On the road in Antigua, Guatemala: Red is the colour in this land of rum and lava

 

I wait by the wall, camera in hand, for someone to walk by. I've always liked walls, and this one would make an especially red backdrop. The early morning sun casts shadows across cracking layers of alternating care and neglect, and I begin to see shapes in the shades: pentimento flames in the gradations of red.

Red is an important colour in Guatemala. Here, in the calm beauty of Antigua, the old capital, three volcanoes loom on the horizon. We climb Pacaya to find red lava spewing slowly and silently, the world slowly turning itself inside out. Near the fissures the grey crust of rock is thin and brittle, breaking underfoot in sharp shards to reveal hot flesh below. This impermanence of rock is unsettling, this nearness to the red blood and flesh of the planet under the soles of our feet is disorientating, troubling; all sorts of certainties are undermined.

To the west, high up in the cooler cloud forest, I visit the Zacapa factory for rum ageing in Quetzaltenango. A man is scorching an oak barrel to bring out the flavours, putting flames and smoke into a drink that already tastes of wood and caramel and chocolate and spice as well as forest fruits and rich volcanic soil.

Rum has a poor reputation in the United Kingdom, but this is a heady, complex, rust-red world of taste away from rum and raisin, rum and Coke. We eat meat seared in rum and desserts doused in rum; we drink rum with everything. Everything tastes of rum and rum tastes of everything.

Trying to get to the heart of the matter, we chew sticky sugar cane in a humid, fertile plantation near the Pacific Ocean. But the magic complications of the drink are not easily detectable in its virgin ingredients.

On our last night in Guatemala we drive through bleak poverty to stay in a modern hotel in Guatemala City. Downstairs there is a casino, loud and glitzless and filled with desperate people losing money. At the roulette wheel I put my chips on black. The ball lands on red.

We stay up all night and drink rum.

Footprint's Central America Handbook (£16.99) and Guatemala Focus guide (£8.99) are available now

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Independent Travel Videos
Independent Travel Videos
Simon Calder in Amsterdam
Independent Travel Videos
Simon Calder in Giverny
Independent Travel Videos
Simon Calder in St John's
Independent Travel Videos
News in pictures
World news in pictures
       
Independent
Travel Shop
Imperial Cities of Morocco
Seven nights half-board from only £799pp Find out more
Historic Sicily
Seven nights half-board from £799pp Find out more
4* all-inclusive Crete
Seven nights from only £399pp Find out more

ES Rentals

    Independent Dating
    and  

    By clicking 'Search' you
    are agreeing to our
    Terms of Use.

    Day In a Page

    Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

    Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

    In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
    Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

    Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

    Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
    Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

    Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

    She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
    Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

    Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

    The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
    Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

    Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

    The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
    'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

    Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

    The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
    Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

    Written on the body

    Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
    Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

    Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

    The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
    A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

    Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

    The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
    Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

    Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

    A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
    Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

    Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

    Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
    Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

    Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

    You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
    The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

    The Calvin report

    Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
    10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

    10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

    Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
    The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

    The Last Word

    Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally