´ChiChi Bang Bang´

This weekend was one of a lot of hot water and smoke.


On Saturday, I headed up to Fuentas Georginas, the local natural hot springs, with some friends. Usually this steamy place is used to ease achy bones of trekkers and as an antidote to the seemingly continuous rain during wet season. However, this weekend, pristine blue skies and a scorching sun reflected off the azure pools, the mystical light streaming through dense green foliage to sparkle off the billows of steam rising from the water. The water is heated by a volcano, pockets of the pools being so hot you can feel your blood begin to boil. A couple of hours up in the fresh mountain air and in nature´s hot tubs was enough to make us all even more sleepy, but on the drive back down, through fields and fields of ´campesinos´ tending their crops with the nurture of careful parents, we stopped in a town called Zunil, where I was delighted to be rewarded in finding Maximon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim%C3%B3n on the second attempt. And what a bizarre experience it was; local ladies tended to him with almost as much care as the farmers were tending their vegetables, ensuring the countless candles at his feet were burning all through the day and night, and the cigarette in his mouth constantly lit. Gifts of fizzy drinks, rum and plastic toys laid at his feet. It was the most kitsch thing I think I have ever seen, and difficult to take seriously, although he is much revered here - there is a fable that some tourists were beaten up once for laughing at his costume, so we all wore the sombre expresionless faces of those who daren´t giggle.

On my return to the Casa, I enjoyed my first hot shower here - I couldn´t believe my luck, two doses of hot water in one day!

There was more heat as my day ended, watching a brilliant sunset over the rooftops before heading out into town to relax in the perfumed, dimly-lit ambience of a shisha bar (very Guatemalan, I know...).

I was rudely awoken early on Sunday morning by the glaring sun, which I am not yet used to; lying there I made a split-second decision to make a run for the bus to Chichicastenango. En route, I decided there had probably been a lot of hot air in my head in making that decision, but as soon as I was settled on a direct (and yes, it was actually direct this time) bus I felt pleased that I wasn´t just lazing around all day. The journey, in our tuna-tin can, was entertaining in itself. My face was pressed up against the grimy window, both out of choice in watching the rolling hills of remote El Quiche province below as we climbed higher and higher up into the mountains, and out of necessity as the old, toothless woman next to me virtually sat on my lap when another man and his son pressed onto our worn seated designed for the behinds of two small schoolchildren. But noone minded; people and their paraphernalia piled on with humility and shared humanity.

Dropping down through dense, aromatic pine forests the highland calm was suddenly shattered as we squeaked to a halt beside the sprawling market of Chichicastenango. Every Sunday, people flock here from far and wide to sell both tourist wares and necessities side by side. Chichi is also a pivotal centre of Maya religion, and the unshamedly pagan church sat astride stone steps awash with flower-sellers, the sweet-scented blooms intermingling with the sickly aroma of a huge pyre of incense and herbs burning at their feet. I sat on the steps in bewildered silence for a long time, watching toings and froings, feeling strangely separated from the hive of activity that buzzed around me - it was almost too much for my senses to take in without spontaneously combusting myself.
Locals dressed in superb embroidered ´huipiles´with flower motifs, babies bundled on their backs, fought their way through bemused, lost-looking tourists. I joined the throngs through the cloying, but intoxicating, atmosphere, stopping to browse and barter for cloths, masks and souvenirs. Carrying on into the dark heart of the market, throbbing with life, the tourist stalls that make up its soft skin turn into living organs of the place (including pigs being bartered, roosters squawking and dead carcusses swinging remorsefully in the gloomy light).

After an exhausting few hours of my senses being battered, I returned to the bus with a weary smile. As the ´gringo´ I ended up sat over the most unfavourable position, the wheel. I had presumed this was because it affords less space for cramped-in knees. I was rudely proven wrong though: as we careered around a corner, my sleepy brain was kicked into gear when an almighty bang and blast of dusty smoke from under my vulnerable feet jolted me from my seat, both from fright and the force of the thing. But apparently a busrst inner tube doesn´t stop the resilient rustbucket buses - we simply bounced on all the way back to Xela.

By the time I´d walked through the dying Minerva market, and encountered yet another in the Parque Centroamerica, I was ´marketed out´for the day. I sat and watched the local families enjoying plates of cornmeal tamales (dumplings wrapped in banana leaves), papusas (tortillas piled high with frijoles (refried beans), cabbage and cheese) and rellinitos (fried, sweetened mashed plantain) from the stret vendors. A bowl of steaming caldo (spicy picante stew) set me up for the walk home and early bed, my head swimming with the sights I´d sen all wekend.

How new cultures can surprise and enchant us.