MAYA-HO! _{Guatemala, Easter 2003}

Saturday 3 May 2003

Chichicastenango: We arose 'way too early and crawled into Pedro's KIA diesel van, driven by Tomás, bound northward to the Ixil triangle. Chichi to Nebáj is 103 km (60 mi). The first half is mostly paved, the rest isn't. Chicken buses make the run in 4 hours. With a couple of walk-arounds and a long construction wait, we arrived at noon after departing at 6AM. Figure it out.

The road from Chichi passes through flat fertile farmland bounded by steep precipices. More early morning haze and glare hid the details. We fed on Pedro's home-ground peanut butter sandwiched on whole wheat rolls with local honey, and thermos-jug coffee. The landscape seemed like rolling hills except that road grades went up-up-up and down-down.

We entered the departmental capital Santa Cruz del Quiché, a singularly depressing regional agricultural-industrial-administrative center. Like San Pedro Jocopilas just beyond, it's best left undescribed.

I recall the route becoming twistier and steeper, the haze-shrouded hills no exactly 'mystical' as some guidebooks suggest, just misty. Hamlets and farms of no great prosperity flew or crawled by, depending on whether we were bound downhill or uphill.

Midmorning Saturday

Around 9am we reached Sacapulas on the Rio Negro, crossroads of the north (the Cobán-Huehue track intersects here) where the pavement ends and the REAL mountains begin. We stopped for a few minutes in the town square. Nearby locals seemed quite amused by my white beard, especially a broom-wielder who motioned as if to sweep with it. I flicked my bush to their great amusement as we drove off.

We crossed the Rio Negro, stopped at a tiny comedor for a fine cheap typicas breakfast of eggs-beans-plantains-tortillas-salsa-coffee, then drove up into the mountains. At least we started to -- the delay for roadwork (funded by a Japanese bank, doubtless to encourage Toyota-Suburu-Honda sales) seemed endless. Occupants of a two dozen vehicles sat in the shade of papaya trees or sweated in the sun.

Finally we rolled upward, convoying through cliffside construction zones as heavy equipment took the sharp edges off a very dangerous route. Then up-up-up along steep escarpments and murderous slopes through the midmorning haze.

If the air had been darker or smelled worse, I'd imagine us to be climbing into the wilder mountains above Los Angeles. But this haze is produced by warm moist Atlantic-Caribbean air rising into the highlands and condensing against the slightly cooler mountain terrain.

So we climbed into country that could have been rougher stretches of the mountains of Southern and Central California except for the Mayan hamlets and farms, the brighter flowers, the tree-daturas and tree-aloes and gigandmundo agaves, palms and jacarandas and huge cereus cacti, the extensive terraces bearing dried cornstalks.

The Ixil Triangle

We passed a sign announcing the protection of Ixil by international agencies. We'd entered the Ixil Triangle, homeland of the Ixil-speaking Mayas whose tongue is as alien to Quiché-phone Pedro as to us or to Mongolians.

The Ixil were horribly devastated during the repression of the 1980s and early 1990s, as were other rural Guatemalans. Perhaps 1500 guerillas ranged across the highlands; govt forces killed upwards of 200,000 peasants and dispossessed 1/2 million more. 60 Ixil villages were destroyed; many Ixil were driven into Mexico, and they and their descendents are just now returning. Read the histories, see who did what to whom and why. See http://hrdata.aaas.org/ciidh/dts/nebaj.html

The Ixil country is wetter and more inviting that what we've seen below. The haze is thinner, the sun brighter. Many fields of corn, beans, coffee, squash and other crops; many workers in the fields and on the roads, some smiling, most looking hard and/or tired..

Some folks on the roadside give us a fast index-finger-spinning gesture which Pedro says means "round-trip" or "all the way", the local hitchhikers' handsign. Other ride-seekers, male and female, all ages, just wave a hand in the air. The US hitchhikers' thumb means UP YOURS in many cultures. Go figure.

We arrive at Nebáj, which seems more a typical if cleaner regional center than a mystical place. We park downtown, walk into the church (rebuild since the 1976 quake, now festooned with veils for a wedding), walk around the curchyard's mini-mercado, buy some fabrics, then head further into the Ixil Triangle.

Further Into Ixil

More farms and hamlets, more productive mountainous country, a drive that could be a spin through the hilly interiors of California's North Bay counties but for the reminders that we're really someplace totally different.

