Momostenango

Momostenango market

One Sunday while we were staying in Xela we caught a series of buses to see the market day in Momostenango, a small town about an hour away. Momos has a reputation in the area for quality wool goods and sticking to the traditional Mayan ways; it sounded interesting.

An altar is hidden underneath this woman’s market wares.

Momos seemed like a nice little town, with well-kept buildings and a pretty plaza. From a couple of the many food stalls we managed to eat the worst tamales of our lives, and probably the best tostadas, so the street food situation was a wash. We toured the market for a while, which was big and colorful, but the wool goods were just the typical stuff we’d seen all over Guatemala. I’m a wool fan and was hoping for a little more.

So many people!

The funniest thing we saw during the day was watching a woman throw an orange slice at the back of another woman’s head as she walked past. When the victim turned around, the other woman turned away and pretended nothing happened. They weren’t friends because the victim looked pissed and stormed off.

Another view of the market.

Momostenango was a fun day trip, and we’d like to return sometime and get to know it a little more.

San Francisco el Alto

San Francisco el Alto

I love going to Guatemalan markets, they are always very chaotic affairs with little old ladies body slamming us out of their way, fresh food cooking, and anything imaginable laid out for sale on tarps in a main street that just the night before was filled with traffic. I had been looking forward to seeing the San Francisco el Alto market since the first week of our trip and made sure to schedule only four days of classes in Xela to ensure that we wouldn’t miss a thing on Friday.

A crowded market

Yummy honeycomb.

After two months in Guatemala we have become very adept at hopping onto chicken buses and cramming into collectivo micro buses so it didn’t seem to take very long before we were dropped of in San Francisco. The town itself is up on a high hill with a pretty view down into the valley where Xela is and on Friday it was bustling with people. We wandered around the market for a long time looking at mountains of fresh produce, admiring cloth, buying honey comb to chew on , and just taking everything in. After a while we started wondering where the animals were being sold. The animal markets are always some of the most interesting to see and we had heard that the one in San Francisco was not to be missed. We noticed a man leading a cow through the street and guessed that we wanted to be where he just came from. So we walked to the top of the hill and were immediately met with all kinds of animal chaos. Cows, goats, sheep, pigs, geese, chickens, kittens, and puppies were all being sold and bought and kicking up a dust storm while doing so. Lots of animals had leashes tied around their legs and some of them were kept in baskets with a net tossed over it. There were whole families of piglets that would squeal like crazy when one was bought and drug unwillingly away by the new owner.

Animal market.

Runaway pigs.

Andy kept on loitering around the puppies and playing with them as if he was actually an interested buyer. Some of the puppies were being sold for 500Q and had papers and photo albums to show the buyers who their parents were. The photos looked suspiciously like magazine clippings to us. There were also cheaper products available for those on a budget. We looked over to see one lady pull a mutt puppy out of a potato sack by the leg and when the little boy said ‘No’ she pulled out another to show him. He asked how much for one and the answer of 5Q must have been too much because those two sleepy pups got thrown back into the sack pretty quickly.

A sack full of puppies.

Pickup taxis are a popular way to get around.

The market was amazing and everything I had hoped it would be, but eventually the constant crush of people and ducking under tarps made us feel kind of claustrophobic and we headed home.

Local butcher shop.

Salcaja

One Tuesday afternoon after class we took a bus to Salcaja, a small town just outside of Xela. The only thing we knew about the town before going was that it was a place famous for Rompompo and Caldo de Frutas, two different kinds of locally made hooch. One creamy and very sweet, the other paint peeler with fruit chunks in it. A previous teacher of mine had also mentioned to me how Salcaja was THE place to by skirt material.

 

We arrived just in time to catch the tail end of the Tuesday market where there was an abundance of beautiful fabric. We got a licuado (your choice of blended fruit with either milk or water and, of course, sugar) from a very nice man and his wife who just wanted to chat for a while. He told us to invite all of our friends to Salcaja and what a good thing it was that we were there visiting the market. He tried out every English word he knew on us and Andy managed to teach him to say, “Our licuados are the best!” before leaving.

 

We bought a bottle each of Caldo de Frutas and Rompompo before catching the bus out of town, thus completing the mission of our booze run. It wasn’t until we talked to a friend working at the school later that we discovered we somehow managed to miss seeing the oldest church in Central America. Oh well, I guess the statue on the edge of town dedicated to immigrants leaving for the U.S. will just have to do.

Back in Xela

After a few easy hours of busing from San Pedro we found ourselves back in Xela, where we’d previously enjoyed a week of studying Spanish. We were excited to be there and would stay for two weeks this time; it’s a cool city, if a bit gritty and vaguely unsafe feeling after dark. We’d enjoyed our earlier visit a lot, but our home-stay had been a twenty minute walk from the center and we hadn’t felt comfortable walking to the plaza or back home after it got dark, leaving us a little stuck during the evenings. This time we decided that we’d stay in a hostel type place close to the center; the one we had in mind was called Miguel Cervantes and was less than two blocks from the plaza.

A cuaresma procession through downtown Xela.

