19
June
We
(Roger, Sandra, and I) hired a car & driver to take us to Chichicastenango
and Panajachel which is on the edge of Lake Atitlan. The big market days in Chichi are on Thursday
and Sunday. It was crowded on Thursday,
but Benjamin, our driver, said it is even more crowded on Sundays. The drive was immensely enjoyed by Roger and
Sandra, who were able to take in the scenery without having to worry about
driving off the road, hitting a pot hole, slowing down for speed bumps and all
road hazards or crazy drivers/pedestrians.
We
wandered through the market for about two hours. You can definitely see the mixing of Mayan and
Christian religions, and we even saw a short parade of tributes to Corpus Christi,
which is a holiday today. Roger took the
picture of typical residential electrical hookups in Chichicastenango because
he was intrigued as a former Navy Electrical Officer how the city has not burned
to the ground.
I
lost Roger towards the end of our wandering and waited on the street looking
for him for about five minutes, while Sandra looked at some luggage. I was beginning to get concerned, when Roger
popped out of a store about four doors down licking a pina colada ice cream
cone. “Market days are so taxing, I
needed to keep up my strength.” Sandra
ended up buying a large carry-on bag, which she is going to use if we fly from
Panama to Cartagena. It appears that our
plans are still TBD for the water transit.
It
was about a two hour drive from Chichicastenango to a Panajachel. These pictures were taken along the way.
We
had lunch at a tipico (typical) restaurant in Panajachel. Roger and Sandra had fresh lake fish, and I
had pasta. We then did a little
wandering around Panajachel, but the market was nothing compared to
Chichi. Norm said that Panajachel is
more a weekend place to go for city dwellers.
It was cloudy most of the day, but it rained the majority of the way
back. We saw several rainbows, and
noticed that several towns have flooded streets when it rains, due to
runoff. Fortunately, it only sprinkled in
Antigua because both units had left windows opened.
Note
to self: when leaving for the day, close
windows.
There are numerous towns in Guatemala and other Central American countries with names that end in “tenango”, which means “town of …”. Therefore, Chichicastenango means “town of Chichicas”. Other area towns include Quezaltenango, Mazatenango, and Chimaltenango.
A couple of random thoughts:
-- Keeping track of money is a pain, when you're used to using a credit card all the time. Add to that, the need to change money and converting the price to USD requires mental math on an hourly task.
-- If a girl toddler doesn't want to hold Mom's hand, Mom uses daughter's pigtail as a handle. (Wonder if this would work with Dean?)
-- There are lots of skinny dogs in Guatemala.
-- People are of a great percentage Mayan decent and are way shorter than people in Mexico. I'm tall for a woman. Women don't cut their hair.
-- Don't get a haircut in Tapachula Mexico. My hair is almost shorter than Roger's! I even showed the lady a picture of the style that I wanted. Hopefully some of it will grow back.
-- People think I'm crazy when I wear my mosquito netting.
-- Tell Davis that I read Pete the Cat to a little girl at the campground.
-- Tiping is a flat 10% for everything.
-- To date, we haven't traveled on any roads as nice as the US interstate system. We have had short stretches of nice road, but more rough road than smooth.
-- If you want a clean toilet, you have to pay for it. Roughly $1 for clean "servicios"
-- Chicken buses are souped up retired US school buses, repainted and chromed. Chicken bus drivers are crazy.
-- Roger will run out of Diet Dr Pepper in less than a week. He'll be going cold turkey then.
-- If you want fish without its head, be sure to order the fillet.
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