Guatemala

I posted pictures from this trip on Picasa if anyone just wants to skip the blog post and check out the pictures. Unfortunately I only have pictures of the first day, mostly in Antigua with a few from Guatemala City. My memory card got corrupted and none of the rest of the pictures turned out. It was sad!

So why Guatemala? It was my roommate Liz's idea. She saw a cheap trip advertised online, with airfare, hotel, and a guided tour included, and she talked me into going. However, Liz, being wise, waited until she knew she could get the time off work before purchasing the trip. I, being foolish, just purchased the trip. Liz ended up not being able to get the time off work (of course) so I went alone. The included airfare left from New York at 6:00 a.m., so I had to fly out to New York and spend the night there before continuing on to Guatemala City. And I decided that while I was spending the night there anyway, I might as well see a Broadway show. I went to see Wicked (for the third time) and it was awesome, just as good as the first time. Unfortunately, by the time I took the subway back to Queens, where I was staying, it was 1:00 a.m., and I had to be at the airport at 4:00 to catch my flight. So no sleep that night, but no regrets. (I saw Mary Poppins on the way back, but it was a bit bizarre, not like the movie at all. I love the movie, so I was disappointed. Liz told me later that the musical Mary Poppins is based on the books, not the movie, although they have some of the same songs.)

The flight was uneventful, which was amazing in this day and age. In fact, each of the ten flights I took on this trip (which includes the Idaho leg) was ON TIME!!! How often does that happen? I'm telling you, it's nothing short of miraculous. When I landed in Guatemala City I was supposed to look for my hotel shuttle, but some of the airport workers told me it had just left and would be back in a half hour. I met up with some other people who were waiting for the same shuttle, and it turned out that a couple of us were on the same tour. I had friends in Guatemala already! Once we got to the hotel, we made plans to meet up in a half hour and go to lunch. That solved one of my problems: I didn't want to sit around the hotel, but I had heard frightening things about Guatemala City and didn't particularly want to wander around on my own. We found this amazing taco place nearby, where they were making the tortillas by hand right in front of us. Yummy! (Yes, I look tired. I had been up all night, remember?)

Then we went looking for the Archaeological Museum, which was supposed to be nearby. We got lost several times, but there were these nice guys with machine guns guarding all the shops and private residences, and they were happy to give us directions. I imagine they were bored, just sitting around holding a machine gun all day. The picture on the left is the entrance to our hotel, and those four guys have machine guns. I feel so...safe? (And yes, the machine guns did freak me out just a bit, but after a while I got used to it. It's amazing what you can get used to so quickly.) We never did actually find the Archaeological Museum that day, probably because I was saying the words " Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología" wrong, but we found the mall, the Chuck E. Cheese, the McDonalds, and other places that the machine-gun-toting guards assumed a couple of Americans would be looking for and therefore directed us to.

Our official tour started the next morning. I got REALLY lucky with my tour group. There were two groups leaving my hotel at the same time, from the same company, and some of my friends from the night before were on the other bus. I was sad about that at first, but when we compared notes later, I realized they hadn't gone to half of the places my group had gone to, and their tour guide hardly talked to them at all. Our guide, Carlos, was wonderful. We headed out of Guatemala City toward Antigua, and Carlos commented on everything we were seeing: archaeological sites (like obsidian mines), coffee plantations, rich versus poor neighborhoods, the cost of electricity and cable television, etc.

When we got into Antigua, we stopped just outside of town to take a picture of the three volcanoes looming over the city. Carlos must have radioed someone in special effects and said, "Cue the volcano," because just as we got off the bus, the volcano erupted. It was just a cloud of ash and smoke instead of molten lava, but it was a BIG cloud of ash. You can see the plume in the picture. When Mount Saint Helens does this, people panic. But apparently it happens in Guatemala every day.


Antigua was the capital of Guatemala from the time of the Spanish conquest until 1776, when it was leveled by an earthquake. This wasn't the first earthquake to level the city, but the Spanish had finally had enough and moved the capital to Guatemala City. Antigua was virtually abandoned for many years, but in recent years it has become an interesting place for tourists and expatriots. They're working on restoring the old churches and monasteries that used to dominate the town before the earthquake hit. We spent the day touring gardens and Spanish-style churches which all run together in my mind, but they were all beautiful. Some of the old churches are used for expensive destination weddings now, and I can see why. They're absolutely gorgeous, plus the Guatemalans (and expats) have worked hard to make this a tourist-friendly city with cell phone service and wi-fi, good (if expensive) restaurants, and lavish hotels. Someday I want to go back and spend more time there,since being with the tour group didn't give me much time to interact with locals or to see non-touristy sights. We also stopped at a chocolate factory where they make Mayan-style chocolates, which are different from the creamy milk chocolate we buy at the stores in the United States. They gave us some free samples, including chocolate with pumpkin seeds (pretty good) and chocolate with chili peppers (interesting, but having tried it once, I doubt I'd eat it again).

