The way to Chichicastenanga

Thursday, 18 February 2010

The way to Chichicastenanga

Even though my usual wake-up time is five in the morning, it felt some how ridiculously early to have the alarm go off at 6:15. Today we had hired a van to take us up towards Lake Atitlán and some nearby towns. This area was reputed to be one of the most beautiful in Guatemala. Howard had told us that the road to get there was quite windy and mountainous and potentially treacherous at times. It was vacation, so why shouldn’t we hire a driver who knows the right way there? Aren’t we here to relax anyway? The Whitehouse family jumped aboard after having a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

Our first stop would be the mountain town of Chichicastenanga. It took a solid one and a half hours to reach this busy town. We drove up and then down mountainous switchback roads only to drive up and down another mountain further on. The views were rural and rustic along the way. There were shantie towns and mountainside villages. We saw men cycling to work up steep mountain roads, women walking down the shoulder of the busy highway carrying packages wrapped in bright patterned clothes with babies strapped to their backs just to add to the challenge. Some of the hill sides were partitioned into terraced geometrical farming plots. The closest place it reminded me of was the countryside of Brazil when I drove from Rio de Janeiro to the town of Buzios.

Chichicastenanga is known for its elaborate Thursday market which veritably takes over the entire town. This area of Guatemala is known for its textile production. If you come to Guatemala and want to buy woven fabrics and blankets, this is the place to do it. The narrow alleyways of this dingy town were lined with dozens upon dozens of vendors. If you just as much as made eye contact with any of them, they pretty much dragged you into their display area. “It’s okay, lady. Just have a look!” Besides the aggressive vendors, a tourist here is also plagued by children and elderly women who walk around with arms full of items. They approach with their sweet smiles and puppy dog eyes and implore you to buy one of their magnets, bracelets, scarves. Before you know it, they are unraveling reels of colorful fabric and draping it over your shoulders in hopes that you might fall so in love with the bright pattern that you will take it home. One has to admire their persistence, but it is sad to see seven year old girls selling scarves at a market instead of sitting in a classroom. We wanted to reward their work ethic and support these hard working women and children, but one simply can not buy a bracelet or trinket from everyone. Just when you’d think you had lost one of the buggers, they should show up again, flashing you with a smile and a blowing on a Mayan flute.

The streets are crowded with all walks of life. There are tourists searching for a good deal. The tourists we’ve seen here have had a more alternative look, not your average traveler or cruise-ship-goer. This place is not for the Disneyland crowd. There were Guatemalan locals who appeared to be city folk, dressed in jeans and regular western clothing, also there to shop. I saw scores of women in their colorful traditional Guatemalan/Mayan dress shopping for food at the market, sometimes while suckling a baby at the same time and dragging another child behind them. Other Guatemalans were clearly rushing through, busily on their way to and from work. I was passed by many middle-aged men, shorter than me, carrying heavy loads on their backs. They secured these baskets with a strap that wrapped around the load and looped around to their foreheads. This looked extremely uncomfortable and awkward and forced them to walk in a hunched over manner. This was a new observance for me, in other developing countries I have seen the women carry baskets on their heads, but never had I seen the men carrying items like this.

I most enjoyed the food and produce section of the market. This is where the locals came to get their food. There was an open space that seemed to be an indoor basketball court and it was filled with produce vendors. The popular items were carrots the size of baseball bats, small white onions with long green stalks, cabbage, a variety of leafy greens, and frijoles in a rainbow of colors. In other sections of the market, one could buy freshly made corn tortillas, some blue, others white, and a few filled with black beans. There was a fried chicken vendor and buckets filled with smelly dried fish. I also spotted some live chickens, turkeys and ducks and chicks to raise also. Most of the produce was sold by groups of women, sometimes three generations of women, dressed in Mayan fabrics and speaking in an ancient tongue. Their language was unique and noticeably different from Spanish. It consisted of a lot of “shh” sounds and clicking noises. The name Chichicastenango is a Mayan name.

These indigenous people did not appreciate having their photographs taken. I am not sure if they felt they were being disrespected or exploited by tourists, if they feared it would drive off business to be surrounded by tourists, or if there was an element of superstition involved. One man actually threw a bean at William while he photographed him. The colors of the produce were so vivid and the Guatemalans so beautiful, how could one not want to capture that on film? I had to be stealth when taking pictures. There was no way I was leaving this town without documentation of what I’d seen.

One of the most memorable sights we saw that day, was that of a petit and frail elderly woman begging through the market. She was carrying her adult son, strapped to her back. He was clearly severely handicapped, his feet were curled under and one eye socket was sunken shut. This poor but strong woman had probably been carrying him on her back for the last twenty-five years, why stop now? Maybe she was exploiting him for a little money, but perhaps this was her only hope to feed the two of them. Taking care of him her whole life she probably didn’t have time to work with the other women.

