Antigua

On arrival into Guatemala City airport at 5.15am we both agreed that in hindsight doing yet another overnight flight was a mistake. We staggered our way through the customs and immigration process, which after the US seemed a breeze but that's largely due to the fact that every form and check point we went through the officers seemed just as half-asleep as we did! As we climbed into a shuttle bus to take us to Antigua the sun was appearing and as we drove out of the smoggy, traffic clogged roads of Guatemala City we got our first taste of the countryside - it's naturally very beautiful!

An hour later we arrived into Antigua, a town of approximately 35,000 people with cobbled streets, rows of pastel coloured buildings and more churches, convents, parks and squares than you can shake a tortilla at! Even in the short drive through the town to our hotel we both agreed the town is every bit as beautiful as we'd been told and read about in blogs, guidebooks and tourist magazines. We were excited to explore it, but first we needed sleep!

Fast forward to midday and still bleary eyed we went for a walk, passing through the cobbled lanes and under Arco de Santa Catalina (an arch that passes over the road, built so the nuns of the convent could cross without being seen by the public!) before we arrived at Parque Central. Here there were dozens of locals chatting on benches in the shade of the blossom-filled trees with the splashing of the fountain in the background. It's a really beautiful place and is ringed with governmental buildings, not that you'd recognise them as such. We took a staircase up to a balcony of the city hall which gave a brilliant view of the square, through the arched walkway.

Having explored some more of the centre we stopped for lunch in a quaint restaurant that we believe either doubled as a shop, or it was a shop before becoming a restaurant - our Spanish isn't good enough yet to ask or figure it out! We had a good surprise in the menu and couldn't not order the cheese fondue, which it turns out is sold everywhere and is amazing! For dessert we crossed the street to Chocomuseo (no prizes for guessing their specialty) where we had brownie, local coffee and a DIY hot chocolate while sitting in their shaded courtyard. It was a good place to relax and we enjoyed a couple of hours there, before we made for the roof terrace of our hotel to watch the sunset. Sadly it began to rain so the sunset wasn't really to be, and I was feeling very rundown with man flu so we called it a night.

The following morning after a light breakfast we went back to Chocomuseo for their discovery class. Our tutor, Edwin, began with teaching us the history of cacao, from the Mayan era right up to the 19th century European adaptation that is what we would now recognise as chocolate. This background set us up well for what we'd be doing next, which was to prepare locally grown cacao beans and then to create three drinks from it. First we roasted the beans over fire on a comal, a round clay disk which is more commonly used to cook tortilla. By hand we then removed the husks which is best compared to removing peanuts from their shells - these were then added to boiling water to create a simple cacao tea, which whilst bitter, tasted great and had the aftertaste you get from dark chocolate.

The second drink we made used the cacao beans which we ground using a mortar and pestle. Edwin gave commentary to the race between our group, and with his expertise his water the smoothest by far although Beth's was also pretty good! A reward for the hard work was a sample of a few of the chocolates their chefs had made - delicious! All of our cacao pastes were added together and rolled into a small log like shape. Edwin explained that when famous conquistador Herman Cortez arrived into Mayan lands he was presented with something similar to what we had just created, as cacao was a very valuable commodity (1 bean = 1 tomato, 3 = 1 small rabbit, 10 = the service of a lady-of-the-night). Cortez refused the gift however, as the cacao looks a lot like an animal's poo! The Mayan's would also add blood to their chocolatey drinks as part of ceremonies - no thanks!

Anyway this didn't put us off and it was added to hot water, then cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, chilli powder and pepper were added to it to create the drink that all Mayan people enjoyed. Even with all the spices the overriding taste was of chocolate, with a very definite spicy aftertaste. It was very tasty, but the third drink was our favourite as this was simply cacao paste combined with hot milk, water and sugar - European style hot chocolate. An important part of the process for this was to froth it up using a wooden whisk-whisk like instrument that is spun between the palms of your hands, which was good fun.

Finally we used melted chocolate to create our own chocolates, adding to it caramelised orange peel, Oreo, cacao nibs and other tasty additions. An hour in the fridge and the chocolates were ready, Beth's smiley faces and my pineapple, strawberry and apple shapes. They're all delicious and look professional, of course, although they taste entirely different to European style chocolate as there is very little sugar and milk in it! Interestingly we learnt that white chocolate contains only cocoa butter and no cacao, so technically it's not chocolate at all!

We spent the afternoon exploring more of the town as even just walking down their 'normal streets' was an experience in itself. We discovered another couple of squares where locals were meeting to relax, chat and enjoy food from carts that set up from the mid-afternoon onwards. Dusk was clear skied so we sat on the roof terrace, with the colourful town feeling very small when we looked out at the volcanoes that ring the town. The sky changed colour through a palette of oranges, reds and purples before the town began to light up welcoming our final night in the town. A short walk from the hotel took us to the courtyard of a restaurant that was lowly lit by lanterns and candles, with hundreds of flowers in thick garlands overhead. The ambience was great, but the food wasn't however. We've learnt very quickly that a strong Spanish vocabulary is needed as English is very limited and this meant the Guatemalan dishes we ordered tasted unusual to us and we're still not entirely certain what it was we ate!

We'd still enjoyed our final evening in our first Guatemalan town and the next day as our shuttle bus arrived to pick us up we didn't quite feel ready to leave Antigua, but partly that's due to the bumpy journey ahead of us!

PhilRead more