Next stop was Chichicastenango the largest market in Central America where we tried to negotiate bien precio for these rooms with a view of roofs (failed as expected being the manager was an 80yr ladino who seemed unaffected by our presence especially if we took the room or did not. Before all that is this crazy story where we walked to the bus depot where literally a hundred or so buses were taking off, being parallel parked, running for minutes idly spending unnecessary petrol, and overall just resembling a beautiful foreign chaotic symphony with no real problems. After asking 6 or 7 different drivers and their conductors we found the bus for chehuatenango a town about half an hour away where we would transfer for a bus direct to chichi. When we got on our bus it was packed like sardines and the four of barely fit on, but they were sure we could make it so we hopped on while Dimitri and I were essentially hanging outside since the door never seemed to close. It was definetely the most packed I have ever been on a bus and I thought it was thrilling, hilarious, and amazing to be a part of this comical travelling adventure.
Ignorant and asking for it I had been keeping my Ipod in the front pocket of my shoulder bag, which needless to say is not very safe. So being as packed as we were and too comfortable with my sense of security turned my bag to my back and let my self become one with the sardine packaging. A minute or so later I felt someone either looking for something in their pocket or rummaging through my stuff, but it took a few moments to click and by the time I checked a young man was putting away something in his pocket or at least it appeared to be this way. Immediately I looked in my bag and found no Ipod, but panic struck as I announced to the brotherhood as well as the mainly non english speaking Guatemalan Mayans, "Where is my Ipod, who has it?!?" My friends asked if I was sure it was there before, but I had just checked it right before getting on the bus. No one fessed up and the guy I suspected said, "Yo tambien, muchos banditos, mi musica USB tambien. Autobuses es muy peligroso" So with a freaked out rage I accepted the fate and a learned an important lesson, but my friends would not have it. By the grace of the bus music gods the bus immediately fell apart. That is to say that the clutch decided to stop the ability of the bus to shift gears and as the gears kept grinding the driver pulled over for us to all find that the transmission had decided to split up. My friends told me to look one more time and I did, but did not think much would come of this and in a little back pack under the seat of the driver was my ipod and somebodys ISIC student id card. This happened to by right next to the probable thief who was at that moment sitting on the bus drivers seat looking at me with a bit of triste and empathy for my plight. Relieved to find it and thankful for the bus breaking down, we proceeded in a frenzy to get most of our money back minus 5 quetzales each and Jeremy said, "Come on let's go!" and like that jumped on the roof of the bus and started grabbing our stuff while we waved down another bus and left every single person at the bus. We were off again on our journey to another stop that would take us by the slowest shuttle ever experienced directly to Chichicastenango, whewwww! It was hilarious afterwards and we got the hotel mentioned earlier, went walking around and grabbed a bit of pastry pre insanity meandering. The market was mellow and we could feel the looming explosion, but were glad to be there the day before so that we could witness first hand the transformation for Domingo. We went to a super interesting Mayan K'iche Spanish Catholic service that happened to be on the night of communion and was very interesting, but the wooden xylophone band playing the gospels was by far the most entertaining, uplifting, and interesting part of the holy ceremony. We got some amazing street food, sort of like a quesedilla only sealed completely and filled with potatoes, topped with cabbage and salsa picante. Then we drank hot Chocolate con canela, Arroz, y leche. Super delicious and the family of a mother and 3 daughters proved to be very entertaining yet a learning experience nonetheless. I swear the woman of Guatemala all look much older than they really are, for example the oldest daughter whom I thought was in her early 20's was only 17 and since that point I have come to accept that many of the people I see are in fact much younger than they appear to be (sidenote).
Drinking was the next goal, but at a local bar, no turistos, so we asked and made some new friends with some interesting young folks, especially a young man whose family owned a textile company that was doing business with some businessmen from Turkey and the son helping us was dreaming of taking over the family business and expanding it to be more international. The local bar was just that, only locals and besides the two women with a group of about 10 men, it was all hombres and we all had a Gallo (The national beer of Guatemala) in the corner and then ready to return home we ran into the group of young american students outside of a little liquor store that had two overly friendly drunk men as their greeters, stalkers, and harassers. They invited us to their roof top gathering, so we bought more beers and continued to meet and greet more formally this fresh group of fellow travellers. The College Junior gang members are part of this awesome program where they travel around central america for 4 months teaching different communties what they know to contribute to their lives as well as learning from them. They were doing a language program in Xela and told us that it was a great place to learn spanish and that their school was awesome, plus I had a crush on one of the girls and thought that it was a sign for me to go learn spanish there instead of Lago Atitlan or Antigua.
Our only hang up was that our hotel doorman was going home at 10 and since it was already 9:30 and the place was locked from the inside we had to negotiate for a half hour extension, which he so wonderfully agreed to. It was a breath of fresh air for me to be surrounded by americans, young albeit they were friendly and spoke the american dialect of english. But Heylal being the sweet one he was took one for the team and offered to go back and let us in later and Dimitri being the gentelmen that he is went back while Jeremy and I decided to stay behind to see what kind of adventure the night could bring. They returned 15minutes later to tell us that it took them that much time to wake him up since he has passed out before our previously agreed upon curfew. Like that we had to go home, but said we would see each other in the morning and retired. I dimwittingly out of water and it being well past the time any markets or pharmacies would still be open to purchase purified water decided to brush my teeth using sink water and following Heylals lead of using the sink to brush his teeth did the same. This though led to my state of being that followed me into Xela and led me ultimately to seeing the homeopathic doctor that gave me the antibiotics to kill the hitchhikers hiding in my stomach flora.
Market day we went and had breakfast at the market and negotiated a later check out time so we could shop to find all the unnecessary but desired things from this deal of deals always negotiating market of Chichi. I was feeling under the weather but was ready to go out. At the market I got an awesome pair of Guatemalan pants, funky, colorful and super comfortable even though they ripped monday morning, but then I got them fixed and the crazy thing is that the woman who fixed them knew right away that I bought them there because that was the first question she asked me. Now they are awesome and so long as I am more careful there should be no problem. I also got a super cool, but very heavy hammock there and may give it to Nick tomorrow for his birthday since I can always get another one and he has been talking about wanting to get one. At the market when I was just wandering, while my friends (at this point including our three lady england doctor friends from Antigua) were looking for desired souvenirs or clothes. I ran into my friend from Santa Cruz, Jamie Marcus, who is a mutual friend of one of my closest friends Erin Earl (currently in India studying yoga at an Ashram, gone for the next 6 months). The universe is hilarious in how synchronistic it can be so after lots of laughter, embracing, and I can't believe this is happening decided that since we were on similar time tables for wanting to continue south besides the fact that of course we should travel together, we would meet up in a few weeks and go to Honduras, specifically the Bay Islands. The rest of the day went smoothly and I by this point was feeling pretty sick again and when we arrived to Xela I was feeling super sick and my stomach was cramping like someone had beaten up my belly for the night and this was the left overs from my inside well being.
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