Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Chichi is a major market in the Guatemalan highlands. They have two market days, Thursday and Sunday with people from all around the area coming to sell all sorts of goods, from fruit and veges to tools, clothing and other handicrafts - as well as catching up on news and gossip. We were told that apart from those two days, and the setup day before the market, the town is completely dead, with nothing at all going on.

We arrived in Chichi and spent a little time walking through the markets, though there were a massive number of people milling around, so we tried to walk the side streets as much as possible.

The first spot that Andres took us to was the fruit and vege market, which was on an indoor basketball court, it took some time to move from the bottom floor upstairs to where we could have a look at all the action.

























From here we went back out to the streets, and made our way to one of the two churches that face each other in the town. From here we got a good view along the lanes.













We felt it was far too crowded, so found a nice little side street that still had a great selection of things to buy, and took our time walking down there.

We spent most of the time there sitting on the steps of the church people watching - there was a little kid throwing a tantrum for a good period of time and a man building wooden chairs right in front of us.













After looking round the markets, we all met at the church and made our way to a big food hall type thing, where we had a tasty lunch of fried chicken, rice and beans.

After Chichi, we got back in the minivan and made out way to the town of Antigua, our next stop.

Homestay, San Jorge La Laguna, Guatemala

While at the lake, we spent one night with a local family in the village of San Jorge La Laguna. We knew that this would be an 'experience' and we were more than a little worried about communication. The first language of the people in this village is Kaqchikel, one of the Mayan dialects, with most people being able to also speak Spanish.

The family that we stayed with had 7 children, with a little baby (Ronaldinho who was the son of one of the daughters), and another little one Stefanie - about 5 years old.

We managed to introduce ourselves (Ruth much more successfully than me), and hung out with the kids for a little time.

We had some time with the family and to settle in before we were due back in the village plaza for a tour of the village by Daniel, who was the contact in the village.

After a tour, a short one as it was a small village, we returned to the house for dinner. Dinner was chicken with veges and tortillas. It wasn't ready when we arrived back, and the girls were making the tortillas, so Ruth asked if she could help make them which proved a very difficult challenge.



















I watched for a while, and held the baby, before also giving it a go. They make it look a hell of a lot easier than it was.

The general idea is that you start with a ball of dough, and moosh it into a flat disk before passing it from one hand to the other which in theory makes it thinner and bigger - a little like you see the pizza chefs with the dough.

This didn't take too much talking, though we learned the word for difficult quite quickly.

We sat down to dinner where we tried to have some very awkward conversation, though it turned out that we didn't quite have enough so it often broke down into an awkward silence. In the end, we didn't talk too much at dinner.

Before we went to the house, we were given a sheet that had some basic questions which the family also had - so after dinner that came out, and we managed to do a lot better with the conversation after that.

It was funny though, we would go along for a while understanding enough to keep talking with them, then we would get to a word that we couldn't work out, and that our phrasebook didn't have so the conversation along that topic would end.

It was really hard, though we probably only had about 2 or 3 hours that night with them, and by the end of dinner we were ready for bed.

In the morning, we got up, and breakfast was good - though we didn't help too much with the tortillas - which was probably a good thing. The speed we made them meant that we probably would have missed our bus out of town!!

One other thing - sitting having breakfast, I noticed a string of what I thought were dead crabs on the wall. I had seen them the night before, but didn't think anything of them. It turns out that they were actually live crabs, hanging on the wall like a string of onions.



















We really enjoyed the experience, though knowing more Spanish would have been hugely helpful.

From here we went to Antigua, Guatemala.

Panajachel & Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

San Christobal had been a perfect town to explore, but once again we were leaving too soon. At least this does give us a reason to come back!

Our trip to Guatemala was a long one, and the border crossing between Mexico and Guatemala is very interesting. A huge and busy market, it was easy to see why Andres was so keen to keep us all in sight - it would be too easy to wander off and get lost!

