Notable Times: Guatemala 1: Antigua

Our family has long had a special connection to Guatemala.

First, my grandparents, Malcolm and Thelma Merrill, used to visit there often due to my grandfather's work in public health. They were friends with Dr. Carlos Perez and his wife Lilly, and would often visit them in Guatemala City when they went. My mother, Jean Merrill (now Wilson) joined my grandparents on one trip, and she has fond memories of that trip, as well as some great photos.

Dr. Carlos Perez, Jean and Thelma Merrill, Lilly Perez;
Carlito, Maria and Carmen Perez.
Probably Antigua, Guatemala. About 1957.

Second, my wife Linette served a mission in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala (called "Xela" [SHAY-lah] by the locals). She and I went to Guatemala for the Quetzaltenango Temple dedication in December 2011, along with Linette's high school friend Neal Summers (who went to the same mission) and his wife Stephanie (who had gone to Argentina on her mission). We had an incredible experience on that trip.

We met Carlos and Lilly Perez and their daughter Maria and her husband Oscar Marroquin. (They even lent us their car for the week, over our protests!)
We took an unplanned side trip to Antigua, guided by a guy name Wellington that we randomly picked up off the side of the road.
We got to visit Linette's missionary companion Yamilet and her family.
We visited two of Linette's areas (San Marcos and Cantel), where we met people she knew.
We saw the beautiful cultural celebration put on by the youth on the evening before the dedication.
And then we got to attend the temple dedication itself, with President Uchtdorf presiding.
We had one short day at Lake Atitlán before missing our plane and spending one unplanned day with a kind couple who rescued us from the airport.

It was a life-changing experience, full of the spirit and little miracles.

Linette Bradley Wilson, December 2011,
at the door of her missionary companion's home in Xela.

Finally, both our son Jared and (my sister) Sharon's daughter Mikayla were called to serve as missionaries in Guatemala (along with Jared's best friend Bentley Alldredge, who went to the same mission as Jared, the same day). They all served right up until COVID sent everyone home in March 2020. Jared only had 5 months left, so he was done, but Mikayla had longer, so she eventually finished her mission in California.

Mikayla Kartchner, Jared Wilson and Bentley Alldredge,
preparing to board their plane home from Guatemala. March 2020.

Ever since Jared and Mikayla were called to serve in Guatemala, Sharon, Roger, Linette and I have been planning to visit Guatemala afterwards. COVID delayed our visit by a couple years, but things finally calmed down enough that it became feasible to go. Then one day I came across a deal on flights to Guatemala for $300 round trip from Salt Lake City, and we jumped on it! (We would not normally have scheduled a trip so soon after our trip to Spain and Italy, but that's when everyone's schedules allowed it).

So on Wednesday, August 10, 2022, what's left of the Wilsons and all of the Kartchners headed out. There were 10 of us in total, including me, Linette, Jared and Sienna; and Sharon, Roger, Shaylee, Mikayla, Jason and Mike (Roger's brother).

Mikayla rode with us up to the airport.

There we met up with the rest of the Kartchners and boarded a flight for Los Angeles.

Apparently Linette and I are both photo-bombers.

In Los Angeles, we had almost 8 hours to wait for our next flight, and we weren't allowed to check our bags until 6 hours before the flight.

While we waited, I had a delightful conversation with these two nice people. They turned out to be Jehovah's Witnesses who were there to finally re-open their information cart at the airport after it was closed for so long due to COVID.

After those two people left, I talked to the gal sitting next to me, and she turned out to be from Guatemala City. (Fortunately she spoke English well). I told her about my grandparents' friends in Guatemala, and how we had breakfast with their daughter and son-in-law. I knew that their son-in-law, Oscar Clemente Marroquin, worked for the newspaper La Hora, so before I even mentioned his name, I said that he was an author for La Hora, and asked if she had heard of that newspaper.

"Oh, my grandfather loved La Hora!" she said. "He would go downtown to pick up a copy every day." Then she mentioned the author "Clemente Marroquin," and I said, "That's who we had breakfast with!" She was so surprised! And so was I! I may have underestimated what a big deal our host was.

