Escaping to Another Era

Michele Woodey already so eloquently described the emotions La Antigua’s ruins evoke. In her Antigua Abstracted #3 post she wrote: “These are places where episodes of history become entangled with our dreams- where stories and fables are as intricately woven together as the creeping vegetation that threatens to overwhelm the architecture itself.” Yet, the very people of that “fabled history” are there, displaying their wares on the cobbled streets just as their ancestors did. The experience is surreal and I feel like I’ve stepped into a living painting. The entire city – with its colonial ornamentation and kaleidoscope of color – feels like a living painting. I know I have a fresh set of eyes but I just don’t think I’ll ever become weary of venturing out into the city each morning to find whimsical scenes such as these – scenes that I too get to color with my very own, unique hue. This certainly beats U.S. Midwest suburbia. The next time you pass by the Ruins of El Carmen, where the rainbow-colored wares of the Maya people are displayed under the looming, colonial fossil… I beg you to stop… breathe… and take a moment escape to another time, another era.

This city truly romances me like a lover…

text and photo by Laura McNamara

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