Then we made our way into the mountains to Chichicastenango. From here on out, the pictures are ones I've stolen from other people on my tour or copied off a website, because my camera failed me! Dumb camera. Chichicastenango was completely different from Antigua, mainly because it's Indian rather than Spanish. It's famous for the huge market that's held there twice a week. We got there in the evening before the market, and Carlos took us all around the market site, pointing out what would be where (leather, handcrafts, jade, meat, vegetables, etc.). This was a big help, and it was another little bonus that people on the other tour didn't get. Everywhere we went, about 50 little kids followed us, trying to sell us stuff. They were cute at first but got incredibly annoying. It was hard to walk anywhere because you had to push 15 kids out of the way just to take a step. It felt insanely out of control, and the market hadn't even started yet! There were just people setting up stalls, and these mosquito-like kids. There were a few people in my group who decided they really didn't want to see the full blown market after all, which was a shame because it was so worth it.

The next morning, market day, was Sunday, and since there was a huge Catholic church right by the market, I decided to attend Mass first. The Catholic services were like a mix of Catholic and Mayan rituals. Outside the church on the steps, there were people burning incense and waving the smoke into the church. There had been nothing sacrificed on the live animal altar that particular day but it's not uncommon. The church itself is half-Mayan, half Catholic, with symbols of both religions present. Even the 13 steps leading up to the entrance are symbolic of the 13 months in the Mayan calendar. The guy I went to Mass with (he was on the other bus but we had met the night before) was Catholic, and he was appalled. He kept saying that the Pope would have a fit if he knew about all this. I was privately thinking that the Pope was probably happy all the Mayans were coming to his church, even if they were sacrificing chickens first. The church was completely packed, so we ended up standing in the back. It was a good spot to people-watch. My friend told me he was tempted to go up and receive Communion, but he was afraid he would do something wrong, not knowing all the local customs. I talked him into doing it, remembering my first experience going to an LDS church in a foreign country (Austria), and afterwards, he couldn't stop talking about how cool it was to receive Communion in another country. That was my good deed for the day.

So then we wandered around the market, not looking for anything in particular except batteries, for me, for my camera that I didn't know wasn't working! Stupid camera. I found batteries and tried to be careful about examining the packaging and everything, but I guess I wasn't careful enough because my "brand new" batteries were completely dead. (And no, they weren't rechargeables.) Live and learn. At least they were cheap. The market was really something to behold: there would be a stall selling handcrafts next to a stall selling T-shirts next to a stall selling refrigerators and TVs. (After buying dead batteries, I'd be a little leery about buying a refrigerator in this market.) We walked all the way down the aisle outside of the church, and my friend thought we were all done! His tour guide hadn't shown them the market at all. So I took him through what Carlos had shown us, seeing the different parts of the market. Since we were there pretty early, the place was busy mainly with locals, and the little mosquito kids weren't out hawking their wares yet. Just as we were leaving, a bunch of tour buses pulled up and the kids appeared out of thin air. They were still hard to get rid of, a few of them following us all the way back to our hotel and waiting outside for us to come out again, but it wasn't as bad as the day before. Oh, and there was an earthquake that day, right where we were. It was a minor tremor, completely ignored by the locals who went about their business without batting an eye, but we could definitely feel it and see everything around us shaking.

When we met up with Carlos again, he told us he had gotten permission for us to visit a Mayan shrine, which was more like a modern-day Mayan temple. It looked at first like we were entering someone's house, with chickens and a vegetable garden in the back yard. But we were met by a priest and two priestesses who took us inside and showed us the statues and religious icons in their holy building. One of the priestesses showed us red beans that she uses in rituals to tell the future and the past, which was fascinating. These people spoke Mayan but little Spanish, and Carlos, while he knew some Mayan, wasn't exactly fluent in the language. Consequently, most of this was sign language communication. Next he took us to the private home of two teenage boys who, for a small price, showed us the costumes they use when they do the traditional dances. They asked for two volunteers to wear the costumes, and I volunteered immediately, of course. These two teenagers, like all the Guatemalans, were at least a foot shorter than me, so the costumes weren't exactly made for someone my size. But I got the costume on anyway, and then they put a sombrero and a mask on me and handed me a maraca. I'm SO disappointed my camera wasn't working, because I made sure to have people get pictures! The eye holes in the mask were tiny, so even though Carlos was explaining to the group the significance of what I was wearing, I couldn't really see what he was talking about. It was so cool.