Linette came over and joined in the conversation and we helped the gal get all her bags where they needed to go, and then waited for her as we all went through security. I finally got a picture of Linette with our new friend Mariana.

Our flight didn't leave until midnight, so we knew we were all going to be tired, so some of us tried to catch a little sleep on the hard floor upstairs during our wait. It wasn't especially successful.

We flew all night and got just a little sleep, and then it was morning. As we approached Guatemala City, we could see the volcanoes that tower over it.

As the plane turned around, we could see a sunrise in progress.

As we waited to get off the plane, I could already tell we were in Guatemala (The traditional clothing and the bag on the head made me happy).

We were all tired but still in one piece. We got through passport control had all our bags, so we were ready to be on our way.

All these people lined up in their wheelchairs looked like they were about to begin a race.

Guatemala City

We split up at that point to each pick up a car from a different company. We used "Thrifty" (pronounced "TREEF-tee", with a flapped "r"). We got a little Toyota Yaris that we named Yolanda. Linette drove (stick shift!) while I navigated. She did awesome.

Jared had a friend that he really wanted to see whose work schedule just wasn't working out for us, so we decided to meet up that first day while we were in Guatemala City. He didn't get off work until noon, so we decided to go to the temple while we waited for him.

When we got there, Sienna was all conked out.

Before entering the temple, we decided to walk to a nearby Taco Bell for breakfast. Sienna and I both fell over while we waited for the food to be ready.

We were really trying to avoid getting sick from the food, so while we did want to eat some of the local food, we took advantage of known restaurants when possible so that we didn't roll the dice too often. (Even if it did seem ironic to go to Taco Bell to avoid feeling sick...)

After breakfast, we walked back to the temple, and went inside to do baptisms. We used the Family Tree app to select some relatives who needed their baptisms done and had the temple print cards for us.

All four of us were baptized and confirmed. Jared was faster at performing the ordinances in Spanish than I was, but it was fun to do them.

Afterwards, we came outside and took pictures around the temple.

As it turned out, Jared's friend got off early and hopped on a bus for home, so by the time we got out of the temple, he was long gone. Apparently communication wasn't 100% there. Ah, well. We enjoyed our special time at the temple anyway.

And apparently, I fell over again.

After that, we drove towards Antigua.

Along the way, we found the church where the Antigua mission home is (which is actually in a town a few minutes outside of Antigua itself). Linette had a friend she worked with at A Child's Hope Foundation whose son was serving in that mission, so she sent a package down with us and Linette delivered it to him. He was happy to get it, and we were happy to unload it. :)

Antigua

While all of this was going on, the Kartchners drove to Antigua, got checked into our AirBnB, and started exploring.

Antigua (meaning "old") was the 3rd capital of Guatemala. The first one kept getting attacked by Kaqchikel uprisings, and the second one got wiped out by a violent pyroclastic slurry flow from a volcano. So Antigua became the capital in 1543, and was called Santiago de los Caballeros. Over the next 200 years, many beautiful churches, convents, hospitals and schools were built, often in the Spanish Boroque style. However, due to its proximity to several volcanoes, there were frequent small tremors and several major earthquakes that repeatedly destroyed much of the city.

The earthquakes of 1717 were severe enough that they thought of moving the capital again, but enough people protested the move that it didn't happen. But after the 1773 earthquakes knocked over much of the city, a royal decree went out to move the capital to present-day Guatemala City in 1776. Since then, they called this the "old town", or "Antigua".

Since that time, Antigua has been hit was hit with a huge earthquake in 1874 (one person reported of horizontal and vertical waves of movement that raised the ground by a foot as the waves passed by), as well as 8.3- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes in 1942 and 1976, respectively. Those are still spoken of by those who remember them or who heard their relatives talk about them.

Church of Candelaria Ruins

Here's Sharon with one of the infamous "Chicken Busses". These are surplus school busses from America that are fixed up and decked out with fancy paint jobs, stereos and often blinking lights to attract business.

The Kartchners hiked up to the Cerro de la Cruz ("Hill of the Cross") for a view of the city.

The viewpoint was under construction, so they had to sort of view around that.