We didn’t have a reservation so we were pleased to find that they had one of their six or so rooms available. It was a nice historic building with some decent places to hang out, a shared kitchen, free coffee and a wonderful gas heated shower. That’s a big deal in highland Guatemala, where it gets chilly and most showers are heated by a sketchy electrical coil right at the shower head that doesn’t usually work that well. All in all it was a sweet place run by some cool people, for the grand total of about $56 US per week for the both of us. It was also a small Spanish school and we decided to keep things simple and take classes there too; tuition was another bargain at about $75 US per person per week for 20 hours of private instruction.

Cuaresma, aka Lent, aka the forty days leading up to Easter, was in full swing, and there were a bunch of food and handicraft stalls set up in the Parque Central the night we got in. We gorged ourselves on fair food: ears of corn slathered in mayo, ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, and dried cheese; bad nachos; various fried things; and our favorite, ponche de leche. It’s milk simmered with cinnamon and sugar and other spices, then served hot with a shot of rum- delicious!

Parque Central

We celebrated being back in Xela by going out to our favorite local restaurant, Sabor de la India, for some of the best Indian food this side of the subcontinent. We also bought some of their delicious unsweetened yogurt to go; the yogurt you can buy in most stores down here is so sugary it’s only semi-edible. Diabetes is on the rise in a big way in Guatemala, and I’m sure it’s being helped along by the incredible over-consumption of sugar. Everyone puts at least three heaping spoonfuls in her cup of coffee, and in general sweetening is just out of control.

We liked our little Spanish school a lot, the place maxed out at about a dozen students giving it a very relaxed feeling and we made some friends. Our teachers were good, and it was also really nice being able to wake up just before class and stumble down the stairs to go to school. Compared to our previous schools Miguel Cervantes was a little lacking in after-class activities, but we didn’t mind too much as we felt we could do most typical outings on our own at that point. They did schedule a cooking class that we were looking forward to, but canceled it because we were the only people who expressed interest, which is the downside to a small school I guess. We had a fun potluck lunch after class one day and the school coordinator showed us how to make pepian, a famous and delicious traditional Guatemalan dish made with a sauce of toasted seeds and a bunch of other good stuff.

The perfect drink for a cold evening.

We did a fair amount of cooking on our own, taking advantage of our nice kitchen and Guatemala’s wonderful selection of fresh and cheap produce. But it was hard to beat the many restaurants around the center that sold quality lunches for about $2.50 US, complete with soup, drink, and a big main course. We also found ourselves tempted more than we should have been by the very tasty- and very greasy- street food.

On Fridays and Saturdays during Cuaresma there were large somber Catholic processions through the center of town. Long lines of men wearing black or purple robes would file past, followed by a brass band, boys swinging incense burners spewing out copal incense, and a giant religious parade-type float carried by sixty or so people. The processions were always quite a show, even more so when the organizers gave in to the national fetish for using fireworks. One evening we bought a hot chocolate at a third story restaurant overlooking the plaza while a procession was happening, and we watched them setting up a bunch of mortars and strings of firecrackers right below us on the street. When they lit the fuses it was quite a spectacle, with mortars exploding right above us (we were thankful for the cafe umbrella we were sitting under; it protected us from all the falling ash and embers!), and hundreds of firecrackers exploding below us. We found ourselves plugging our ears it was so loud, but we had the best views of anybody and it was a lot of fun.

During this time the Huelga was also going on, a traditional yearly student protest that really just seemed to be a big party. The tradition started many years ago as a more serious protest against government misconduct. Students dressed in colored robes with masks and rather KKK-like pointed hats would assemble in the park, speak in a microphone for a while, than start dancing wildly and lighting off firecrackers. It was pretty fun to watch but we never really knew exactly what was going on, although I’m not sure anybody really did: one night a guy dressed as Batman was right there in the middle of things on stage, dancing away.

Yet another procession.

In the evenings we’d hang out in the park and walk around a bit if there were people out and about. Sometimes there would be a concert or some kind of event going on. A few times we went to a local cafe that showed newish DVD movies to get our Hollywood fix, and we went out for beers every now and then with friends from school. During the afternoons we explored the town, checking out the markets and different areas, both on foot and using the collectivo vans that make up the bulk of the public transport system. There’s a lot of them, and for 10 cents or so they’ll take you anywhere in town pretty quickly. It’s a fairly efficient system once you figure out how everything works, but can be a bit daunting at first.

We love the smell of this incense.

We also got caught up on our dental work, visiting a wonderful local dentist who spoke perfect English and had studied in Connecticut. I needed a root canal from an old filling that had gone bad, and it cost me $110 US; that’s ten to twenty times less than it would have cost in the states. We both also had our teeth cleaned and Denae had a cavity filled for a very reasonable fee. We’re enthusiastic dental tourists.

Denae had her birthday during our second week in Xela, and I sneaked out during class and bought a birthday cake and had everyone at the school burst in and surprise Denae with it and sing happy birthday; it ended up being sung in three languages. That night we went out for more delicious Indian food, and then for some drinks and a Cuban cigar.

We lived at the very top of these stairs and Andy had his classes at the little table in the courtyard.

