We’re wandering the cobbled streets of Antigua, keeping to the shaded side, avoiding a hot sun carried on a blinding light. Incredulous at how the Chicken buses have been tamed by the random, irregular cobble setts; literally the only occasion that I’ve seen one reduced to a crawl. One is even being out-manouvered by two pizza delivery motos. (I do wonder if the cheese topping is stuck to the bread’s base or the box’s lid)

True to form, we have little itinerary, happy to wander, playing the serendipity lottery, which is how we end up in the earthquake-damaged cathedral. Finding an accessible, damaged, unrepaired ecclesiastical building in Latin America is a feat; post- any cataclysmic event it seems to be amongst the first buildings to arise from out of its own rubble. Being in a state of ruin means that it’s possible to see, to appreciate what’s behind the plaster, under the paintings, hidden beneath the draped fabrics that adorns these great buildings. There’s an element of deja-vú; the floor plan equates all too neatly to so many of Scotland’s religious ancient monuments. The same sweeping interlacing arches, the same impedimenta of ritual, the same plays of lights and shadows, and despite the damage, there’s still some tantalising fragments, traceries of plaster detail, fading geometrical paintwork and one column left exactly as it landed after the 17th century shake. With the exception of the latter, the similarities should be no surprise, they all have the same Vaticanical antecedent, it’s just that one was destroyed by an unpredictable nature the other by a disgruntled English king.

As you leave the ‘quaked church, the parochial offices are symmetrically etched against Volcán de Agua, a perfect, reposed, extinct cone, that flies a tethered cloud. Then, on turning the street corner, its near neighbour sends a grubby plume, a smoke of gritty ash through the pristine white lenticular cloud cap that clings to it’s summit. We’ll cycle down between these two on our descent to the coast, getting excited by the active vulcanology, even getting to participate in a taste testing – ingesting a few pecks worth of Volcán Fuego’s erupted innards, scoured dust carried on a violent tailwind that comes roaring down from its slopes. A micro-climate nfluenced katabatic wind that out-trumps the more traditional nor’easter trade winds that will suddenly reassert as that predictable cyclist’s headwind, further along the road.

These sudden erupting winds, like the perpetually erupting gradients and the on-going erupting volcanoes are going to be part of the lasting Guatemalan memories.