Chichicastenango and Nebaj, Guatemala

July 11: Phil´s Birthday! and Xela to Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Chichi is basically the most famous market in Guatemala, and a big stop on the tourist track. At first we decided that we didn´t really want to go (especially after seeing much more authentic markets like the one in Solola), but then we changed our minds and decided it would be a great place to do some souvenir shopping. But before we headed off to Chichi, we decided to spend the morning in San Andres Xecul, a small town outside of Xela, which has one of the arguably most famous churches in central America (or at least one of the most colorful). Either way, the church was on the cover of our guidebook, so of course we had to go. It took 3 modes of transportation to get there – first a minibus to La Rotunda, then a chicken bus to some random place on the side of the highway (the fare enforcers are always super nice and let you know where to get off), and then a pickup truck through the countryside to San Andres Xecul. Lucky for us, the pickup stopped right next to the church, so we snapped some pictures. Unsure of exactly what to do next, we hiked up some very steep streets to the top of the town (Steph keeps telling me these steep streets are practice for SF), where there was another colorful church and some great views of the valley. Then we decided to pay a visit to Maximon (or San Simon). Basically Maximon is a scarecrow-looking thing with a legit plastic face that looks vaguely like Elvis, and he always has a cigar in his mouth. During the day, he sits in a chair, and at night, they put him in bed. People come in, and light candles and do all kinds of ceremonies while praying to him. We got to witness a couple of these when we went into a back area, where there were a couple of fires lit, and a man and woman were praying. The woman was mumbling prayers and tossing various things into the fire, including candles, salt, and other things. The guys put two cans of food into the fire (we are guessing jalapenos), and then started clearing things from in front of the fire. The woman next to him started backing up, which made us very suspicious, and they kept giving us glances and saying "cuidado", so we backed into a corner also. A few minutes later and -- BOOM -- the first explosion, followed soon by another -- BOOM -- and pieces of can were flying everywhere. And then we started coughing (which is why we think it was jalapenos). 

Having seen just about enough and wary of what other miscellaneous items these two might throw on the fire next, we decided it was time to go. After a smooth ride back to Xela, we grabbed some lunch and began our quest to find much needed contact solution. After checking at a local pharmacy, we were directed to the right place and headed back to our hostel to grab our bags. At somepoint in the van on our way to the bus stop, Steph asks "did you grab the contact solition?", to which Phil responded "no, I thought you had it". Crap. Well, too late now. After being dropped off at the end of a giant market outside the bus station, we started making our way towards the buses, stopping at every pharmacy on the way to see if we could find any. About 10 later, we were directed to a Walmart (yeah, you read that right) that was really close by. Walmart saved the day, and with renewed energy we grabbed a bus and made our way to Chichicastenango. Once there we grabbed a hostel (a little splurge, but it had hot water showers and we think most places were booked) and scouted out the market before settling in for bed.


July 12 -- Chichicastenango to Nebaj 

Today was market day. At the advice of some blogs we had read, staying the night in Chichi really paid off. We got to the market at around 6:30am, when most of the stalls were still setting up and before the big tourist buses from Antigua and Xela come. This was just about the perfect time, since we were able to get "early morning" deals, which were probably the same as "morning deals" and likely just as good as "afternoon deals". Either way, we bought some stuff, bought some fried chicken and caught a Chicken bus to Santa Cruz del Quiche. Here we transferred to a micro-bus which took us all the way to Nebaj, which turned out to be a pretty long day. Nebaj is well of the regular "tourist trail", but not so far off to be uncomfortable. After picking a hostel and booking a guide for the next day, we headed out to find some street food and ended up eating some of the best tacos we've had in Guatemala. About 3/4 the way through our tacos, it started pouring outside, so we stayed under the tarp by our food stand and ordered a torta from a cart nextdoor. This was also pretty delicious. We sat and watched the rain, listening to the Claro booth nearby (a cell phone company) battle with the Tigo van (another cell phone company) that kept driving by. They were both blaring top 10 american pop music hits, which was quite entertaining. After a while, the rain started letting up and we made our way back to our hostel's office, where they had internet connections and a restaurant. The internet here was sloowwwwwww. Painfully slow. So we didn't last long on it, and instead decided to read, order some food, and play a few rounds of chess before going to bed.


July 13 -- Acul

This morning we got up to take a day hike to some of the surrounding small villages near Nebaj. This Ixil territory--apparently an area that suffered greatly under the Spanish, and then during the Guatemalan civil war as well. After a delicious breakfast of amazing coffee, grilled chicken, beans, the best tortillas we've eaten so far, tomato-cucumber-onion salad, and macaroni salad (the macaroni salad is our main suspect for the cause of Phil's massive food poisoining episode, but more on that later...) we went to meet our guide at 9am. He did not speak a word of English, but we were able to understand some of what he was saying. We started by hiking relatively leisurely (at least compared to some of the other hikes we've done), and were accompanied by a super cute yellow lab with semi-bad hips (which didn't seem to stop her from jumping into every single rushing stream), who we promptly named Dog. We took a break with a nice mirador (view) of Nebaj. At this point, the guide explained some of the history of the area, which I will not repeat here because we probably didn't understand it correctly. Then we went up for a bit longer (uphill for about an hour and a half total), and then started heading down into the village of Acul through the cornfields. The whole hike was simply beautiful--some people have apparently compared this area to the swiss alps. We took another break overlooking Acul, where the guide explained some more history, and we semi-understood. Then we headed down, walked through Acul, and up into the neighboring village, where we ate luch with a local family (some spaghetti with some kind of chile sauce, a hard boiled egg, tortillas, and some hot lemon and honey water). We paid, said "thank you" in Ixil, and headed to the next village and looped around to a cheese farm, where we sampled some delicious Queso Chancol, and headed on our way. At this point, we lost Dog (she got really excited/distracted by a particularly beautiful stream, and couldn't find us at the cheese farm). This was probably for the better anyway, since we took a micro bus back to Nebaj. Back in Nebaj, we grabbed a delicious dinner of Lan..... (sausage) and roast chicken. Then we stopped for one last taco on our way back to the hostel, where we promptly showered and hopped into bed, since our shuttle was leaving at 5 am.