Guatemalan local transport is often in old USA school buses. Called 'chicken buses', because they often have people carrying livestock from markets, they are pretty wild. They are all owned by the driver, and so many of them are decorated according to the driver's personal taste. Jesus was a popular image and it was often written in pretty, circus-style writing. Although our itinerary said that we would ride these, our guide decided that buses that overtake on blind corners were not how we would be travelling.

Instead, we all piled into a minivan to drive down to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. This lake is huge, and surrounded by steep hills and three volcanoes. It is incredibly beautiful and restful. In the 60s and 70s many hippie Americans came either to live or just to soak up the good vibes (I'm guessing). Many of them stayed, and now run small businesses or have set up organisations to facilitate the export of the local craft (weaving).



















Our only full day in Panajachel was spent on a tour in three different towns. Although the towns are so close to each other (and there is plenty of interaction between them), each town has its own traditional dress and weaving style. Some of these were really dramatic and beautiful. However, we had been asked not to take photographs, so the best I can suggest is that you check out http://www.rutahsa.com/traje.html for some links to photos.













We visited Santa Catarina Palopo first, and spent a great deal of time looking at the beautiful silk scarves made by the local women. From there, we went (by boat) to San Antonio Palopo, which is a little bit bigger, and were lucky enough to walk past the church while a wedding was going on. The small towns around the village are grouped together through language and other cultural similarities, and the marriages are often within the group (which would be just a few towns). It's a way of expanding their population, but in a way that keeps their language and heritage strong. The female congregation were wearing white shawls covering their heads - interesting to see that white is part of the Mayan marriage ceremony.



















Finally, we went to Santiago Atitlan, on the other side of the lake. This town is much bigger and tourism is a much stronger part of their livelihood. There are markets along the streets selling the weaving and jewellery made by the women of the village. Our guide Daniel introduced us to Maria, who showed us some weaving techniques and traditional dress. We also visited a home where, for a year, a statue of Maximon is in residence (each year it moves to a new house in the town), along with religious attendants. The home is open to all who wish to come and worship, and offerings, including cigarettes and alcohol, are made.


















That evening we went to San Jorge La Laguna, where we would be staying with a local family for a night. We will talk about this in a separate post, but it was a really interesting and sometimes challenging experience.

The following morning, we spent an hour climbing up over the lake just outside San Jorge, and admiring the incredible view. This place was beautiful, and we all thought that if we lived here we would have to come up every day. It would be the perfect place if you had anything on your mind...we just enjoyed being quiet and still for a while.

San Cristobal & Chamula

From Palenque we headed to the town of San Cristobal de las Casas.

This was the town that everyone agreed would be one that we could easily live in. It had a really vibrant feel to it, with lots of people out and about all the time (and a good nightlife). The buildings were largely brightly coloured, and it was good to walk around amongst it all.

























Like most of the towns that we had been to so far, San Cristobal had a large central plaza, where there was always a lot going on.













The only downsides to the town were the windy road to get there, and being in the highlands, the temperature was a lot lower than we were expecting - probably about 5-10 degrees at night.

San Cristobal was one of the towns at the centre of the Zapatista revolution, and it still had that sort of feel, with a lot of graffiti one the walls of buildings.











































This was the first opportunity to go out and party, and Andres took us to a good little local wine bar to start. We drank a local rose, which was good, and tried a few different things.

From the wine bar we headed to another bar for dinner and our first chance to get into the spirit of salsa. I’ll be honest, for me (Hamish) it didn’t go that well, though no one was an expert and we all had a good time despite it.

(Vic and Sam dancing at Revolution)














The next day the group all decided to go to see the village of Chamula, though half rode horses, and the others took a van. Conveniently, we went one in each. The van ride gave our guide more opportunity to take us around the village, and to explain some of the customs relating to the Mayan religion, and the horseback trip had its own interesting points.

Outside each family groups house was a cross painted green, representing the Ceiba tree.



















These have always been in the shape of the cross, which misled the Spanish when they arrived into thinking that the Mayans would easily convert to Catholicism. Once they started to learn the meaning behind this cross however, they realised that their job would be a lot harder than they thought. This cross would be where weddings, funerals and all sorts of other things would take place. In addition to the above cross, the religious leaders of the village had an additional arch over the top of the cross, made with leaves/branches. These would usually be changed every 20 days, in line with the Mayan calendar month.