We went to the very colorful cemetery, and here we actually got to see shamans making sacrifices. Carlos told us to put our cameras away, since the local Indians have been known to get violent if someone is taking a picture of their rituals. Most of them were sacrificing food (even junk food like Twinkies) but one guy was burning a chicken. Carlos told us that was a strong sacrifice, but then wouldn't say any more about it.


From there we went to Lake Atitlan, the deepest lake in Guatemala. They still haven't figured out how deep it actually is, which must mean it's pretty deep! We had lunch in the town of Panajachel, a town with a lot of hippies but not many Guatemalans, at least that we could see. We asked Carlos why were stopping at such a touristy and non-ethnic place for lunch (the restaurant served things like spaghetti and grilled cheese sandwiches) and he said that the restaurants run by locals didn't have good hygiene and might make us sick. I guess that's what I get for going on a bus tour instead of just going on my own. People-watching from the restaurant windows was interesting. There were backpackers (dressed just like the backpackers I met in New Zealand), long-haired hippies in flower children clothes, Mayan women dressed in traditional clothes talking on cell phones, and a guy on a bike holding a plucked chicken in one hand by its neck.

And then we went back to Guatemala City to end the formal tour. About half of the people in our group were taking an optional tour the next day to Tikal, the site with the pyramids and lots of Mayan ruins. But that optional tour, which included private jets, cost as much as the rest of the trip, and I just couldn't justify it to myself. A few of my friends and I were planning on hiking up a nearby volcano instead: it was supposed to be a two-hour hike to the top, and then we could look inside the magma crater. However, when we got back to the hotel, we found out that a small tour group from Venezuela had been buried by a mudslide that day on the same volcano! Okay, so no volcano for us. It was scary to think it could have been us, if the mudslide had waited just one more day. Even though we were tired of bus tours, we didn't want to spend the day in Guatemala City; we had already seen it. So when we were given the chance to join a small tour group (only 9 people) going to Honduras to a ruin site called Copan, most of us decided to do it.

For my LDS friends...according to one of the widely accepted theories about where the Book of Mormon took place, Copan is on the south, in the borders by the Lamanites. The ruins that exist today are part of a city that was founded in 426 A.D., so slightly after Book of Mormon times, but it was founded on top of another city that dates to several hundred years earlier. It was exciting to think that I might be walking where Abinadi had walked.

Getting to Copan was a four-hour bus ride from Guatemala City, which was no fun, but Carlos (who was our tour guide on this trip too) let us make a few stops on the way. We toured a coffee processing plant, and they showed us the difference between cheap coffee beans and expensive coffee beans (basically, the amount of processing). We also stopped at an obsidian mine and got to take small pieces of obsidian with us, but the security guy at the airport took mine away! Carlos kept telling us that we were crossing into Honduras illegally, since crossing legally would take too long and would require a lengthy detour. I couldn't figure out how we could possibly cross the border illegally on a tour bus. ("Everybody duck...now!") When we got to the border, though, everything looked pretty official to me. I think the deal probably was that we had a one-day visitor's pass to go to Copan, and nowhere else in Honduras, but it was all perfectly legal (although less exciting than the alternative). They stamped my passport and everything, but it looks more like a souvenir stamp (like at Machu Picchu) than an official stamp with a date.

By the time we got to Copan, it was really hot, since Copan was in the valley and we had spent most of the trip, until now, up in the mountains. Unfortunately we were in a small group with a couple of whiny people (older women who hadn't been on our original tour) who WOULDN'T SHUT UP about how hot they were. Seriously? We're all hot. Complaining isn't going to fix things. It just annoys everyone else. This is why I hate touring with old people. I know, I know, I'm stereotyping and some old people are wonderful to travel with. But most of the ones I've been with WON'T STOP COMPLAINING.

Carlos handed us off to another guide once we got to Copan, since only Honduran guides can work in Honduras, which makes sense. This guide was great too. He told us about the ball game that was of supreme importance to these people, so important that it could decide wars and it created rivalries between city-states. It was so important that after the game, the team captain would be sacrificed on a nearby altar. My guidebook said that the captain of the losing team would be sacrificed, which made more sense to me (in a demented way), but our tour guide told us it was actually the captain of the WINNING team who would be sacrificed, since sacrifice was a great honor and you were guaranteed to go to heaven. This picture is part of the sacrificial altar. They would cut out the victim's (or faithful disciple's, depending on your point of view) beating heart and put it in the hole on top of this altar. The blood would run down the channels on each side of the altar, just like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In some ways, this was worse than visiting Dachau.

