#chichicastenango

[pam3pr]

Guatemala & Honduras (2008)

[postcard-from-the-past]

Church of Santo Tomás in Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Guatemalan vintage postcard

[eopederson]

Mercado de navidad, Chichicastenango, Guatemala, 2002.

[archive-of-the-mundane]

1967 Jan

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Guatemala Days 12-13

Chichicastenango

Writing this a day late to catch up from the power outage.

Yesterday we went on the wild ride that is Guatemalan public transportation. We took the bus which is called a chicken bus and it is literally a refurbished American school bus. They reminded me a lot of the jeepneys in The Philippines. I bet there is an interesting story somewhere there.

We had to take three chicken buses through the windy mountain roads to get to Chichicastenango. The roads in Guatemala aren’t really maintained by the government and the terrain is very intense so even things that are not very far away take several hours to get to. This is part of the reason why there are so many different languages and cultures within Guatemala.

We had to hang on pretty tight as we took the sharp corners and got some air time when we went over bumps. But at least this time we didn’t have to drive across a small river like we did on our way to Panajachel (a bridge had collapsed so the road was just rerouted through the river).

When we finally got to Chichicastenango we went to the market. Chichicastenango’s market is the largest market in Central America and happens every Thursday and Sunday. It reminded me a lot of the bazaars in Istanbul. Very windy and maze like, you go in one way and get spit out two hours later somewhere completely different.

In the middle of the market is the Iglesia de Santo Tomás, which is another Mayan -Catholic church. We witnessed some Mayan ceremonies happening on the steps with people lighting incense on an alter and leaving flowers. The Mayan - Catholic churches were generally built on top of Mayan temples that were destroyed by the Catholic church, but leading up to them are generally 20 steps symbolic of the Mayan calendar and oriented a specific way to face towards landmarks like volcanoes or toward certain astrological constellations.

Chichicastenango is located in the region of El Quiché, which is where a large part of the Guatemalan Civil War happened from the 1980’s-1990’s. From what I understand this was between the indigenous peoples and poor working class of Guatemala against wealthy landowners trying to buy up indigenous land and mistreat workers on fincas (similar to plantations). The indigenous peoples organized themselves and resisted but the landowners were supported by the army, the government, and foreign businesses (namely the US government and the United Fruit Company). The government at the time was supported by the US after the CIA ousted the former president, and the US funded a number of armed militias to enforce their interests as well.

Countless indigenous people were disappeared, tortured, and massacred. To this day people don’t really talk about what happened out of fear for their own safety, many indigenous people still live at risk and face discrimination and violence; resulting in a lot of the immigration we see today.

For more information I’d recommend looking up The Banana Wars. I’m reading Rigoberta Menchú’s autobiography now which is really sobering and eye opening. She is a Guatemalan indigenous rights activist.

Anyway we spent several hours at the market and then made our way back to Panajachel.

Today we visited San Juan La Laguna again in the morning and visited another indigenous women’s weaving co-op called Casa Flor Ixcaco which does some amazing work in the community. If you’re interested in supporting them they have an online shop as well.

We did some shopping there and then tried to get back to Panajachel in time for our bus to Guatemala City, but we got delayed at the boat dock for over 45 minutes because the boat couldn’t depart unless it was full apparently. When we finally got back we rushed and made our bus in time.

The bus made an unexpected stop in Antigua and we got to have lunch in a cool rooftop café there which was a really nice, unexpected break. Then we got back on the bus to Guatemala City.

Guatemala City reminds me a lot of Mexico City in that it is humongous, loud, polluted, and absolutely crazy. We’re just staying the night here and have been warned many times not to go out of the hotel because there is a lot of crime in this city. I’ve heard that about a lot of places and it usually tends to be exaggeration but we’re gonna play it safe. This seems like the kind of city where you should have a good idea what you’re doing (i.e. not walking around totally lost).

In the morning Emily is flying back home and I’ll be continuing my solo journey for the next week,

[spongeblogspringerpants]

Market day in Chichicastenango Guatemala - Film scan from 2004

[footloosellama]

Chichicastenango, Guatemala - market day

[poetastroo]

Iglesia Santo Tomás, Chichicastenango, Guatemala, 1975 por Marcelo Montecino