I love how this picture shows a combination of the beautiful construction and terrible destruction, which both speak to the history of this place.

Iglesia de Santa Rosa de Lima

There are interesting old buildings everywhere you look in this town.

Jason at Convento Capuchinas

Linette, Jared, Sienna and I eventually met the Kartchners at the AirBnB and got a tour of this beautiful home. The bedrooms and kitchen have doors that open onto a covered walkway that surrounds a courtyard in the center.

There's a cute fountain in the courtyard and it looks like the newer home integrated existing walls from earlier construction, which gives the place a charming look.

Here you can see that one of the cars is visible from the walkway.

If you walk to that car and turn left, you end up in this beautiful living room, without even opening a door! The weather is so nice all year, that they can just leave it open to the outside. This part of Guatemala is sometimes called the "land of the eternal spring." (There is a screen mat that can be pulled down to keep bugs and birds out when not in use).

And opposite the living room is the dining room--again, with no door separating it from the outdoor courtyard and breezeway.

The spiral stairs took us up to a roof top area.

From there, you could look at the surrounding area.

Gargoyles watched over the courtyard (and spouted water when it rained). It was a delightful place.

Once we were settled, we all headed out to explore the town. We went into one market where everyone had a "special price just for you." I love the vibrant colors of Guatemalan textiles, so it was fun to see what they had.

Mercado de Artesanias El Carmen

This particular market (Mercado de Artesanias El Carmen) was next door to Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de El Carmen. A structure was first built here in 1638, but it was destroyed in the 1651 earthquake. A new church was built in 1686, but it suffered extensive damage in the 1717 San Miguel earthquake. A new building was completed in 1728, and was used until the massive earthquake in 1773, at which point the capital was moved elsewhere, and it was apparently never rebuilt after that.

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de El Carmen

At the market, Linette bought a little backpack so that she would have something smaller than her huge one to carry around town.

Linette's new bolsa

The roads around town were so bumpy that it was painful to drive on them, so we never used our car until it was time to leave. It was interesting to see one of their cobblestone roads being rebuilt, using rows of carefully-placed smooth stones and then more random stones put in between.

We thought about touring a historic house called Casa Popenoe, but it was too tricky to figure out how to get an appointment, so we just took a picture of this interesting wooden window cover.

The streets were bumpy and sometimes narrow, so motorcycles and scooters were very popular there.

Our next stop was the San Francisco Cathedral.

The San Francisco El Grande, as it is called, was built in 1579 and expanded and strengthened in 1684, which allowed it to withstand the 1691 earthquake, but it was damaged severely by the 1717 and 1751 earthquakes and partly destroyed in the big 1773 one. It has been reconstructed in parts, but areas of ruin still remain.

It is pretty inside, and we enjoyed a quiet moment where we could enjoy the surroundings and sit and ponder for a while.

Convent of Santa Clara

Our next stop was the Convent of Santa Clara. It was built in 1699, and, you guessed it, destroyed by the 1717 earthquake. But the nuns quickly rebuilt it and used it until it was wrecked again by the 1773 earthquake, at which point they finally abandoned it.

Although it is no longer in use, there are still many beautiful arches and passageways.

Even just the old walls with moss-covered stumps of former pillars provide interesting photo opportunities.

I love the intersecting arches and stairways.

Guatemala doesn't really have the four seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter. Instead, it has a "dry season" and a "rainy season". We were there during the rainy season, and the forecast called for thunderstorms every day of our trip in all of our locations. However, it was very often quite nice for most of the day and then rainy for just a bit in the afternoon. So we took ponchos to deal with the rain when it hit, and it didn't slow us down much.

Here Shaylee poses under the double arches.

I loved the main courtyard that was surrounded by the remains of arched walls.

Some of the surviving architecture shows how ornately the structure was decorated back in the day.

We ended up hiring a guide to give us a tour of the site.

He didn't turn out to speak much English, so Linette translated most of the tour.

"THIS", he said dramatically, "was the KITCHEN!" He told about how hundreds of nuns lived here, and hundreds of monks lived elsewhere, and it made me sad that they never got to have families.