We also visited some other towns and markets in the area, but we’ll write about them on separate posts. Before we knew it, our two weeks in Xela were up and we were catching a bus to Guatemala City and connecting through to Flores. This was the end of our Spanish classes, having taken seven weeks of them in total. We’d improved our language skills significantly, but were still nowhere near where we’d like to be. As we left we were already talking about returning the following year to continue our studies.

Around Lago Atitlan

After a few days in Antigua visiting with Denae’s mom, Allison, the three of us caught a morning chicken bus on to Panajachel, the original tourist town on Lago Atitlan. It has lots of artesenia shopping opportunities which Denae and her mother took full advantage of. Pana isn’t our favorite town in the world- it’s oddly full of loud traffic for it’s smallish size and exhaust fumes can be pretty bad, there are too many touts and people bugging you to buy stuff, and in general it feels semi-ruined by tourism. Still, we enjoyed walking around for a while and it has some of the best views of the lake from it’s waterfront area. We stayed overnight in Pana because the next day was Friday, market day in nearby Solola, a mostly untouristed town just a few miles up the hill from Panajachel. The market there is pretty famous and we were excited to see it.

A woman weaving on a backstrap loom in Pana. We left this booth two bread cloths richer.

Friday morning we caught a bus up to Solola, where we found a large and fun market in full swing. We’ve seen a lot of markets in Guatemala and elsewhere, and this was one of the better ones. It was a warm and beautiful day, and we spent the next couple hours wandering through the stalls checking out the variety of things for sale, from chicken paws and medicinal herbs to bootleg shampoo and music CD’s burnt straight from the seller’s computer.

The best part of the market was seeing all the people in their traditional clothing or traje; a high percentage of both men and woman wear their traje here which is unusual, and it lends a lot of color and atmosphere to the place. The men’s clothing especially is really out there. We ate some freshly barbequed market meat, bought some watermelon slices and frozen chocolate covered papaya pieces, and in general had a fantastic time people watching and exploring. Allison bought some tote bags and Denae got some cool aprons for her sisters.

Lots of beautiful traje on display.

When we’d had our fill of the market we caught the bus back to Pana and went straight to the docks to catch a boat across the lake to San Pedro, where we’d previously spent two weeks studying Spanish. We really like San Pedro, despite the fact that the lower half of town is purely gringo bars and restaurants and is very touristy. It’s backpacker touristy though, which we can put up with a lot more easily than yuppie style tourists with lots of money to spend, because it keeps things really cheap and the town is a very comfortable place to hang out in. And on the hill above all the gringo hangouts, it’s a real town of 13,000 Guatemaltecos just going about their lives and business.

Hanging out in the Solola park.

We stayed for the week in a cheapo hotel ($5 US per night!) that some friends had recommended called Hotel Peneleu, which turned out to be an incredible value. It had a shared guest kitchen where we made coffee every morning and cooked up some tasty meals, wifi, decent rooms with private bathrooms and some fantastic sitting areas with lake views. One of our first nights in town we had some friends over for guacamole and rum with fresh squeezed orange/ginger juice from the juice stand down the street, which we enjoyed as we sat around talking and looking at the stars. Then the stargazing suddenly got a lot better when the power went out, and didn’t come back on for three days!

A dock in Panajachel.

We took a boat trip one morning to another lakefront town called Santiago Atitlan, about a 45 minute boat ride across the lake. We’d been warned that the boatmen from the Santiago dock try to overcharge the gringos, and sure enough we got ripped off a bit. When we tried to argue for the correct price the guy basically told us to take it or leave it, so in the end we reluctantly paid the inflated fare. Maybe it was the negative way the trip started but we just didn’t enjoy Santiago that much. It was packed with handicraft stalls and people trying hard to sell things to the tourists, and seemed a little dirty and desperate. We walked around for an hour or so, checked out the church plaza (the steps up to the plaza had a “No Peeing” sign and reeked of urine), had a mediocre comedor meal, and decided to catch the boat back to San Pedro. We didn’t even bother tracking down Maximon, aka San Simon, another version of the evil saint we’d visited in Zunil who lives here. We just weren’t feeling it.

Successful day at the market.

Sunday was market day in San Pedro, a far smaller affair than Solola but still full of color and activity and lots of fun. In the afternoon we caught the (correctly priced) boat over to the hippyish town of San Marcos. Our previous host family told us that more of San Marcos is owned by foreigners than Guatemalans, and its the kind of town where you can go to a water re-birthing ceremony in the morning, choose between eight kinds of yoga for the afternoon, and have your Mayan astrology reading done during the evening. All while high. We’d been there before but we wanted to take Allison, who has enough new-age tendencies that we were certain she’d love it. San Marcos is an incredibly peaceful and pretty place, filled with trees and calm and the faint buzzing of gringos chanting “Om” in the distance. I can’t help but make fun of the town but I do like it. There are some beautiful garden cafes and restaurants, and we spent the afternoon drinking coffee and reading before heading back to San Pedro, our chakras already feeling more aligned. I predict Allison will return for a yoga retreat within the next three years.

The view from Hotel Peneleu's hammock.

