September 7, 2023
We're awake before sunrise, such as it is; but it's always fun to give it a shot!
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| view from our room |
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| fresh hibiscus flowers every morning |
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| Little individual butter balls wrapped in corn husks |
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| Every breakfast comes with a small bowl of creamy oatmeal! |
Another breakfast al fresco and we're off to Chichicastenago, famous for it's market!! What could be more fun? The rest stop for bathrooms and to buy water and we're off again. All. along the way Juan explains more about the history of Guatemala and regales us with stories from the Popol Vuh. oor "The Community Book", which is often called the Mayan Bible. It contains the creation myths involving the Hero Twins and it sounds so fascinating that I think I need to see if there's an English translation!
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| Almost all the signs are painted right on the buildings |
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| The only waterfall we saw! Kind of surprising with so much water and so many mountains! |
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Ginger and Suga getting water. We always had plenty of
bottles in the van! |
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| Fresh eggs on the shelf |
We arrive at "Chichi" and stop first at the hotel where we'll have lunch later to use the restrooms and to have a meeting place.
Then Juan leads us to the church and we all agree to meet up again at one o'clock. Everyone will check out this huge replica of a Mayan marketplace, where you can buy everything imaginable! It exists twice a week, every week. Juan had explained that four and twenty (not blackbirds!!). and. sacred numbers so when they were deciding how often to hold market days twenty was not often. enough, so they divided four into twenty and got five. But with the advent of the seven day week from the Europeans, that was too difficult so now they are twice weekly, on different days in different cities. The one in Chichicastenaga is far and away the largest and is the reason that people come to visit the city.
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| Bird's eye view of the birds! |
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| Solar powered street light! |
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| Right outside the church door |
We all break up into small groups of one or two and begin the search for the perfect gift or souvenir. The fabrics are overwhelming! And everything is woven by hand! There is some bargaining involved, of course, and everything is a cash transaction. I go off with Ginger and Juan, but soon Juan has other things he wants to do and it's the two of us. At one point we just need some air and space and. watch a queue of about forty people waiting for one of the "mini chicken buses". It's a van that probably seats twelve comfortably. At least twenty people pile into it before they collect the fares and close the doors!
Learning how to wrap the belt.
Once more into the fray! We're looking at some beautiful bags when Jan and Suga find us! The original thought was one bag. By the time we're done We've bought eight amongst us and the lady gives Ginger and Jan each a smaller one as a thank you!
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| Juan bought Ginger this lovely top! |
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| Juan always finds things to show us! |
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| This is what they fruit looks like inside. Everyone had a taste later, in the van. |
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| All that was left of the flan! |
Shopped out, we head back to our lunch spot and find Juan with a cold cerveza. Sure looks good! we select a table outside and enjoy sitting and sipping and pretty soon everyone has reconvened. There is a lunch buffet but no one feels up to eating that much food, so we order off the menu. I just get a tuna sandwich (it comes with fries! I never get fries at home!)
In order to use the baño you have to have a ticket. Earlier Suga had purchased tickets for everyone that needed the facilities, and after lunch she turns them in to get her money back, since we were. paying guests! Even more fun, though, was watching Suga interact. with one of the macaws in the courtyard! He's fallen in love with her and does every trick he knows! What a show!
Back to the van with our faithful Gregorio awaiting us and we head back. The sad part is that Juan's flight home on Saturday has been canceled and he has to leave a day early! There's only one flight a day from Guatemala City to Merida, so he has no choice but to go back there tonight so as to be close to the airport in the morning. We drop him off at the bus station where he'll try to get a "real" bus ride. Later we learn that he actually took a chicken bus, but that it was faster! Did I explain that a chicken bus is one of the buses with all the bright lights and decorations and lots of storage space on top? They are usually quite crowded and may carry chickens or other livestock or produce in addition to people in every available space. And, of course, they're cheaper!
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This lady followed Jan and Suga for two hours, trying to sell her beautiful textiles. She even waited
outside the hotel while we ate lunch! Ginger couldn't stand it and bought two items from her. |
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| She was SO grateful! |
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| new construction |
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Blue and white is everywhere! The two blue panels on the flag represent the two bodies
of water which border the country, The Pacific and the Caribbean. |
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| Our hostess |
It's really sad to see Juan go! But he's got a good idea and Ginger cancels our last night at our hotel and books us, instead, into that beautiful place where we stayed our first night. We'll have come full circle and will be close to the airport to relieve the fear of a traffic problem Saturday morning.
Back to the hotel with dinner plans at seven. Ginger stops by our room and we review the day and everything else that pops into our heads! Then it's off to dinner right here on site. Jan and I split an order of nachos and guac and lots of others just get soup. But there are two bottles of sauvignon blanc polished off by three intrepid winos and Ginger's mojito looks fabulous!
The dessert menu contains something we've never heard of and it plays heavily on the presentation so we have to order one with eight spoons! We pass it around the table, but only Suga and I think it's pretty special! But we can't finish it! (I'll get the name and description this morning and add it!) And wait for the video. It will be worth it! Okay, it's called Rellenito Gourmet - "plantain purée with a sweet black bean sauce, in a special presentation". And here's the video:
Back to the room and straight to bed. Our bags have to be packed and out tomorrow morning when we leave on our boat ride, but that's tomorrow!
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