We seemed to be seeing a combination of stone, brick and mortar that was assembled and reconstructed over the centuries to stabilize it.

These pigeons almost look like they're built into the wall.

I loved seeing various arches everywhere we looked.

Here you can see the volcano above the walls.

So cool.

Jared took a picture of the opening at the top of the dome.

This section had cool arches that were open to the sky, plus some holes in the floor that went down to some underground areas. It used to be the public church portion of the convent.

We all went and took a peek at the underground areas, which had dirt floors. (Maybe people were buried there?)

We saw a princess while we were there! (Actually, a gal in a quinceañera dress was doing a photo shoot in these beautiful surroundings)

By the way, almost everyone on the trip took some of the pictures that I'm using in this report. We all pooled our pictures together and I aligned them and chose the best ones to include here. So thank you to Sharon, Roger, Mike, Linette, Jared and the other kids for their pictures. In many cases, many of us got basically the same shot, but sometimes one stood out, like the one Sharon took above.

From upstairs, you can look down on the tops of many of the arched walls, and see the lush green hills in the distance.

It was cool to see the volcano through this little "port hole" in the wall upstairs.

The upstairs also contained part of an old baptismal basin used for sprinkling. Someone apparently stole the other half. Not sure how useful either half is at this point...

I liked the circular patterns in the ceiling as well.

From up there, the view of the church room was cool.

The view over the arched walls really was fantastic.

In fact, this appears to be the place where my mom, Jean Merrill had her picture taken 64 years ago in 1958, when she traveled to Guatemala with her parents.

We couldn't find the exact arch that she was in (and, in fact, there was another massive earthquake in 1976, so perhaps that arch is no longer there!). But we attempted to recreate the scene as best we could.

Then we just took a whole mess of pictures among the arches and fountain.

My grandparents, Malcolm & Thelma Merrill, had taken a picture in front of this same fountain back in 1956.

Thelma & Malcolm Merrill

Convent of Santa Clara. Antigua, Guatemala.

September 1956.

A few more pictures with the arches...

Finally, Sienna and her horse decided it was time to go and find something to eat!

So we ate at a nice restaurant called "Como Como" (which is kind of a pun that could mean "how I eat")

The food was very tasty.

The restaurant had the classic peeing boy fountain.

On the way back to the house, we passed by the "Union Tank" where people sometimes gather to wash their clothes, using the built-in stone washboards.

Everywhere we went, we could see the Volcanoes looking down on the city. It was cloudy earlier on, and then clear in the afternoon.

It had been a long day that pretty much started the previous morning in Utah without really any sleep in between, so it felt great to relax a bit that evening, including on the roof patio of the house.

The courtyard looked cool at night.

Here's Mikayla doing her Fiddler on the Roof impression on the roof.

As was the case for most of our trip, the rain clouds made the sunsets kind of subtle, but still nice.

Here's a view that Sharon caught the next morning from the roof of the surrounding volcanoes.

The courtyard was a nice place to "gazeeb" (read scriptures in the morning).

This tree growing out of the wall was pretty cool.

Several of us headed out that morning to find some food for breakfast. Here Sharon carries her bread Guatemala style.

As we walked along, we saw another girl all decked out in a huge dress for her quinceañera (the huge party they have for a girl when she turns 15).

The entrance to this home had cool murals of Antigua and Guatemala.

Sharon suddenly pointed out that the volcano was erupting! I thought, "Hmm...Can you say, 'Vesuvius'?" Fortunately, that was as far as the eruption went this time.

We walked through the central square on the way back to the house, and came across this lady who looked awesome with her traditional outfit, huge pile of things for sale, and especially her tall stack of hats balanced on her head.

She let Sharon take her picture and then Sharon bought a bunch of stuff from her to help lighten her load.

Meanwhile, this guy kept trying to sell me a flute or drum thingy. I pointed out that the flute didn't have enough notes on it to play actual music, but he continued demonstrating him playing several random notes. It took a while to shake him and he came back a couple times.

I loved the archways in the buildings surrounding the central square.

Back at the house, we ate breakfast of bread, yogurt and some outstanding orange juice.

From the kitchen, you could step out of the window onto a ledge where people could sit to eat.

