 card tables, a student and a teacher at each one.

Sheny is a fabulous teacher. By the time we get to El Jardin that first day, she’s already identified my weaknesses, and devises lessons and drills to nudge me closer to my goal of fluency…whatever that is.

We also hit it off personally, sharing loves for sports, Nature, pets and of course language. (She has several dogs, a couple of cats and a charismatic, blue-eyed tortoise named Tuguis.)

Sheny’s skill and easy manner make conversation quite easy, but four consecutive hours of one-on-one language learning is still exhausting. So, toward the end of each morning’s work, we unwind with a game of Scrabble—in Spanish, of course. I don’t mean to brag—okay, I actually do—but I beat her like six out of eight times! She says I have a good vocabulary.

(FOR PART II CLICK HERE)

(FOR SLIDE SHOW CLICK HERE)