Sumpango

On Saturday morning we took a brief tour of Guatemala City. It began with a brief stop outside Our Lady of Sorrows church -- a private chapel for a wealthy Spanish family with very eclectic architecture and a cross on the spire that has been tilted by earthquakes.

Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel

We also stopped by a corporate building with a statue of a Mayan playing the infamous ball game. For some inexplicable reason, the company does not allow photographs of the statue, and guards rather angrily push tourists away (bad PR!), but it allowed our guide an opportunity to talk about what is known of the game (which isn’t much).

We also visited the new, modern municipal buildings of the city, and the Cathedral, including monuments to the massacred and disappeared of the civil war of the 1980s. In the national square we saw the very old-looking (but actually only about 70 year old) presidential palace, and also watched a man drive a small heard of goats through the square. Our guide purchased a cup of fresh goat’s milk (really fresh -- we watched the guy milk the goat on the spot!), which he then gave away to a local vendor after he had given us the demonstration.

We drove out of the city, along the way having the opportunity to see the buses (usually similar in style to U.S. school buses, but with bright color schemes) that take people in and out of the city from rural areas. Some of the buses had a boy or young man riding, standing on the ladder in back of the bus, in order to put people’s luggage on top at stops. Occasionally, the luggage boy would finish tying the luggage to the roof, slide down the ladder, and slap the back of the bus, which was the driver’s signal to go. The boy would then run along side the bus and jump into the door as the bus was moving. Other times the bus would start moving and the boy would climb down the ladder and enter via the rear emergency door, even while the bus was at speed! We even saw passengers jump on board buses that didn’t stop, but merely slowed down for them.

As a contrast, we also stopped briefly at a modern shopping mall that included stores with familiar names and merchandise, and a big box store in direct competition with Wal-Mart, across the highway.

We took a travel break at the village of Sumpango, a town known for its annual kite festival every fall, around Dia de los Muertos. There we visited a large market and noted many Mayan women and children (and a few men) in native dress. The women often worked with a baby in a woven sling on their backs.

Women do laundry at the public fountain in Sumpango.

    Later, we stopped at another town where the native costumes were noticeably different, as was the market. This market was much more like a huge, retail distribution center, where families would bring in their vegetables from their small farm plots, and rather than selling directly to others, sold to dealers who collected whole truckloads of just one item -- carrots, onions, etc. -- from the farmers, and took them off to city supermarkets or other outlets. The whole atmosphere here was significantly different, almost industrial.

    After lunch at a rather quaint roadside restaurant, and crossing a divide at 8000 feet elevation, we arrived at the town of Panajachel on the shore of Lake Atitlan. Surrounded by four extinct volcanos, this large lake, with a 100km shoreline, is at about 5000 feet, and enjoys a climate described as “eternal spring.”  Year round, the nights are cool, often in the low 60s, and days are mild, in the mid- to upper 70s. Mornings are generally sunny, but the up-slope clouds begin to develop mid-morning, making afternoons overcast, at least in this, the rainy season. After dinner we explored the shopping area, which was hopping on a Saturday night.