People were having fun playing games at the house, and we sort of wished we could stay and do that for a while, but alas, the weather forecast said it would be nice for a couple of hours and then "100% chance of rain" after that. So we headed out while it was still nice out.

Our first stop was the iconic Santa Catalina Arch.

It was built in the 1600s, and the clock was added in 1830. Somehow it is still standing!

Linette bought some stuff from this gal.

Here's another gal who "wears many hats," and some traditional folks hanging out on the corner.

And before we left, there were many selfies and such.

There was a storage area nearby, behind a metal gate, where there were a bunch of Biblical-looking statues, likely for some sort of parade.

Sharon bought a little painting from this guy after watching him paint for a bit.

We went into a textile market, where there was a wonderful variety of handmade textiles from around Guatemala. Each Mayan village has their own distinctive pattern and set of colors. When we took pictures of the costumes of kids at the cultural celebration before the Quetzaltenango temple dedication in 2011, the lady at our bed & breakfast looked at our pictures and immediately identified where each costume was from, without the slightest hesitation.

The textiles from one area are not all identical--each person weaves in their own personal symbols and such. So it is a fascinating combination of traditional colors and patterns integrated with their own imagination and personal or spiritual symbols.

I was always wondering if there was a catalog of fabrics from the various areas, but I haven't found one online. This store was the closest thing I had seen, because it had textiles from each area labeled with where it was from. I took pictures of most of them, but here are just a few.

The place also had brightly colored wooden masks.

Jason

Jared

Sienna

Randy

The place was really colorful.

Outside, I thought it was adorable when this little girl, wearing a tiny traditional outfit, spoke to her mom with her little munchkin voice.

I think Sharon was up on the curb, but still, she looked really tall.

We walked a couple blocks up to Iglesia de la Merced, a yellow, 17th-century church. Most of us were wearing shorts and thus were not allowed inside, but a few of the gals went in to take a peek.

San Jeronimo

Meanwhile, the guys walked over to the college of San Jeronimo, which was built in 1757, and destroyed in the 1773 earthquake.

It had a nicely maintained courtyard and fountain, and stairs you could climb up to look down on the place.

Here's Jared in the archway with the stairs.

And here is Sienna hanging out with the purple flowers and the tree that seems to be growing out of the wall.

Mikayla and Jared often do this pose. The fun thing about this picture is that you can just barely see Sienna in the archway clear over on the other side of the ruin doing the same pose! :)

It was a small but surprisingly nice spot.

Jared strikes another dramatic pose.

Mikayla's turn in the arch.

We're pretty sure this guy in the garden was just sleeping...

Sienna gathered some purple flowers to put in people's hair.

Our family keeps debating what color "periwinkle" is. I think it is precisely this color.

Convento la Recoleccion

Our next stop was the Convento la Recoleccion, which was a church and monastery constructed beginning in 1701. On May 23, 1717, the church was inaugurated. Four months later, the massive 1717 damaged the building. How sad to go to all that work and only get to use the structure for four months before it gets broken!

It was repaired by about 1740 and housed 35 friars, but it was damaged by a 1751 earthquake and destroyed by the 1773 one. Since that time, people have hauled off portions of the rubble to build other structures.

What remains, though, is an interesting mix of arches, stairs, rooms and rubble.

There are a plethora of ruined pieces of the church to climb on.

Sienna found a customer for her flowers.

It was strange seeing bits of decoration beneath a massive chunk of material.

You can see cracks in the parts that didn't happen to fall yet.

It was a cool backdrop for pictures.

Linette wanted to play a game, so we settled on "Sardines", where one person hides, and everyone else tries to find them. When they do, they hide with the person. As more and more people do that, they're all smashed together like sardines, and it becomes easier to find them (and more giggly). The last person to find them is "it" and hides during the next round.

Jason hid first.

The group continued to grow as more of us discovered it.

Mike was the last to find us.

Mike hid next.

Sienna finally found the rest of us.

Sienna hid in a Very Small Spot.

After we found her, we found that Sienna was a tad dirty.

Another section of the ruins had more complete structures. (Watch out, Shaylee! That first step is a doosie!)