Around habitations the cattle and goats and pigs and sheep and turkeys are generally staked out to graze, while dogs and chickens and ducks and children wander about. No cats are visible here. In one village ther streets are blocked with a festivity including masked dancers and a brass band. Coming back we're blocked by a funeral procession, men bearing a coffin on their shoulders down the road, women and children following.

We reach the most traditional and isolated Ixil village of Chajul at midday. Everything's closed. nothing to eat; but Maria, a trainee teacher, convinces us to come to her old adobe home to view her weavings. Maureen buys a great huipile, we see home (beds laden with great Momostenango blankets), we talk to her brother Matheo, I play his guitar, he reciprocates.

We walk back to the square, view the church with its fabulous gold-cabinetry and famous figures including the Black Christ that's the goal of pilgrimages. Paintings and plaques and lists of names remind visitors and local alike of the death and destructions inflicted here by troops not so long ago - images of bullet-ridden Ixil Mayas, a crucifix with bullet holes. Rigoberto Menchú may have fudged the details but the story is true.

Maria and a friend (or relative? not clear) hitch a ride with us back to Nebaj. Pedro says there's no use going to Cotzál the third point of the Ixil Triangle - less there than Chajul even. So it's back through the green-brown lands to Nebaj, which looks better with lenghtening shadows and looming mountains.

We lunched late at La Descansa in Nebaj. Downstairs, a reading room / book exchange / library, and a clean bar filled with international patrons watching an US film on TV - another videotape cinema. Upstairs, a clean cafe overlooking parts of Nebaj. Next door, trek-planning and language-school index and Internet cafe. Judging by its ambience we could have been almost anywhere in the globalsphere, anyplace catering to students and/or travelers and/or sophisticated locals.

Out For The Night

We then drove west at the usual snail's pace over the usual twisty dusty gravel-dirt roads past the usual dry farms and hamlets through the usual smokey-tangy-woodsy scents to a wetter region. Our destination was a dairy ranch just a few slow kilometers from Nebaj, a finca with guest rooms where we were to spend the night.

We turned south at the signboard for Doña Rodrigo's into a volcanic valley (hey, they're almost ALL volcanic valleys around here!) that was the greenest and lushest we'd yet seen in Guatemala. A flowing stream, growing grass, irrigated narrow fields, fat healthy complacent cows and feisty horses (not like the cat-hammed quadrapeds common elsewhere). Scattered basalt boulders. steep rounded hills, the occasional cinder cone, all thickly covered with the usual mixed forest but more conifers than below.

Nearly 12 hours after leaving Chichi we arrived at the Hacienda San Antonio de Azzaris and the Azzari family's cheese production shop. They do it the old way, by hand, even the milking. Their card reads:

  Quesas Chancol
  Arul Nebaj Quiché
  (502)439-3352

And they welcome guests. As well they should.

And what do guests find here? Across from a Swiss chalet is a Spanish-colonial hacienda in beautiful green mountains, a site that looks almost EXACTLY like a prosperous ranch in Sonoma County, California! We've come south a few thousand miles, gained a few thousand feet elevation, crawled innumerable tortuous roads, to return to the place we just moved from! But passing Mayas and chicken-buses and more exotic plants remind us that we're SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Some nice Italian wine and chunks of gourmet Quesas Chancol cheese, a great homecooked Italian-Guatemalan dinner, and we're ready to crawl into our comfortable beds (note: ask for extra pillows) and drift away. Later, light rain dances on the tiled roof. Fireflies flicker. Night envelops all.

Sunday 4 May 2003

Arul, near Nebaj: Arising early, it's COLD for the first time this trip! I can see my breath. But that doesn't last - pretty soon I'm back to t-shirt.

We stroll around the gorgeous locale sucking-in sights-smells-sounds, are served a fine hearty breakfast (total cost of room and food per person: Q150, US$20), then bid the Azzaris goodbye and head for the next adventure: soaring back over the beautiful Ixil country and descending that torturous under-construction road to lower lands.

Descending was no more fun than ascending and not much faster. We hit a one-hour traffic delay mid-slope. Lorries and chicken-buses and pickups and the odd sedan all piled up along the hot dry dirt highway. Maya girls under tarp-shelters sold cold drinks and sandwiches. The slope was adequately pissed-upon. We waited.

Russ Gets A Ride

Russ, a lanky young Brit (sounded Australian) hopped off a chickenbus and asked for a ride with us, ANYTHING to get off that miserable rolling deathtrap to Chichi. No problem. The fare? Talk to us.

