Guatemala, Summer 2014: Iximché

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 (continued)

We took our last boat of the trip back to Panajachel, where the private taxi we had arranged for picked us up. He took us to the town of Tecpán so we could see the Iximché Mayan ruins. Our tour guide showed us around the city, which dated from the 1400’s. The city was divided into 5 plazas, in descending order corresponding to the classes of the residents. The main elements of each plaza were elevated temples for the sun, moon, and wind, where sacrifices were made; lower ground-level altars where fires were made; housing; and ball courts. We learned about the Mayan calendar, which has 20 days (because we have 20 fingers & toes), and 13 months (because we have 13 major joints in our body). It also happened to be that the corn they grew took 260 days (20 x 13) to go from seed to flower. Our guide also showed us how the low altars had 20 corners in plan. The sun & moon altars represented the duality that was very important to the Mayans: night / day, black / white, good / evil, etc. The final and smallest plaza is still used today by Mayans. When we got there, embers were still smoldering, candles were still lit, and we could smell incense. We thanked and tipped our guide and went back to our taxi, who drove us the rest of the way back to Antigua.

We were hungry, so we went to Luna de Miel again for crepes and smoothies. Next we went to the market to get ingredients for dinner. Ali had told us about the market, and it absolutely lived up to the crazy description. It is huge, and without any discernible rhyme or reason to its organization. It felt strangely mixed between interior and exterior; it was covered, sometimes by corrugated plastic or tin, other times by concrete ceilings. Some of the floors clearly used to be roads or sidewalks, and in some places we walked over curbs or into larger warehouses. Ali said it took her months to learn her way around.

The other crazy thing about the market is that you could buy almost literally anything. We saw produce, meat, clothes, shoes, luggage, ceramics, DVDs, dog food, toys, candles, cleaning products, drums of herbs and spices, sunglasses, underwear, strollers, and boxes of toothpaste stacked so high that the bottom levels were crushed under their own weight.

After getting the produce and beans we needed for our chili, we went to the grocery store for a few more ingredients, including bottles of wine for Q30 (= $4). The power went out at one point for a few minutes, and Ali just said “Welcome to Guatemala!” We walked back to her apartment, and along the way we saw a woman waist weaving a table runner. It was intricately patterned with bees and butterflies. She explained that it would take one month of 8-hour days to complete.

Back at Ali’s house, we started cooking the chili with Sally & Kate. It finally, for the first time of our trip, started to pour rain. Aybi, the 4th roommate, and their friend Alejandro came over for dinner. Ali cooked a delicious chili, which we served over rice with cheese.

We were pretty tired and went to bed early.