Central Park - a green space in the center of the city.

Linda

Growing right outside my door

 Central Park - a green space in the center of the city.

These are photos of Central Park taking from the balcony of the municipal building which borders one side of the park. This is what the park looks like Monday through Thursday. Starting Friday afternoon people start pouring into the city and this park looks like a disturbed ant hill. The traffic in the streets triples both vehicular and foot traffic. Shopping at the grocery stores becomes a real trial and even the mercado has too many people. Surprisingly all of the 'tourist' shops are never packed full of people. I would be hard pressed to say that those small shops really make more money on weekends because I never see that much traffic increase IN the shops. Restaurants seem to flourish as well as hotels, hostels and apartment leasing increases. The sidewalks are packed with people.

I have never seen park maintenance mowing or trimming the green space in the middle of the city. There are other smaller parks including one near us that has blooming flowers in it and is cared for and watered. Most of Antigua is covered in cobblestone and if I had to speculate I would say that is done to deal with the rainy season. The cobblestone is also historic and cannot be 'paved' as other cities have done.

The cathedral borders Central Park as well and is the noisiest church to attend. If there is an event planned they just go right ahead with it and do not hold off until AFTER church services. Ice cream vendors are a particular annoyance  as they ring their silly little bells until you are ready to throttle them. We do not buy ice cream from these vendors because there was a time last year when people got sick from them.