On Monday we started Spanish school again at the Cooperativa, one of the schools we’d studied at previously and enjoyed. After our week off from classes it felt good to be working with a teacher again; we really enjoy learning Spanish. Things were slow in town with the power still off; no music playing at the bars, no espresso at the cafes (Allison was devastated!), and with no power juicers or blenders we couldn’t get our daily .60 cent carrot/beet juice… tough times.

We’d enjoyed visiting with Allison, but unfortunately her trip was only for a bit over a week and she had to head back to Oregon and work. I think she enjoyed the trip a lot and was due for a getaway.

The most common way to carry things in Guatemala.

We spent the rest of the week studying, chilling out and making friends with some cool people from our school. One couple were ultra-marathoners (that’s 100 miles to run in less than a day!), another were driving from the states to Argentina, others were frequent travelers with interesting outlooks… you meet some very intriguing people in places like these. One night we splurged and went back to Ventana Blue, our favorite restaurant in town with amazing Guatemalan/Asian cuisine. It is nice when a splurge only costs around $15 US. Another splurge during the week was paying $4 US for a shot of Ron Zacapa, the pride of Guatemala. It’s a famous rum, aged over twenty years and considered one of finest in the world. I won’t argue; I’m a rum fan and this stuff was nectar of the gods.

The Cooperativa school donates part of their proceeds to needy local families, and Friday all the students split up and delivered food and supplies purchased by the school. Denae and I went to two family’s homes, and it was a powerful experience. In comfortable and cheap San Pedro if you didn’t look around to carefully it was easy to forget about poverty, but these people lived with true need. Their homes were made of sticks and cardboard and ragged plastic, with generations living together in one room. Allison had brought some kid’s clothing from the states for us to give away, and we gave it to a family with a bunch of kids whose sole source of income was from the grandfather working as a market porter for a few Quetzales per load. The kids were wearing rags and it felt good to help out just a little. It was also a reminder of how easy all of us from developed countries have it. We’ve had this realization many times before and I think it’s an important lesson of travel: no matter how hard a time people at home might be having with the bad economy, we are all so lucky compared to the folks struggling just to survive in poor countries like Guatemala.

A lent procession in San Pedro. Jesus was kept lit up as he was carried around town by a couple of guys following lugging a generator attached by a long extension cord. As this stop was made everyone started saying the Our Father prayer in Tz'utujil.

Our last day in town we hiked up the Nariz del Indio, a hill bordering the lake that looks strikingly like the profile of a face of someone lying on his back. It was a class trip organized by the school with one of the teachers as a guide. We started walking from the nearby town of San Juan, and within a couple sweaty hours had reached the top with some incredible views of the lake and volcanoes. Sweetening the deal, we walked down the opposite side of the hill to the town of Santa Clara, which sits up high on the plateau surrounding the lake and took only about twenty minutes to reach. Steep and long downhill hikes can be a drag and I didn’t mind missing a knee-jarring slog down. It was market day in Santa Clara and we explored it for a while before catching a bus back to San Pedro, down a road with switchbacks so tight that buses have to back up and make two point turns. It’s a slightly anxious moment watching the bus driver pop the clutch while the bus is practically hanging over a cliff! Safely back in San Pedro we started packing; the next day we were headed back to Xela.

La Nariz del Indio

Antigua

Communal pila where the ladies wash their laundry.

Arriving in Antigua on a Sunday afternoon was a weird feeling. The streets were packed with so many tourists from Guatemala city that it was hard to move and the brightly painted house walls reflected the yellow sunlight to a really beautiful effect. It felt like we had stepped into onto a movie set, or into a Guatemalan Disney Land. I was really excited to be back because it meant that I got to see my mom who was coming to visit for a week and a half. We met her in a coffee shop off of the plaza and spent the next few hours catching up and drinking Guatemalan coffee, the reason she flew all the way down here in the first place.

Visiting with Mom.

The next few days passed in a blur of shopping, walking, coffee, and wine. Even Andy managed to buy a souvenir; a $25 silver wedding ring to replace the one he lost.

The arch.

In the main square.

Eventually we forced ourselves to wake up early and take a tour to Pacaya volcano. For all three of us it was an easy hike up and we had a lot of fun watching the independent horse guides following the older more out of shape Americans calling out, “Taxi”. One particularly entertaining woman yelled at a young guy that no she didn’t want to ride a horse and then turn to her husband and yell at him that she couldn’t possible walk any further so he had better figure something out. Ten minutes later she passed us on horse back being led by the young guy holding the reins. All in all it was kind of a cheesy tour and, although people used to see lava on this hike, since it erupted in 2010 there isn’t anymore left to see.

Pretty colors.

We did get to climb into a steam hole, maybe not the safest thing ever, and warm up marshmallows over a lukewarm steam vent. Overall it was a fun, if touristy, trip and we enjoyed seeing the country side around Antigua.

These dogs follow tourists up and down Volcan Pacaya waiting for fallen snacks.

In the volcanic steam vent.

Zunil & Fuentes Georginas

This man Is lighting a huge cigar and throwing Quetzalteca on the candles as part of an offering to San Simon.

