We road on a "Chicken" bus part way to Chichicastenango (Chichi for short). The busses are notoriously over crowded and are prone to make items disappear from tourists. Our host Benedicto came along on the trip with us. Other than squealing around hairpin turns our only excitement was when the driver dropped a woman off and she slipped. A small but angry crowd formed and beat up our driver. He was not seriously injured and we continued on our way. At the interchange we got off the chicken bus and boarded a shuttle bus. An 11 passenger van, kind of a mini chicken bus. We took it from the interchange to Chichi with 24 passengers. Lindsey sais that she was going to sit on my lap but somebody was already there!
This is an overhead shot of a small indoor vegtable part of the market. The entire market was really quite large.
This is the Catholic church. The church was very smart in this area combining many of the Mayan and Catholic symbols. For instance, there are 21 steps leading up to the church which symbolizes the 21 days of the Mayan calendar. The fire at the base of the steps is a Mayan alter where animals (usually chickens) are still sometimes sacrificed.
Benedicto (our host) knows and old shaman priest, "Don Diego" who is a famous artist and maker of Mayan masks that are not for the tourist industry. Ryland purchased two of them for dispay in our house. Benedicto is hoping to apprentice with him. Apparently he is one of the very few with the older knowledge of the traditional carving. It was obvious walking through the markets that there was a substantial difference between the masks we had purchased and the ones being sold to the tourists.
We road on a "Chicken" bus part way to Chichicastenango (Chichi for short). The busses are notoriously over crowded and are prone to make items disappear from tourists. Our host Benedicto came along on the trip with us. Other than squealing around hairpin turns our only excitement was when the driver dropped a woman off and she slipped. A small but angry crowd formed and beat up our driver. He was not seriously injured and we continued on our way. At the interchange we got off the chicken bus and boarded a shuttle bus. An 11 passenger van, kind of a mini chicken bus. We took it from the interchange to Chichi with 24 passengers. Lindsey sais that she was going to sit on my lap but somebody was already there!
This is an overhead shot of a small indoor vegtable part of the market. The entire market was really quite large.
This is the Catholic church. The church was very smart in this area combining many of the Mayan and Catholic symbols. For instance, there are 21 steps leading up to the church which symbolizes the 21 days of the Mayan calendar. The fire at the base of the steps is a Mayan alter where animals (usually chickens) are still sometimes sacrificed.
Benedicto (our host) knows and old shaman priest, "Don Diego" who is a famous artist and maker of Mayan masks that are not for the tourist industry. Ryland purchased two of them for dispay in our house. Benedicto is hoping to apprentice with him. Apparently he is one of the very few with the older knowledge of the traditional carving. It was obvious walking through the markets that there was a substantial difference between the masks we had purchased and the ones being sold to the tourists.
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