Chichicastenango and Nebaj
10/05/2014
Just after the rainy Panajachel, I went to visit Chichicastenango, its market (one of the biggest and most famous in the whole Guatemala) and to get to know the local culture. As I said many times, I love spending time at the market. It's always the first place I visit in every new town. It's the place where you can have a real contact with local people and where you can get the best and cheapest food. Here in Guatemala, every meal is accompanied by tortillas de mais. Just walking around the market, you can see tens of women preparing tortillas. Maya people eat tortilla at every meal. They are not very tasteful, but when you fill them with frijoles, arrow, uevos, verdura y chile (beans, rice, eggs, vegetables and hot sauce), they are the best food in the world!!! What's good about Central America is that locals know what means being vegetarian and you can always find tasty and healthy food. On Sunday artisanal market collects people from all the near towns and the variety of products goes from textiles, bags, masks, hammocks, jewelry etc. Besides the market, the city offers the possibility to get near to the modern Maya culture. I always thought about the Maya as an antique civilization, without knowing that their descendants still live in this land and keep alive their traditions. In the whole Guatemala 22 Maya's languages are still spoken and in some of the remote areas Spanish is not spoken. Women wear traditional clothes since their childhood, that consists of a decorated shirt, long skirt, a belt and some hair's ornaments. Color and ornaments are very typical of a particular region. Men don't wear traditional clothes anymore. Talking about religion, I was very surprised to discover that they pray in churches. You can find churches of the colonial period all over the country. Of course when the Spanish arrived, they imposed Christianity to the locals and even if the Maya didn't give up to their beliefs, they are still influenced by this other religion. They believe in Jesus like one of their Gods. On the stairs in front of the church, they are use to burn incense and to bring flowers as an offer before entering in the church. I couldn't take any pictures in the church, but what I saw was different from what I was used to. From the entrance till the altar, on the floor there are some wooden square where they light candles while laying on their knees, praying or singing. Near the altar a Jesus statue laying down took its place in a glass box, probably representing his death. Besides this church, people from Chichicastenango walk to the hill over the city to pray, Pascual Abaj, where some rocks and crucifixes were placed to create an altar.
After visiting this city, another long trip took me to Nebaj, a little village in the central mountains. This region is called the Ixil triangle, or the gringos triangle, because it's the area where the Ixil people still live and in the last years many tourists came here to spend some days. The city itself wasn't that beautiful, probably because I arrived when the market was closing and everything looked very dirty. But it was very beautiful to observe women in their clothes, that in this city are more colorful and elaborated than in other Guatemalan cities. The region offers also many hiking opportunities, but lucky as I am, it was raining all night and morning, so I decided to leave.
Just after the rainy Panajachel, I went to visit Chichicastenango, its market (one of the biggest and most famous in the whole Guatemala) and to get to know the local culture. As I said many times, I love spending time at the market. It's always the first place I visit in every new town. It's the place where you can have a real contact with local people and where you can get the best and cheapest food. Here in Guatemala, every meal is accompanied by tortillas de mais. Just walking around the market, you can see tens of women preparing tortillas. Maya people eat tortilla at every meal. They are not very tasteful, but when you fill them with frijoles, arrow, uevos, verdura y chile (beans, rice, eggs, vegetables and hot sauce), they are the best food in the world!!! What's good about Central America is that locals know what means being vegetarian and you can always find tasty and healthy food. On Sunday artisanal market collects people from all the near towns and the variety of products goes from textiles, bags, masks, hammocks, jewelry etc. Besides the market, the city offers the possibility to get near to the modern Maya culture. I always thought about the Maya as an antique civilization, without knowing that their descendants still live in this land and keep alive their traditions. In the whole Guatemala 22 Maya's languages are still spoken and in some of the remote areas Spanish is not spoken. Women wear traditional clothes since their childhood, that consists of a decorated shirt, long skirt, a belt and some hair's ornaments. Color and ornaments are very typical of a particular region. Men don't wear traditional clothes anymore. Talking about religion, I was very surprised to discover that they pray in churches. You can find churches of the colonial period all over the country. Of course when the Spanish arrived, they imposed Christianity to the locals and even if the Maya didn't give up to their beliefs, they are still influenced by this other religion. They believe in Jesus like one of their Gods. On the stairs in front of the church, they are use to burn incense and to bring flowers as an offer before entering in the church. I couldn't take any pictures in the church, but what I saw was different from what I was used to. From the entrance till the altar, on the floor there are some wooden square where they light candles while laying on their knees, praying or singing. Near the altar a Jesus statue laying down took its place in a glass box, probably representing his death. Besides this church, people from Chichicastenango walk to the hill over the city to pray, Pascual Abaj, where some rocks and crucifixes were placed to create an altar.
After visiting this city, another long trip took me to Nebaj, a little village in the central mountains. This region is called the Ixil triangle, or the gringos triangle, because it's the area where the Ixil people still live and in the last years many tourists came here to spend some days. The city itself wasn't that beautiful, probably because I arrived when the market was closing and everything looked very dirty. But it was very beautiful to observe women in their clothes, that in this city are more colorful and elaborated than in other Guatemalan cities. The region offers also many hiking opportunities, but lucky as I am, it was raining all night and morning, so I decided to leave.
Comments
Post a Comment