The day before we left Xela was a Saturday, and we decided to go check out the nearby town of Zunil and some famous hot springs called Fuentes Georginas. The Johns, our two Canadian housemates known in our house as Juan uno and Juan dos, came along. We took a half hour local bus from near the centro to Zunil, a pretty little town where we walked around a bit and checked out a local women’s artisan cooperative. We were hungry but the local comedor was asking exorbitant tourist prices so we walked down the plaza and bought hot dogs, while Denae tracked down one of her favorite meals: a can of refried beans and some fresh tortillas from the tortilleria.

Andy is pouring Quetzalteca that we brought into San Simon’s mouth.

The main focus for our trip to Zunil was to pay a visit to San Simon, known in a few other places as Maximon. San Simon is an “evil saint,” a figure revered in several Guatemalan towns for his ability to grant wishes, usually for things like love or a good harvest, but apparently also harm to one’s enemies. He’s a life sized mannequin wearing western clothes, and definitely has a sinister appearance; Denae said she thought he looked like a stereotypical Mexican narcotraficante.

The Juans and Andy eating lunch.

San Simon lives in a different local house every year, and is taken great care of. He sits on a throne in a room filled with candles that people leave when they ask something of him; different colors represent different requests. He loves tobacco and alcohol, so people bring them to him as offerings and he usually has a cigarette or cigar burning in his mouth- they’re lit and changed by an attendant. Walking into San Simon’s room was a crazy experience: candles were burning everywhere and there was a smoky haze, while a man was smoking the biggest cigar I’ve ever seen and flicked Quetzalteca liquor over the candles while he chanted. Another guy was kneeling practically in San Simon’s lap while he talked to him, and while we were there a woman came in and put one of the saint’s hands on her head while she prayed loudly. San Simon is taken very seriously around here.

Andy at the Fuentes Georginas

We’d brought a cigarette and some booze as an offering. The attendant poured our liquor into a small pitcher, then tilted San Simon and his chair backward so that his open mouth faced upward, and I poured in the alcohol. I didn’t see where it went, but I heard afterward that it drains out below him in a bowl and is reused for ceremonies. The attendant also took the cigarette San Simon been smoking out of his mouth and replaced it with the one we’d brought. It was a fun experience.

Fuentes Georginas

After we finished visiting San Simon we paid a pickup driver about $7 US to drive us the half hour up the mountain to the Fuentes Georginas hot springs. It’s a popular place for both foreign and domestic tourists, for good reason. The springs fill up three separate pools, the first much too hot for anyone to get into. The other two felt amazing especially after the chilly ride in the pickup, and the setting was spectacular with lush tropical looking forest clinging to the steep hillsides all around. There were quite a few people there, mostly Guatemalans, and everyone was having a good time. There was lots of barbequing going on, beer being drunk, a real fiesta.

Riding in a pickup bed.

As I was getting ready to get out and take a shower, I watched a couple guys get all the way into the insanely hot top pool. They were the first people we’d seen submerse more than their legs. I walked up and asked them how they could stand it and they said the key was to not move once you were in the water. My competitive instincts kicked in, and I decided I needed to give it a try. Getting in hurt but I just ignored the pain and went in up to my neck. The heat was ridiculous but the advice I’d been given was accurate: if I didn’t move at all it wasn’t too bad, but any movement caused a swirling of hot water that was pretty painful. After about twenty seconds I climbed out as fast as I could and stood under the ice cold shower for about a minute. My body was bright red, and for the next hour I felt like I had a decent sunburn. Probably not the healthiest thing to be doing.

Zunil.

We had a great time at the Fuentes. They have several cabins available for overnight rentals, and it’s something we’d like to do sometime. There’s also some hiking trails to explore, but we were feeling so relaxed after our soak that we only made it a few hundred feet up the hill. This place is a must-see place if you’re in Xela.

Xela

After Todos Santos we headed to Quetzaltenango, which pretty much everybody calls Xela (pronounced shay-la) after its indigenous name Xelaju. It’s Guatemala’s second largest city with official population estimates in the 200,000′s, although we heard that it really might have as many as 800,000 people. Either way the place didn’t feel particularly big. It’s got a bit of a gritty and sketchy vibe, but is also pretty charming with lots of crumbly colonial architecture and lots of fun restaurants and bars.

Xela street

Xela has a great international reputation for high quality and inexpensive Spanish language schools, and we’d been looking forward to studying there since we’d begun planning our trip to Guatemala. But while we were in Todos Santos a few days before we were headed to Xela we got word from some friends that they’d been robbed at gunpoint along with half a dozen other people in their group at a viewpoint at the edge of town. Afterward the tourist cops told them that there had been a recent increase in crime in town. It was a terrifying experience for them, and understandably they were pretty negative about the safety level in Xela, to the point that they didn’t think it was a good idea to go there.

Municipal theater

Other people had raved about Xela to us, and recommended it highly. How to reconcile something like this? We decided that we had to go and see for ourselves, and just be extra cautious.

A couple people we’d met in Guatemala had recommended the well known Spanish school Celas Maya, so we made it our first stop when we got into town. This was a Sunday at about noon, and by four we were unpacking in our home-stay for the week and getting ready for class the following morning. This was generally our experience signing up for schools in Guatemala; no prior registration necessary.

