Choke in Chichi
18 February 2008
Roger
The bus for Chichicastenango left at 8am. Chichicastenango ("Chichi" locally) is a very famous market and town. The entire town becomes a market on Thursdays and Sundays, and this was a Sunday. As usual, the (mini)bus started out fairly empty, and after about half an hour of picking up people, was completely full. The drive was a steep winding climb out of the Atitlan valley, then through very hilly country over some of the steepest most windy road I've seen in a long time.
The arrival at Chichi was a chaos of buses, cars, trucks and people. After the bus squeezed into a parking space, Sal was more than eager to get to the markets.
In Guatemala, almost all of the women wear traditional dress almost all of the time---at least, outside of Guatelmala city. It's extremely colorful, so the country has a very different feel from Mexico and El Salvador. At Chichi, the entire town turns into a market for the traditional and not so traditional cloth and articles made from it. The number of stalls, the quantity of items, and the quality is staggering.
About one hour before our bus was due to leave, Sal declared that she was exhausted! Choked! This has never happened before, and may never happen again, so those of you who know Sal will realize just how extensive and impressive and delectable all of these wares are at Chichi. One indication is that we had to purchase two additional duffel bags to hold the booty---of course, the bags themselves are also craft items.
The bus left at a little after 2pm, again totally packed. We returned to Antigua, then waited a couple of hours for another minibus to Guatemala city. At 9pm, we left on an overnight bus from Guatemala city to Flores, in the far north of Guatemala, in the Mayan biosphere reserve. Our target? The ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. The bus arrived in Flores at 4:30am. There just happened to be a minibus driver waiting, and we negotiated for the 90 minute drive to Tikal.