Here is Shaylee doing a silhouette shot in that upstairs doorway.

There were bats in the top of the dome.

I'm not quite sure why these ruins are so beautiful, but there's just something mystical and artistic about them.

Here you can see some of the ornate detail that used to cover these walls.

There was a big grassy area out front.

We enjoyed visiting the Convento la Recoleccion and playing there.

Everyone got one last picture on the way out.

We tried to decide where to eat that night, and the main place I didn't want to eat was the restaurant that had this dish shown on Google Maps.

We waited too long to start finding somewhere to eat, so we couldn't afford to wander around looking for a place, so we decided to eat at Wendy's by the main plaza. There was a whole upstairs room we could eat in.

We visited the main square again, and again enjoyed the colorful vendors selling their colorful wares.

Mike and Jason got matching friendship bracelets.

I didn't wear my gold wedding ring on this vacation, so Linette got me a beautiful dark green jade ring to use in its place. "Look, we're married!" she said.

The Royal Palace of the Captains General faces the main plaza, and its arches are impressive.

We decided to visit the cemetery that evening as well.

We had heard that the mausoleums were really colorful there, but it turned out that they were all white, so I'm not sure where I heard that from.

In Guatemala and many other places, you rent the cemetery space rather than expect to keep it forever. When nobody is still around who is willing or able to pay for the space, it is demolished and the room is made available for someone else.

This wall is apparently for more budget-minded burials.

Nearby was a market that is aimed at the locals rather than the tourists, so they sell things like regular shoes, vegetables, etc.

Next to the market was the bus area where all the Chicken Busses were lined up, ready to take all the vendors home at the end of the day.

About that time, the promised rain finally unleashed, and we headed back to the house along dripping rooflines and flooded streets.

The cobblestone streets had the advantage that they were uneven enough that you could usually find a way through the street that avoided the deep puddles.

We were a bit damp by the time we got home.

The gargoyles were spewing water from the roof.

Everyone laughed when Mike looked like he "unwet" his pants, where only the outsides were wet.

We ordered pizza and had it delivered to the house, since nobody wanted to go out in the rain (and we were trying to avoid being out at dark anyway, for safety's sake). This gave us an opportunity to use the formal dining room. It was fun eating in there while the rain poured just around the corner through the open doorway.

Here are some of the souvenirs that people got.

The next morning, everything was dry and pretty again.

Linette hadn't gotten a traditional breakfast yet (eggs, black beans, and fried platanos [plantains, like bananas]), so we went to a highly-rated place to get one.

I got eggs inside a crepe, which was great, and got an amazing smoothie.

One last thing we wanted to see that morning was "The Church and School and Society of Jesus" (Antiguo Colegio de la Compañía de Jesús).

It is a complex that was built in the 1690s. It, too, was cracked by the 1717 earthquakes, but rebuilt nicely. Then the 1751 earthquake destroyed the roof of the church, and once again it was rebuilt better than new. It got pretty much knocked over by the 1773 earthquakes, though, and was later used as a market until 1992, at which point it was restored to its current state as a museum.

One hallway is lined with paintings by local artists.

This painting of Lake Atitlán reminded me a lot of the painting done by my grandmother, Thelma Merrill.

Here is the painting that she did.

Thelma Holdaway Merrill, 1978, in front of her painting of Lake Atitlán.

There were also some ancient ceramics and other artifacts to see there.

As we walked out of there, we saw this lady selling shirts and cloth. I really liked the deep purples and blues, so we bought a shirt and table runner from her. It turned out that she was from San Antonio Palopó, on Lake Atitlán, which is exactly where we were going to be staying that night!

I had not yet made it into the cathedral that faced the central plaza, so we stepped in there on the way back to the house.

Several infant baptisms were going on that morning, so it was interesting to see the little ones all in white. The indigenous people all seemed to sit in the same section off to the left of the main hall.

We cleared out the fridge, and Mikayla helped out by downing the last of the orange juice.

There was a wooden mannequin in the parking area between the living room and dining room, and he sort of startled us every time we walked by. The kids named him "Juan Carlos". Here is Sienna's tribute to him.