Parque Central

Our home-stay family was very friendly and fun, and their home was unusually nice- the equivalent of a nice upperish-middle class home in the states. Also staying at the home were two Canadian students both named John, both from Calgary, who hadn’t known each other before coming to Xela. It was a fun houseful of people and we had some great evenings drinking cheap wine and talking together and improving our Spanish. The only problem was that it was at least a fifteen minute walk from the school and the center of town, and at night we didn’t feel very safe making the walk.

Denae impressed everyone by making a delicious mango/papaya/pineapple pie for dessert one day. People down here don't seem to bake very much and a pie is considered pretty exotic- our host mom made Denae give her a very detailed lesson on the process.

Celas Maya was a well run school, much better organized than any of the other schools we attended. It’s housed in a nice old colonial building a few blocks from the parque central, and is a big place with lots of students. Most classes are held in the courtyard in a nice garden. We liked it a lot, and our teachers were very professional; Denae thought that her teacher here was the best she had in Guatemala. The only drawback was that the school was a bit big for our taste, with enough students that individual social cliques formed- overall we prefer the atmosphere of smaller schools where everyone knows everyone.

Garden where did our learnin'

The school also organized afternoon activities most days, the best of which during our week was a cooking class for making boxboles, a traditional Guatemalan dish from Nebaj. They were kind of like a reverse tamale, with masa dough folded inside a kale leaf and steamed. We also made some really good salsas to accompany the boxboles, one of them made mostly out of toasted and ground pumpkin seeds. The dish was really good, and we plan on cooking it at home in the future- it seems like an especially good fall meal.

Homemade boxboles.

We enjoyed walking and hanging around Xela. In the early 1900′s the city built a bunch of ancient Greek-style columns and architectural elements around town, giving it a somewhat strange yet dignified feeling. There are lots of old buildings to look at, and decent street food; a fun place to explore. There are a couple of big markets with lots going on, although people do get robbed there periodically. We didn’t eat at many restaurants because we had food served with our host family, but we did splurge one evening by going to Sabor de la India, one of the best restaurants in town. It was a little weird going out for Indian food in Guatemala, but it’s really well done. We also stumbled on a popular deep fried banana stand near the municipal theater that we kept going back to; served with cream and sugar the freshly fried platanos were incredible. There’s also a lively nightlife scene in town, we went out to a really fun Salsa club one night above the grocery store.

Mercado Democracia

It’s a little hard to explain the allure of Xela, but we liked it a lot. It’s a little gritty and lacking any dramatic sights, but the people are nice and it’s a fantastic place to study Spanish. It’s pretty cheap too; Denae had a stomach bug for a while so we had a lab do a test on her stool sample to make sure she didn’t have anything nasty (she didn’t): the test cost $2.50 US! After a week we headed out of town to Antigua to meet Denae’s mom for a short visit, but as we left we were already making plans to return.

Creencias

This post is about some of the secular Guatemalan creencias- beliefs- that we’ve encountered during our trip. Some of these things sound pretty out there to our American ears, but are considered completely genuine by the people who explained them to us. We generally try to listen and learn in as non-judgmental a manner as possible, and I want to make it clear that in writing this I’m not making light of anyone’s culture or beliefs. This is interesting stuff and we’d simply like to share it.

Note: remember that everything here was told to us in complete earnestness by at least one person at one time or another, but it’s not like we did any fact-checking or surveys. We have no clue how widespread some of these ideas are, and some of this stuff is very local to certain villages or areas.

Mayan alter in Tikal

If a stray dog pees directly in front of you on the street three times in one week, you’re probably going to die soon.

Moza beer (a better than average dark brew, definitely alcoholic) is specially formulated to be safe for pregnant women to drink.

In many places doctors are disdained in favor of curanderos, or healers, who use medicinal plants and traditional wisdom and methods of healing. They are definitely sought out to treat broken bones, and multiple people incredulously explained to me that regular doctors would only use casts, which apparently are not a respected form of treatment.

I explained to one of my teachers how the days get longer or shorter during certain parts of the year at higher latitudes. She told me that in her hometown, sometimes, randomly, the sun will come up half an hour or so earlier or later than usual.

The men in San Pedro la Laguna are physically incapable of experiencing fear or cowardice. They’re just born that way. A woman told me this, after I’d made some little self-deprecating joke about how something had scared me.

Denae was sick to her stomach one day and her teacher almost fainted when Denae started to drink some water to stay hydrated. “You have cold in your stomach, cold water will make it worse! Drink hot tea.”

Cloudy days can cause diarrhea.

It’s very bad luck for a pregnant woman to grind corn.

Eating raw chicken ovaries will cure menstrual pains. We heard this from a friend we met who learned a vivid and bad tasting lesson about not complaining about menstrual pains to her host family.

A market set up over and around a modern Mayan alter in Momostenango

Mal de Ojo- the Evil Eye. This is a big one, I asked lots of questions and took careful notes. It is- or is similar to- an illness, one that strikes babies and kids up to the age of five or so and is potentially fatal if not properly treated. Symptoms include fever, pain, sweating, crying, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, etc, and eventually death in extreme cases. Doctors and modern medicine are unable to help and in fact deny its existence; this is the realm of the Curandero.

