Norbert Haupt

Touring Guatemala City and Antigua, visiting the sights of the city, traveling around the country, I would not help but feel that the Guatemalan people are beaten by centuries of torture of all possible kinds.

The country is filled with old missions, churches, monasteries and mansions, and not one of them seems intact. Everything old, and much new, is in utter ruin.

I grew up in Germany, the “old country,” in a small and ancient city named Regensburg. Traces of the city were there over 2,000 years ago, before the Romans arrived and built the first fortress there called Castra Regina. Regensburg has 17 churches, many of them hundreds of years old and none of them ruined. I might note that the city was fortunate to not have been the victim of Allied carpet bombing during World War II, and many of its ancient treasures are still preserved. My point is, the city is very old, and all the old stuff is there to see, live in, worship in, and generally enjoy.

The old buildings in Guatemala have all been destroyed, some of them many times over. The country has 37 volcanos, eight of them active today. When we were there, Fuego, the volcano just outside Antigua, which last had erupted in June 2018, was spewing flames and smoke every 10 or 15 minutes.

We just waited a few minutes, and sure enough, there would be a plume (see arrow) and we would be able to photograph it. Then, four days after we left, Fuego erupted again, and thousands more people living on its slopes were evacuated. Volcano eruptions have devastated Antigua and many other cities and villages in Guatemala routinely, consistently and devastatingly. Ash, lava, fire, landslides, mudslides, and flashfloods, all stemming from volcanic activity, have ruined cities, homes and killed thousands of people with brutal regularity.

When it wasn’t a volcano, it was an earthquake. Guatemala experiences frequent and severe earthquakes. Being a Californian myself, I can relate to that, but I have to say that I have never experienced any actual damage from an earthquake. I hope my writing this does not evoke one. In Guatemala, however, buildings are not always constructed based on the same building codes we have in California, and a quake that would make our cupboards shake and rattle in our house, might completely collapse a Guatemalan church or monastery. The last significant earthquake hit Guatemala City on February 4, 1976 at 3:04am. 23,000 people died. Many were crushed in their adobe homes in their sleep.

Extreme poverty and inept leadership then resulted in things not being rebuilt. So you walk around the city and you find it dotted with ruins of buildings, sometimes not even fenced in, where the rocks that fell out of walls decades ago are still on the ground, weeds and bushes growing over them, and trees growing inside the walls of a church were the pews once stood centuries ago.

Then there are hurricanes that have beaten over the ravaged country, coming in from both directions, the Caribbean as well as the Pacific side. Here is a list of many of the hurricanes.

Before the 1500s, when the Spanish had not yet arrived, the Mayans were the people tortured by volcanos, earthquakes and hurricanes. Then came the Spaniards, and in their thirst for Mayan jade and gold, enslaved the people, brought murder, rape, slavery and diseases. The Mayan people were then tortured by volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes and the invaders and conquerors from Europe. They died by the millions at the hands of the conquistadores and from their diseases.

Then, most recently, came the Gringos and their thirst for drugs. They spawned crime from the drug trade. Cartels took over the desperate villages, where lack of opportunities for the young and hungry caused them to join whatever promised a way to make a few coins to feed their children and provide a semblance of hope.

And all the while, the volcanos and earthquakes never stop.

Guatemala is a tortured nation, and the Guatemalan people are a tortured people. And they deal with it with grace, pride, and smiling faces. I learned a lot about life and happiness during this visit.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrowmindedness … and many of our people need it solely on these accounts.

— Mark Twain

The Guatemalan people have earned my respect forever.

After two weeks of miserable conditions, the rains on Wednesday finally cleared up the smoke just in time for the holiday. The city breathes again. Happy Thanksgiving!

In the week we were in Guatemala, I never once felt at risk or uncomfortable. The people were always friendly and accommodating. Whether I knew it or not, I was probably “protected” as a tourist.