While Hamish was taking it easy in the van, I was trying to get a wild horse to take me to the village. Ok, so he wasn't exactly wild, but it was still a pretty dramatic ride. My horse was beautiful, but he had a charming habit of walking so slowly until he was at the very back, and then we would have to race all the way back to the front. However, the ride through the forest was really lovely.



















(Photo by Sam Brown)

The church at Chamula was an amazing thing, though was still very much in use for worship. We spent very little time inside as it was really quite uncomfortable, it felt like you were intruding in a very personal time.



















Before leaving quite quickly we saw some interesting things. Firstly, the floor is covered in pine needles and there are hundreds of candles lit, so as you walk in you are struck by the flickering flames, and the haze rising off the top of them. Different coloured candles are burned as an offering depending on what the family is looking to achieve, as well as a lot of incense burning. A lot of people bring bottles of soda, coke, pepsi etc as the gods apparently love sweet offerings. In the past people would bring fruit juice, though now with the ease of bottled coke, that seems to be taking over. Another thing that is often offered are chickens, we saw chickens in various states, still alive, and just killed - which was surprising.

The horse ride back...what a ride. Just 20 minutes into the ride, a guy on our tour was thrown from his horse, and the horse then bolted for home. The man was fine, although he barely missed landing on rocks. However, this unsettled everyone, and soon my horse, along with Ilka's, decided that they were less interested in waiting for everyone, and much more interested in a walk to the river. We quickly lost everyone, and our sense of direction, so we just had to rely on the horses knowing where they were going! Once we all turned up in the same place, we learnt that nearly everyone had ridden back almost alone.

That night, a smaller group of us went out for dinner at a very tasty fajita restaurant, enjoying some good local Mexican beer. Once again, there was some salsa dancing for some...we were starting to get a taste for it.

Nightlife in Palenque

We only had one night in Palenque, and the torrential rain put a dampener (hah!) on any plans...however, Andres led us into town across one of the most terrifying bridges I have ever been. Wet, slippery, and missing several planks, it involved a lot of care to walk across!

We finally arrived at the restaurant that we had been told served large portions - it really did. About 4 people ordered chicken and vegetables, which was at least a whole chicken cut up each, with a large pile of vegetables. It was amazing, though far too much food for any one person to eat. The rest of the table ordered fajitas, again, so much food. It was excellent.

The rain stopped us walking back to the hotel, so we caught cabs back.

The following morning we went off to the city of San Cristobal de las Casas.

Misol-ha & Agua Azul

On the way back to town from the Palenque ruins we made a stop at Misol-ha & Agua Azul two quite different waterfalls. Misol-ha was a big drop into a pool whereas Agua Azul was terraced.


















You could walk round under the waterfall which gave a great view from the other side.












Right around the other side there was what looked like a small cave, I am not too sure what was in it though as on the way round, the slippery rocks had their revenge, and sent me sprawling to the ground - somewhere around here...

















... it seemed like a good time to go back.

There wasn’t really anywhere here to go swimming, and at this point that was a big attraction, though it wasn’t really a super hot day, so we made our way to the next set of waterfalls, Agua Azul.


















Though it wasn’t really sunny, the water was still an amazing shade of blue.
























There was a track that led up the side of the waterfall, along which were lots and lots of vendors of handicrafts, fruit and other things to eat. There were a bunch of little pools off the main waterfall, all with the blue, blue water.


















Once we had explored right up to the top, some decided it was time for a swim. The sun wasn’t really out, so it wasn’t the most appealing thought, but it turns out that the water was actually quite nice.

The Ruins at Palenque

We arrived early morning (around 5am, 13 Jan 2009) into Palenque and tried to have a nap for a couple of hours before heading out to the ruins. The only problem with the 2 hour nap was the howler monkeys making one hell of a racket (I still can’t believe it was monkeys, sounded like someone was grinding rock against rock). They started up just after we got into bed.

