| Apr 26, 2006 - Guatemala City day trip
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 | | show all 5 | | Scale model of Tikal inside the national archeological museum | | Close-up of one stela at the national archeological museum | | The National Palace | | |
| | We took a half day tour around Guatemala City today. After all the times that we have passed through the beast, we figured we may as well see what was inside. The archeological museum has a really cool collection of Mayan stelae, ceramics, jade, and other crafts, but it has few signs to describe what you are looking at (it would probably be too dark inside the museum to read signs, anyway). The capital has a very large public square in the center of town with a couple of old colonial buildings around it. The old presidential palace is a museum now, but, ironically, was closed to the public today because the current pres was using it for some official business. I wish he would make up his mind. Next we visited a bizarre but inspiring gigantic relief map of Guatemala that was built in 1902. We are thinking of creating a relief map of our own; how about one of Missouri in our backyard? I am sure the $5 admission would be well worth it. We also saw (from a distance) some of the slums that ring the city. The capital has a population of 3-4 million and a large portion of those folks live in the slums. Many are refugees from the years of civil war and many more have exchanged being poor in the country for being poor in the city. I am not sure that was a fair exchange. |
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