This colonial city is replete with history.  I have been walking around for the past three days and have encountered antiquity in every block, beginning with the cobble-stoned streets for which one must definitely wear sturdy shoes if doing much walking.  A few minutes ago I walked by a large crumbling structure that occupied half a city block and I noticed a metal plaque mounted high on a stone wall.  I edged closer to peer through the metal wrought-iron fence and read that in that building lived and wrote the conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who arrived on Mexico’s shores in 1519 with Hernan Cortez, one of the common soldiers who wrote a first-person account of the conquest of Mexico.  It took two years to subdue the Aztec empire.  Bernal Diaz ended up in Antigua, Guatemala’s first capital city, after participating in numerous battles subjugating and enslaving the original indigenous American inhabitants.  Tomorrow I leave for Lago de Atitlan, considered by many to be the most beautiful spot on the planet.