Sunday, January 10, 2016

Slow Down

I wish the cars would as I try to cross two lanes of traffic to walk home. I wish the cashier at the grocery would as I try to recall Spanish phrases to my memory. But for the first time in months, I'm not repeating this phrase to myself.

I wander through the parque central and sit on the curb to listen to a marimba band. I laze in a hammock and devour yet another book. I meander down the streets and poke my head into shops. I push my way through busy stalls in the market. I drink coffee and chat with people about suggestions for my visit to Guatemala.


For the last several days I have been telling people that I'm not sure if the time change or the climate has been a bigger shock. I had to relocate my sunglasses, somehow not broken after five months in the bottom of my backpack. I walked around barefoot and wondered if I'd only dreamed about the snow a week ago. I wasn't entirely joking when I asked people what the bright thing in the sky, trying so hard to burn my pale skin, was called.

Brief twilight on the solstice

Sunny skies and a new city 

Maybe it's the sunshine, coupled with the jet lag, that justifies my naps in the hammock. Maybe it's the language. I can't rush here - I don't have the words for the questions I want to ask. And I'm not leaving until I've asked. But overwhelmingly I feel that it would be wrong to rush here. That I'd miss the point. There's too much joy in just being here. Watching kids sell candy and the colorful blur of women in woven skirts selling scarves. The amount of color is nearly as disorienting as the sunshine that first day. The shouts of vendors in the market. The smoke rising lazily up from Fuego, one of the three volcanoes visible from town. Wondering what mysteries lie behind each door on the busy streets, and entering one to find a green, shady oasis. The myriad of couples holding hands in the park. The smell of frying tortillas.


Antigua is not a big city. Most of it is contained in about nine walkable blocks of seemingly identical red, yellow, orange, and white single-story houses lining cobbled streets. Yet the charm isn't simply in seeing it. You slip into this place. You watch the sun sink, and the lights on the trees in the plaza brighten. A slip of a girl pass by holding her older sister's hand. You listen to the band and watch a solitary elderly couple dance in the park. Without trying, you slow down.

The inevitable question to a traveler: how long will you be here?

Until it's time to go.


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