Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

We are back in Guatemala and it was such a great feeling to be back in the Guatemalan highlands.  This area of the country is so spectacular.  Most of the places we have been lately have been dusty, brown and brittle due to the lack of rain (it is the dry season now).  Somehow this area has remained greener than any other place.  Over 50% of the population of Guatemala is indigenous and you are constantly confronted with the Mayan tradition and colorful clothing, weaving and textiles.  I think it is by far one of the most interesting areas of Central America. 

After leaving Guatemala City we stopped in Chichicastenango.  There is a renowned textile market that takes place every Thursday and Sunday in this town.  We got there on Wednesday evening and watched the town transform itself into a bustling lively market.  Matthias isn’t so into these markets, but I sure am.  He let me out in the morning (with an empty wallet) to scope out the goods.  I came back with a list of a few things that I wanted to by and he came back out with me and did the haggling.  I’m terrible at it, and Matthias was able to talk all of the vendors down to a price he was sort of ok with. 

 

The next stop was Quetzaltenango – more commonly known as Xela.  We spent two weeks in Xela in October taking language classes.  We met up with Matthias’ old teacher and did some shopping.  Up in the highlands it is really cold – like highs in the low 70’s and lows in the 40’s.  For the last several months we’ve been in areas where the temperatures are always in the 90’s (and sometimes higher).  Honestly, it is too cold for me, and I’m looking forward to getting back into warmer climate.  However, Xela is such a great town and we’ve really been glad to have a second chance to explore it some more.  We’ve found a nice hostel (next to Neuroticos Anonimicos – Neurotics Anonymous en español) with parking, wireless internet, and the cutest group of 3 little Mayan kids that William and Julian have been playing with.  Xela is working out for all of us.  We have been able to take care of some errands and today we went back to some hot springs near here, set high up in the mountains in the cloud forest.  The drive up there is jaw-dropping and I think it was just what I needed to get over the cold I got since being in this frigid weather.    

Next we are off to Huehuetenango.  Huehue (pronounced way-way) is close to the Mexican border and we plan on spending two nights there.  It is rumored to be one of the most scenic stretches of the Guatemalan highlands.  We’ll take a small day trip on a chicken bus and after that we’re off to Mexico again.

      

The drive to the coast really was something else. Yet again, we put the Yoda Van to the test and he got us where we needed to go. As soon as we had descended from the highlands it became hot and humid again. After all our complaining about the humidity in Mexico, some warmth was a welcome change after the cool nights in Xela. This country feels so different with the warm humid air blowing in through the windows of the car. And sitting along side the ocean side under a palapa drinking sodas out of thick glass bottles is an amazing experience. Those are the moments when I know this trip was worthwhile.

The beach in Champarico was a black sand beach made from volcanoes. The waves were really amazing and we had such a good time swimming in them. Paul and Matthias discovered that you could wade out really far to just where the big waves where breaking and body surf. It was really fun and I could have stayed out there for hours. I was surprised that Bonnie came out. She’s weighs about 350 pounds and I just didn’t take her for much of a swimmer. Unfortunately she didn’t last too long. I think she was hit by a wave kind of hard and I looked up and saw her standing in the water wiping the salt water off her face. But I could also see the next wave about to break right in back of her and this one totally took her down. I still have this image of the cross-dressing actor Divine in a plus size bathing suit body surfing and being smacked down hard on the sand. When she came up she had lost the upper half of her swimsuit and decided she had had enough swimming for the day. It was still cool because she sat on the beach with William and Julian while Matthias and I went in the water.

That evening we walked through town and then had a nice seafood dinner. The next day we left Champarico. Paul, Bonnie and Mary drove with us to Reu, got off at the junction towards Xela and flagged a chicken bus home. We continued on to Lago de Atitlan and the drive there was spectacular. We drove high up into the mountains again, alongside coffee plantations and other crops up to over 9000 feet. The western highlands of Guatemala is one of the most amazing places I’ve seen so far. So much of this land has been cultivated for agriculture. Not once have I seen a motorized piece of equipment for any of this work such as a tractor or a plow. The plowing, planting and harvesting is all done by hand as far as I can tell, on the side of extremely steep cliffs. We’ve seen so many men walking with a garden hoe slung over his shoulder, or women in traditional clothing (possibly with a child slung on their back) up in the fields tending to the crops, weeding, harvesting, carrying crops down into the towns. It is absolutely amazing what these people achieve.

The clothing continues to amaze me as well. The area around Lago de Atitlan is one of the few in Guatemala where the men also wear traditional clothing. We’ve seen many men in this area wearing brightly colored, embroidered outfits as well. We drove to the nearby town of Sololá on market day and we came to the central plaza which was covered in coleus plants. The whole market and plaza was filled with people wearing deep purple clothes just like the coleus plants. Xela is such a big city that there were people from all over, so you really didn’t get a sense of one particular clothing. But in smaller towns it is obvious that the women are all wearing clothing of a similar color and pattern. In San Antonio on Lake Atitlan the clothing was navy and turquoise, in another town on the lake it was light purple with animals embroidered on their tops. Today we saw another town where all the women were wearing deep maroon tops with stripes.

Lake Atitlan is beautiful. The first day we were there it was overcast, but the second day we had great weather and we went on a boat tour on the lake. There are three volcanoes along the shore and the water is green. It is often called the most beautiful lake in the world, and rightly so. We’ll be leaving on Thursday for Cobán, which is close to the jungle in Guatemala.

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