What happens is this: an adult with “strong blood” encounters a cute baby and pays it attention; coos at it, smiles and looks at it, touches it… unfortunately this can be quite dangerous- if the baby happens to have “weak blood,” the Mal de Ojo can be passed. The more attention paid, the higher the danger. Good or bad intentions on the part of the adult have nothing to do with it, it’s an involuntary process. Parents never pass the Ojo, but more distant relatives sometimes can. This range of weak to strong blood apparently only shows itself in relation to the Mal de Ojo, ie there is no correlation between strong blooded people becoming political leaders or talented athletes at increased rates, and weak blooded people are only weak regarding their increased susceptibility to the Ojo.

So if you find yourself with a feverish, pained baby, and have reason to suspect the Mal de Ojo, first find yourself some “ruda,” a locally available plant with wide medicinal uses, and some whole black pepper corns. Rub them over the baby in cross patterns all over her body, then throw the pepper corns in a fire. If they explode, the baby has Ojo. If they don’t explode, seek modern medicine. Alternatively, you can use a chicken egg from a neighborhood hen- factory farm eggs won’t work- instead of the pepper corns. After you’ve rubbed it on baby in cross patterns, splatter the egg, and if it’s all yellow, es Ojo!

Mal de Ojo is treated in the same way it’s diagnosed, with the egg or pepper and ruda, rubbed in cross patterns on baby. Do it three times a day for three days, and baby should be well again.

There are various ways of preventing the Evil Eye. Most effective, like abstinence, is to keep the baby in the house. Unfortunately, like abstinence, that tends to be difficult to stick with and not very fun. During outings baby should be equipped with a red bracelet complete with a cross over her inner wrist. Also, a necklace containing a tiny pouch of ruda and pepper is a good idea.

If your baby has a suspect interaction with someone on the street who looks especially strong-blooded, you can prophylactic-ally complete the pepper/egg/ruda procedure right when you get home, and that should prevent the baby from getting sick, if in fact it was going to.

Note: with this information in mind, tourists should be careful with their interactions with babies and young kids in rural areas. Even if you’re not concerned about spreading the Ojo, many of the locals are and negative interactions might occur.

A cave we hiked to outside of Todos Santos. Apparently the locals don't consider this an auspicious place- it was an especially ominous looking cave.

Susto, or fright, is a kind of disorder or illness that occurs after a traumatic or scary incident. It seems to be very similar to what we in the US know as post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Common causes include dog attacks, bus crashes, war or violence related incidents, etc… Symptoms include trouble sleeping, a general decline in physical and mental health, and the inability or difficulty to continue with anything related to the cause of the Susto. One’s health can be so impacted that death can eventually be the result.

Treatment is conducted by curanderos, who can use a variety of medicinal plants, often ruda. Drink the special herb teas prepared for you (note that some curanderos will sometimes also put modern medicine of some sort in the teas, for good measure); you’ll begin to sweat. Flowers, it doesn’t matter what kind, will be rubbed over your body in cross patterns. Set the flowers aside.

Wash your face and hands thoroughly in a large bowl of water, then put the flowers from earlier in the bowl. Put the bowl under your bed and sleep there for three nights. During this process you should stay in your house for three to four days, covering up as much as possible. Do not expose yourself to cold air under any circumstances.

After seven nights, the patient should bring the bowl of water and flowers to a river and dump out the contents of the bowl. If no river is available, a creek, pond, or even a decent sized puddle will do. The treatment is complete; the symptoms should be completely gone.

Todos Santos Cuchumatan

Sunny mornings every day.

The instant we stepped off the bus I knew I would like Todos Santos. It was a bustling market day and the streets surrounding the main plaza were filled with stalls selling all of the usual market wares like fruit, meat, clothing, and used nails that had been bent back into a shape that was somewhat straight. Almost every man walking down the street was wearing the red striped pants, straw hats, and blue striped shirts with very intricately embroidered collars that have been the worn in this town for years. There are not many places left in Guatemala where the men wear traditional clothing and it was a really neat thing to see. Some of the younger guys were sagging their pants a little or wearing a graphic tee under the striped shirt for a little more flair.

Picking ripe coffee beans.

We’d decided that if there was a school in Todos Santos we wanted to spend a week studying there, and after doing some research on the internet I had sent an email to one before we left on our trek. In town I checked my email and still hadn’t gotten a response from the school so the only thing left to do was to start asking people in the street if a school actually existed here. We walked all over town before we found a building with the school’s name on it and since there was no one around we left a note on the door hoping someone would find it before we were forced to hurry up and catch a bus to Xela for the start of the new school week. Not sure what to do we walked around the market and stopped to buy a slice of watermelon while we thought over our options. We started talking with the elderly street vendor who told us all about his son who was currently working in Washington state. We later discovered that almost everyone that we met currently has relatives living and working illegally in the States. He asked us how much time we had to visit and we told him that we might be leaving the next day and about all the trouble we had gone through to find a Spanish school. As we were talking a woman passing by overheard our conversation. She leaned down from some steps nearby to tell us that her friend was a Spanish teacher and after a few phone calls we were back at the same Spanish school we had found earlier talking to the stand-in director, a Peace Corp volunteer from North Carolina. We immediately signed up for a week of classes.