At one point I was approached by this adorable old woman who was 4 foot 5 inches at maximum, her back slumped over from osteoporosis. She had stacks of bright hand-woven materials stacked on her head. She held up one of her decorative pieces to show me, she wanted be to buy it for 400 quetzels. When I bargain at these kinds of markets, I’ve found a good rule of thumb to take the seller’s asking price and cut it in half and start negotiations there. I had been using this technique all day and had been quite successful even if I had to walk away from the seller multiple times to feign disinterest. I attempted this again with the adorable tiny old woman. She wasn’t budging on the price. She said it took a few months to make this piece and she needed money to eat. The sad look on her face seemed genuine. It was hard to resist her. My dad made the mistake of snapping a picture of her next to me, and she quickly ditched me to go after him for money.

The Whitehouse family cashed out at the Chichicastenanga market. We left that place with arms full of bags containing quilts, woolen blankets, table clothes, Mayan ceremonial wooden masks, traditional clothing, woven bags, jewelry and much more. The other tourists in the streets commented on our mother load. Gordon made a stop off for some Guatemalan fast at Pollo Campero while William haggled over a pair of hippie-looking patchwork pants. It was now time to pile back in the van and head to our next destination.

Another hour’s drive took us to the town of Panajachel, the main town on Lake Atitlán. The views as we made the descent into town were gorgeous. From the high elevation of the mountainside, we looked down on the blue water of the lake and the volcanoes and hills that lined the perimeter of it. The weather in Chichicastenanga was gray and overcast, but here by the lake, the sun had come out in full force.

First order of business was to stop for lunch. Our driver tried to take us to a restaurant called Casa Blanca (how fitting) that was very touristy. We declined. I tried to suggest we eat at a Pupuseria I spotted, as I still had not had my fix of pupusas. The rest of the family was not feeling in the mood for pupusas. I was sad yet again, and the menu had looked so good! For the equivalent of one dollar, we could’ve had pupusas filled with cheese, garlic, onions, beans, or pork rinds and really anything else you could have wanted.

Panajachel is a touristy town as it is located right at the beautiful lake. There was no shortage of restaurants to choose from and most of them quite empty. They all, more or less, had the same menu if it was Guatemalan food you were after. We invited our driver to join us for lunch and sat down in the open-air restaurant. Soon after we’d put our order in, we were approached by two teenage girls selling scarves and wraps in the bright Mayan color patterns. They went right up to my mom, wrapped her shoulders in a shawl, and put a bright head scarf in the form of a wrap around her head. I was laughing away watching this spectacle, but then the girls came after me and I was wearing a similar head wrap. Three younger girls saw the spectacle at hand and decided they’d see if they could sell the American tourists some more scarves. These girls no more than seven or eight years old really drove a hard bargain, but I finally got them down on their prices and bought a few scarves. Even after I made my purchase, they continued to hover around, now trying to sell bracelets or other scarf patterns. They were relentless!

After lunch, the driver took us to the shores of Lake Atitlán where we could hire a boat to explore some of the towns. After a bit of negotiation, we had our own private motorboat which would take us across the lake, behind the main volcano to a town called Santiago. It took about twenty minutes to traverse the lake. The water was a blue-green and quite calm. It felt like we were in the base of a crater when we were in the middle of the lake as there are mountains and volcanoes surrounding the lake’s circumference. I suppose that technically we were in the middle of a crater!

The town of Santiago is a small dusty town that is essentially catering to tourists. As soon as we walked off the docks, we were approached by children asking for money, men offering to give us a ride, and women selling woven blouses. We wandered through the town, which really consisted of one main street, for about an hour. The shopping items were about the same as they were in Chichicastenanga and Antigua. The pattern of the hand-woven items did differ by town though. The fabrics in Santiago were embroidered with lots of tropical birds where as other areas had flowers and so on. William and I bought some bracelets from a street side seller. Even after buying a few, the woman literally ran down the street after us to try to sell more. We climbed aboard the boat to return to Panajachel. As the man was starting the engines, a different woman, this one selling her hand-woven blouses approached the boat. Even as we had begun to pull away from the dock she was still trying to sell us the blouse, she began negotiating a price. It was a little upsetting to see her so desperately try to make a sale. It was the end of the day and perhaps her last chance at a sale.

We enjoyed more views of the lush green mountain and volcanoes on the ride back. Men were out in rustic looking wooden canoes fishing on the lake. The sun was getting low behind the mountains and beginning to create bold silhouettes. We heard that lake Atitlán is lined with many interesting towns similar to Santiago, but we didn’t have time to explore any more than one. It was already after five o’clock and we had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us. I took the long drive back to reflect on another fascinating day in Guatemala.