However, check out the picture above. The people in the center are members of our group. See the two men in black on the right side of the building? Those are armed guards.

The picture above is in front of a bank.

Here is a guard at a convenience store at a gas station. He was very friendly and held the door open to any patron that walked up to it.

The guards are also never shy about posing with tourists. There is quite a bit of that going on all the time.

It became quickly obvious that any business of significance required armed guards. Banks usually had two or three heavily armed guards, with full battle uniforms and bullet-proof vests. Hotels, restaurants, gas stations, car dealerships, and many other retail businesses had armed guards. I didn’t count them, but just riding in a shuttle from Guatemala City to Antigua, which is a very industrial stretch, I am sure I saw hundreds of armed guards in front of businesses.

We went to visit a coffee plantation.

The Filadelfia Estate is owned by the family of Robert Dalton. The plantation was started in 1870 and Dalton is the 4th generation owner. It’s a huge farm and I learned a lot about coffee that I never knew. I will not ever look at a coffee bean the same way again. But I digress.

We took a tour of the plantation. At one point, we stopped and the guide explained the harvesting of coffee beans when I looked over and saw a huge wall behind the trees.

The green shrubs in the foreground are coffee plants. The trees are shade trees that are necessary to protect the coffee. The wall is huge, with a chain link fence on top, and razor wire coils above that. At the corner, there is a cluster of video surveillance equipment.

Looking in the other direction, the chain link fence is even higher. You can see the bars in the center of the image. This is on top of the wall.

We were obviously curious what’s behind that wall, so we asked the guide.

“The house of the owner” was the answer.

In the context of security, this is a frightening thought.

The owner of a large coffee plantation is obviously very rich. His house is probably beautiful and opulent, yet, nobody can see it since it’s behind a 20 foot high wall. Not only is it inside a wall, but it’s way in the middle of a plantation which is surrounded by fences, and a massive guard house with armed men protecting it 24 hours a day.

The owner has to basically imprison himself in concentric circles of security to be safe. I cannot imagine living this way. He must be in constant fear of being kidnapped, obviously, why otherwise would he imprison himself and his family.

Hotels in Guatemala are also interesting with regard to security. I wrote about that in another post.

 

We are used to hotels being nice, large buildings with stately portal entrances and parking lots on the side and manicured grounds around them. Not so in Guatemala.

We visited the very best hotel in Antigua, the Hotel Casa Santo Domingo , several times. Rooms run from US $300 to US $600 a night. From the outside, you cannot see the hotel. It’s just a high wall in the middle the city, on a shabby cobblestone street.

This is the entrance. I am the one of the right side, calling an Uber. You see the sidewalk we’re on is about two feet wide and the wall is about 12 feet high and surrounds an entire city block in Antigua. The street in front of it is narrow and cobblestone covered. When you walk through this door, you enter a different world. But first, there are armed guards. We never had any trouble getting past the guards, since we’re obviously foreign tourists and they know we’re coming to spend on a single dinner as much as their own average monthly salary.

But my point is – hotels are invisible from the outside, and they are guarded fortresses.

We stayed at two different hotels in Antigua. The first was Hotel La Ermita de Santa Lucia.

This is what it looks like from the main entrance at the street. Note the barred windows, the wall to the right, and the door. This door is locked all the time. To get in, you have to knock. Somebody comes to the door, after they inspect you through the lookout window.

Once inside, it’s a friendly courtyard with the rooms all around. The inside of this hotel makes you believe you are in a completely different world than what you see from the street. This seems to be the case in all of Guatemala.

This is another hotel where we stayed for a few days, el Hotel Casa San Bartolo. Yes, this is it. The door in the center is solid steel. You have to knock to be allowed in. The sidewalk is narrow.

Here is the view from our room. Note the barbed wire at the top of the wall.

Rich people (tourists) imprison themselves to enjoy life.

Trisha holding the setting sun at the Pacific coast of Guatemala.