The main road.

We had heard that home-stays in Todos Santos could be very basic affairs without locks on the doors or showers and that we might not even get the chance to speak Spanish with the family since all of the locals speak mostly in Mam. It only took a moment of thought before we moved into the Hotel Viajero where we had access to a kitchen and plenty of blankets once we took them all off of the three beds in our room and piled them onto the one with the least pokey springs. The grandmother who runs the hotel was super nice. One time while I was cooking rice in the hotel kitchen she came out of her adobe kitchen and pushed two freshly cooked homemade tortillas into my hand and waddled away without a word, her own mouth full of corn. It was the probably the best tortilla I have ever eaten.

The chuj sauna. Most are made out of adobe bricks, this one is made of concrete blocks.

The mornings were always perfect and sunny , the evenings rainy, and the nights painfully cold. It’s not that the outside temperature was actually colder than our winters in Oregon, it’s that it’s the kind of bone chilling cold that can’t be escaped when you spend your evenings in concrete buildings without any sort of heat. We found that with six wool blankets, wearing base layers to sleep in, and each others body heat we could be comfortable for the night.

Hitchhiking to Toucoy in an empty vegetable truck.

The sunny mornings were perfect for doing area day hikes. We took a disappointing tour of a coffee farm in nearby San Martin and hiked the amazing Tres Caminos trails near Toucoy. The terrain surrounding the town is amazing and we could have spent weeks staying entertained hiking and visiting nearby villages.

The school itself was a bit of a mess, but we didn’t care too much since we were having such an amazing time. We quickly found out that our teachers weren’t really able to teach us much in the way of grammar and we spent the week just talking for five hours a day. Basically it was like having someone that we paid to be our friend. It was a really interesting way to learn of all the local beliefs and gossip. I had a woman teacher the same age as myself and it only took her about three hours after she met me to open up about her cheating boyfriend and how he left her for another woman. I got to learn about who was cheating on who and who had multiple babies with multiple women at the same time. Condoms are available in Todos Santos, but since no one wants to be seen buying them, a lot of drunken dalliances result in children who wind up being the responsibility of the mother. According to my teacher there is a lot of drunkenness among the men (which was easy enough for us to notice in the streets) a lot of domestic violence, and a lot of cheating spouses. We also learned a lot about the local beliefs which Andy will write about in the next post.

The main plaza on market day.

The way everyone bathes in this cold climate without heated showers is to use a wood fired sauna called a chuj. We tried it at our hotel one night after the grandma had the fire burning for a couple of hours and got it all ready for us. We really wanted to love it, the heat felt amazing, but there was way too much smoke inside that made it impossible to breath. Andy couldn’t stand it and had to get out almost immediately. The grandma laughed and nodded knowingly as she announced that it was too hot for him to handle. I didn’t want the old lady to think I was a wuss so I held a towel over my mouth and put my head between my legs. I think the smoke inhalation took a few years off of both of our lives.

On our last night in town we were invited to a pig killing at the Peace Corp volunteer’s host family’s house. Killing a pig is a huge deal that only happens once a year for most families like this so we felt lucky to have such an opportunity. One women had huge pot of corn boiling to make into masa for the pork tamales that they’d make the following day and immediately put Andy to work stirring the pot. Every now and then to check and see if the corn was tender enough she would put some in her mouth, chew it, and spit it back into the communal pot. We knew we were getting down to business when we heard the first snorting noises of the pig being brought down into the family’s courtyard. The family had hired a local guy to help and he did the jugular cut and blood draining. After that everyone fell to scraping the hair off, skinning, and taking the organs out of the still steaming pig. It was sad to watch, but I think that it is something important to see if you are a meat eater. Every single part of the pig was used by the family and even the blood was saved for use in a Mayan ceremony that would take place later. Glad it was over, we were still helping with the corn process when we heard the squeals of another pig being brought down. This one had heard what happened to his buddy and he was not going willingly. We didn’t know that a second pig was being butchered and after the blood was drained from number two we decided to take a beer break. The family seemed bummed that we were leaving and made us promise to some back for dinner, which we did.

When we came back there was less blood in the courtyard and everyone was relaxing around a fire roasting fresh pig on a steel grate. We ate the deliciously charred meat in fresh tortillas drinking sweet coffee along with it. The general vibe was really great as everyone spoke in Mam and we started to realize that sometime during the afternoon the little old ladies had managed to get pretty drunk. Eventually we said our thank yous and went back to the hotel to pack our backpacks for the early morning bus ride to Xela.

One down, one to go.

Visiting Todos Santos was a great experience. It is a place where where wifi internet doesn’t exist, where you can’t buy cheese, when people speak Spanish they don’t bother to specify masculine or feminine, everything closes at 8 pm., and there is no ATM. It’s the type of place where the only other gringos we saw came in on a tour bus for a few hours on Saturday to go to the market and we absolutely loved every second we spent there.