Russ' story: he's on sabbatical from his travel agency job in London. He and a mate came to Central America for a few weeks of surfing. Surf's great on the Carib side, the islands are great but it's hot there. The mate had to fly home, Russ was on his own. Costa Rica was great, El Salvador wasn't so great, Tikal was great but hot. Russ bussed thru the Petán to Coban, then along the hot dusty (no longer jungle) roads to here.

We all continued down to Sacapulas and (Santa Cruz del) Quiché, the route increasingly hot until we reached that local capitol. We lunched on typico chowmein - Russ decided against our side trip, wanted to bus to Chichi and Pana, insisted on paying Q20 (US$3) for the fare - about what a bus ride halfway across the country would cost. Whatever.

Joyabaj And Return

Ah, the side trip: out to famed Joyabaj, which town is no great prize, but the route through cleaner villages and higher cooler more open countryside on a quivering ridge under towering mountains - so delightful. Pedro's wife's family live out there, and along with Antigua and Xela this is his favorite part of Guatemala.

Back thru Quiché in the dusk, to Chichi in the dark. Night-driving in Guatemala is a cautious wonder as almost anything may jump out in front of you.

But Tomás' expert driving brought us in safely after only 10 hours on the road. Maureen and I crawled next door to Clemencia's for our next-to-last immersion in her healing home cooking and hostitality. Then we walked the few blocks to 'downtown', observed the energetic street scene - more ambulatory drunks than I'd noticed before, maybe it's a Sunday night ritual - and returned, to shower, to collapse, to oblivion.

Monday 5 May 2003

Chichicastenango: Back to downtown Chichi for breakfast, then an exploration of the swank Santo Tomás Hotel's colonial fantasyland. Armando, one of the staff, offered to drive us to Xela tomorrow and tour the area in his van for merely slightly more than the price of a commercial shuttle (and the eventual cost was even less) so we're set for the next stage of this adventure.

A small but fervent procession passed in the street as we made arrangements; the circumstance is unclear - probably the feast day of the patron saint of one of the cofradias.

I took Maureen on a short tour of some of what I'd found stomping around Chichi, down to the isthmus and back to Santo Tomás church along scenic illustrative routes. Late Monday morning after a boisterous Sunday, the town seems subdued, burnt out.

Inside the church, the colorful figures from the recent procession were lined along the walls before adoring supplicants. A Christ figure faced offerings of flowers, candles, money, aguardiente. All the saints were festooned with cash. Incense smoke hung thickly, a sweet fog in a dark cavern.

Then lunch accompanied by the bus'n'lorry ballet; some confusion over changing money; a bit of laundry in the bathroom sink; and we prepare for tomorrow's departure.

On Monday night the lluvias (rains) threatened to hit Chichi, the sky grew cold and clear, then clouded over - has the wet time started? But the eventual attack was only a gentle pitter-patter. We coughed and snorted and sang this to the tune of the Rice-A-Roni ads:

  SNOT (snort) O-RAMA, The Guatemalan Treat!

We had our final fine feed at Clemencia's, said our goodbyes, and strolled a few yards to the El Arco bridge to view the quietly-bustling nightlife to the south, the moonlit countryside and mountains to the north, the scudding clouds and stars and moon above.

Incident in Nebaj

Maureen reminded me of an incident Sunday or Saturday in Nebaj. We'd come into the Ixil city on its exiting side, circled around the increasingly pedestrian-jammed downtown, and parked a ways from the church square's thronging marketplace, replete with chanting vendors and ranting demagogues. Or maybe it was the day before, when we entered Nebaj on its dull side and parked near that almost-emply square. Probably the latter. Whatever.

Anyway we looked into the reconstructed church (previously described), then walked through an antechamber into the convento courtyard. This side entrance was jammed with a wedding party in high spirits, everyone decked out in traditional greenish garb, men and women alike. Maureen recalled that she'd seen no other men in the Ixil region wearing the old Mayan costume, not even in the village festival and funeral processions.

A small boy was much taken by my outlandish appearance (tall white guy with white bush and plain dark clothes). He repeatedly laughingly charged me, tagging me, not an ankle-biter exactly but close enough. Finally his mother called him away; he changed trajectory, bouncing off others in and around the wedding party. Much merriment ensued.

An old man shouted questions at us in K'iché. Pedro said he was asking how the war in the US was going. The man had the impression that fighting between the US and Iraq was taking place on norteamericano soil. Apparently some the the media here are rather rather casual about how they report news. Of course, that happens in the US too, as witness Faux News, which gives the impression that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and was just barely prevented from nuking Disneyworld, Graceland and Dollywood. So his mistake can be forgiven.