After a day in Antigua Guatemala, you realize that your beautiful bride has been lying about her virginity.

You first lay your eyes on her, her unspoiled cobblestone curves, her plump plazas, the pastel blush of her houses, all seemingly unsullied by men. Then it hits you: is that a McDonald’s? A goddam Subway? Fuck me.

Serves me right for nursing illusions. This is, after all, the #1 destination for UK backpackers, according to some gringo publication. And a town where throngs of kids come to learn Spanish by day and forget it all at Reilly’s Irish pub at night.

Yes, many a men have been inside her before. On the other hand, you understand why she knows how to show you such a good time.

Antigua is a Cartesian grid of dollhouses, if dollhouses were made in the Spanish Baroque style. It’s a little too clean. The brightly-painted homes, cracked and peeled just enough to be endearing, are a little too elegant on the inside, housing posh restaurants with candle-lit tables.

But far be it for me to talk it down. It’s undeniably enchanting. Strolling down its warm-coloured streets offers hours of distraction to the lazy philosopher: do the tourists come because the colours are so vivid or are the colors so vivid because the tourists come? And then you turn a corner and stumble on a magnificent church, or the eerie ruins of a former one, and they will arrest your breath for a portentous few seconds. And reading a book in Parque Central, a leafy memorial to bygone glories, is a rare pleasure with no peer.

And then there’s the market. Christalmighty, how do you begin to describe it? It’s an endless covered maze of poorly-lit stalls, hundreds of them, selling anything from fruits to Mayan textiles to cell phone accessories to pirated DVDs. You feel like you’re navigating a claustrophobic cave with plastic and corrugated metal stalactites. I dare anyone to find the same stall twice without a compass and two days’ water.

And then night comes.The streets empty save for a few bars blasting Top 40 tunes, which, in this mountain town hugged by ancient volcanoes, an oasis of serenity in a mad world, is as fitting as a coke-frenzied gangster crashing a Zen meditation circle screaming, “Ram yo’ boooooooty!”

More photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/robroc1/GuatemalaWeek1