Our First Sunday in Antigua

Today was a beautiful day. After considering all twenty choices for Sunday Mass, we decided to go to the 10:00 am Mass at San Francisco El Grande, the biggest church in Antigua. Like in the past, the church was packed. The choir, which sang enthusiastically near the front of the church, was accompanied by a piano, a bass fiddle and a marimba. Everyone around us was very welcoming.

After Mass, we walked back to our casita, changed clothes and proceeded around the corner to a neighborhood restaurant for lunch.

After lunch, we walked towards the center of Antigua. On the way, we passed Tanque Union,

a public washing facility on the west side of Antigua. We've seen people actually washing their clothes here. These small tanks are called pilas and most homes have one. These are primarily for the poor, who don't, but lots of backpackers use them also.

Across the street from Tanque Union, I saw some illegal parking going on. (Note: the red painted curb indicates a no parking zone.

One of my objectives today was to see if I could find the home or business of the Financial Secretary of the Knights of Columbus Council in Antigua. I'll tell about that experience in a separate entry.

We walked on towards Parque Central to see what was going on. We were about two blocks away when we began to hear marimba music. When we arrived, we found that they were celebrating the Dia de la Marimba. Marimbas, by the way, are the national instrument of Guatemala.

As you can see, there was quite a crowd gathering.

We found seats and sat for about two hours, listening to wonderful marimba music by four or five different bands.

Two of the marimba bands were composed of female musicians, which is very unusual.

While watching the bands play, I noticed a young woman several rows in front of us who was wearing a tiarra.

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Now, I have a granddaughter, almost three years old, who is convinced that she is a princess. If you ask her how old she is, she will say "I a princess." I guess princesses don't tell their age.

Back to the young woman wearing the tiarra, it turned out that she was the Jade Queen of Guatemala. Obviously, she had connections.

By that time, the sun was rather hot, so we walked to the other side of the park where we found an Andean bank performing.

We then walked down Calle del Arco,

where we found another marimba band performing.

By this time, we needed a snack, so we headed over to the Bodegona to pick up some sodas and chips, which we took back to Parque Central to eat while listening to more marimba music.

We ended the day by having dinner at Pollo Campero (a Guatemalan version of KFC). When we had eaten, I texted Daniel, our tuk tuk driver, and asked him to pick us up. This time the wait was longer than before, but there was a lot of traffic, as Antigua is very congested on weekends. Finally, a tuk tuk appeard and a man got out, who asked us if we were waiting for Daniel to pick us up. We said we were and he told us that Daniel's tuk tuk had broken down, so Daniel had asked him to pick us up. I'm thinking that this driver might have been Daniel's dad, but I'm not sure.

All in all, it was a great day in a beautiful place, somewhat like a cross between Disney World and the Iowa State Fair.