Copan also has an ancient stairway that's covered with hieroglyphics. They think it's like an ancient Mayan Bible, but they haven't deciphered that much of it yet. They have been able to find the names and dates of the kings, and dates and victors of The Game. They haven't found anything religious yet, though, unless The Game became their religion (which I guess isn't too far-fetched, if they were into sacrificing team captains and all). In this picture, which I stole from someone on the internet, the Hieroglyphic Stairway is covered with a massive tarp. When we saw it, however, there wasn't a tarp because Copan had just had a hurricane the day before. Oh, and the hurricane had leveled a nearby village, blowing all the huts to pieces and killing people.

(So in case you're counting, in the five days I was in Guatemala, I saw a volcano erupt, I felt an earthquake, I could have been buried in a mudslide, and I narrowly missed a lethal hurricane. (Okay, so the hurricane was technically in Honduras. Even so.) How do people live in this country?)

The ruins were huge, with a temple, several pyramids, a place where the young people went to dance, and a special place where someone would play the marimba. At its peak, more than 22,000 people lived here, making it twice as big as the town where I grew up. (I'd be surprised if anything from Blackfoot remains in 1500 years.) It was completely awesome, and I didn't feel sad about missing Tikal. We stopped to eat in a local town (one that hadn't been demolished by the hurricane) on the way home, and those freaking old people with their picky taste buds drove me nuts. ("Is the chicken fried or grilled? White meat or dark? Is the fish fresh? How long ago did you catch it? Is the rice long-grained or polished? Are you preparing the food right away or has it been sitting out for a while? Did you wash the vegetables for the salad? Did you boil the water before you washed the vegetables? What sorts of vegetables are in the salad? How fresh are the vegetables?") It took a half hour to order, and since the old people didn't speak Spanish, Carlos had to translate every single one of their stupid questions. Seriously, folks? You're in HONDURAS, not Omaha. If you have legitimate dietary constraints, perhaps you better stick with the rice and beans and a can of soda. Otherwise, SHUT UP! (Now that I've got that out of my system, I'll move on...)

The people we met in Guatemala were unfailingly polite. They have more than enough reason to hate Americans, and I got used to seeing them grimace slightly when I tried to start up a conversation (although that might have just been my bad Spanish). The history of recent American actions in Guatemala includes toppling their democratically elected government; stealing more than 40% of their arable land for US interests but refusing to pay property taxes; installing US-backed dictatorships protected by US-trained soldiers, which led to the kidnapping, torture, and murder of more than 200,000 Guatemalans over 20 years; a War on Drugs which included dropping pesticides directly on villages, poisoning and killing tens of thousands; and officially turning a blind eye as Guatemalan babies were kidnapped and sold to adoption agencies in the United States. Even today, a handful of North American families, in cooperation with the US government, control Guatemala's entire economy. 50% of the people are illiterate and 60% lack any health care at all, mainly because the United States keeps blocking any changes to the government which aim to provide social services to the poor, under the guide of fighting Communism. Yet the United States then gets upset when Guatemalans enter our country illegally, looking for the opportunity to pick grapes for 50 cents an hour so they can send money home to feed their families. We must look like the biggest hypocrites in the world to them. Yet everyone I met was polite, if not necessarily warm, and I suspect I received a much better welcome in Guatemala than many Guatemalans have received in my country.

(Note: yes, I'm a liberal, and I'm sure I just offended most of my conservative friends. But I also like to think I'm open-minded. I've been looking in books and online for some kind of explanation of United States actions in Central America, past and present, and the only official information I've found is a short press release from the state department saying that in order to promote world peace, the US government must fight against socialism and fascism in Central America. Elsewhere, 95% of what's published agrees with my own world view, but from the right wing I can only seem to find professors publishing papers which basically say that we can't be blamed for actions committed a generation ago, or ignorant bloggers screaming that those bleeping wetbacks are stealing our jobs. If there are conservative people out there who want to explain things to me a little better, in an informed and educated way, I'd be eager to hear what you have to say.)

Carlos, although he was a fantastic guide, had trouble answering some of our questions. All questions about United States involvement in Guatemala went completely unanswered, but that was understandable because I'm sure he knew that offended Americans probably wouldn't tip well. Every once in a while, though, while answering a question about social programs or poverty, he would stop abruptly and mutter, "I don't want to say anything wrong." One man asked about recent news stories about tour buses being attacked and robbed by armed gangs, and Carlos brushed it off, basically saying that boys will be boys (!?!). I definitely got the feeling he was under instructions to refrain from talking about certain things, but I don't know whether it was just instructions from the tour company to keep the tourists happy or a more sinister hush order from the government.

Guatemala was gorgeous, but I'm glad I don't live there. Between the political problems and the natural disasters, there is no stability in sight for the country. However, all the turmoil has made the people deeply religious. Carlos kept mentioning three religions in addition to the Mayan religion: Catholicism, Mormonism, and Evangelicalism. Truly, there were churches everywhere. If the churches can bring the stability the government can't, maybe there's a sign of hope.