So not much sleep later, we got in a mini van and headed out. Palenque is a small site relative to Chitzen Itza, but there was still a huge amount to explore.

The main attraction here was the Temple of Inscriptions - the tomb of one of the big rulers at in this area, Pakal.



















At the right of this picture are steps that lead you to inside the tomb, which you access via a pretty narrow tunnel.

















































This was the sarcophagus.

With the reconstruction, and I believe this is the case in a lot of them, they have issues with the water getting through and causing them to collapse. This inside of this one was very damp, with a lot of puddles.

Within Palenque there was also a large Ceiba tree just away from the main structures. This tree was considered the Mayan tree of life, and was very important in the Mayan culture.

They grow for quite a distance before branching out, with quite straight, even branches.































They are good for a hug too.













This was only 15 years old, and was already a pretty big tree.

Like the other sites, this too had a main palace type building where the ruling family probably lived.













Above was the view from down in front of the tomb, and below is the view from a bit closer up.













This gives you an idea of the layout from where we started, way in the background, up to the top steps of the palace.













On the face of the building there was a lot of carving, a lot had faded out quite badly over time, but some you could still make out clearly.



















Within the palace we discovered the bathroom, with long-drop type toilets, part of some of the plumbing used within Palenque. They had also created an aqueduct (though it was on the ground and covered over) to move water around the site.



















Behind the palace were 3 other temples, the Temple of the Cross, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Foliated Cross. Inside each of these were detailed carvings showing offerings and other religious activity - though it was difficult to get a shot of them because of the light.

















































From the top of this temple, it gave you a fantastic view back out over the ground we had covered before.













On the way back down to the bus we found a little waterfall, and it was really nice to walk in amongst the trees.

We enjoyed it so much we jumped for joy!

Uxmal & Kabah, and the night bus

The following day was a free day before jumping on a night bus to Palenque, so we chose to visit the ruins of Uxmal and Kabah. These two sites are very different to Chitzen Itza, being quite a bit smaller, and much more detailed.

The main restored temple in Uxmal (pronounced Ush-mal) is oval, a rare shape in Mayan architecture. It is also extremely imposing! Sadly, because of the delicate nature of the restoration, and to preserve the cleaned stones from graffiti, we were not able to climb it.



















Unlike Chitzen Itza you were able to climb some of the restored ruins, which gave some pretty good views out over the jungle and enabled us to get a lot closer to the detail.





































It was interesting also seeing bits of the unrestored buildings just lying around on the ground. We found some interesting stones, that were waiting to be reattached.

























Also, this was the first place that we saw the Mayan false arch. Unlike European buildings, Mayan arches are created without keystones. It would be interesting to know how they went down this track, though based on the architecture that we saw it wasn't to their detriment in any way - arches were everywhere.



















Like in Chitzen Itza there was also a ball court, though in a much smaller scale.
































From Uxmal, we went to a much smaller ruins, with only two partially restored buildings - Kabah.

Building 1:













Building 2:













This ruin apparently had started to be worked on some time ago, but then the funding had been pulled and moved to Uxmal, so you could see all the piles of stones in preparation to be put up - though not there yet. It would be interesting to go back in 10 years time to see the progress, if any.

























This site was a good example of the Mayan affinity for narrow tall steps, you can see here that the step was about 1/2 the depth of my foot - though the steps were still quite tall.

























Again, this site had some really good detail on the faces of the buildings.













This was the group that went out to the ruins.













Our favourite discovery this day was the superb lime and chicken soup at a buffet on the way back to Merida. This is a traditional Mexican dish which sounds weird, but we will definitely be trying to make it when we get home.

We had about an hour back in Merida before jumping on a night bus to Palenque, Mexico.

This was our first experience with these and it wasn't that great. For some reason they crank the air con on full, so they turn into a giant fridge. There is not a whole lot of room, but hey, what can you do. This was something that was not on the trip itinery, but our guide changed this part to give us the full day in Merida, rather than another full day of travelling. We arrived into Palenque at about 5am.