Xela (Quetzaltenango)

Ah, Xela, you minx, with your fulfilled promises of expat perfection, of restaurants, and coffeeshops, and Guatemalan hipsters.  Of yoga, even, but also of lively outdoor markets.  Of shopping malls and yet volcanoes, and of friendly cops.  Xela was the first place we've been that I could see myself living permanently (if I could get my Spanish under control).

But before Xela, we had a few days of truly unglamorous travel.  Sometimes, you just need to get from point A to point B, and sometimes, due to the difficulty of finding a propane vendor able to fill your tank, you don't even know where point B is.  We spent nights in Uspantán -- a sketchy little place, at least on Christmas day when the only people around seemed to be staggeringly drunk -- and Huehuetenango sleeping boringly in hotel parking lots for the sake of security.  In Huehue, we walked across the street and had dinner in a bizarre little restaurant tucked behind an enormous casino.  The restaurant was as cheesy as cheese could be, decorated for the holidays with, among other things, a set of Christmas lights that intermittently (and loudly) played Jingle Bells.  The high-pitched tune of the string of lights competed with what we believe was something like "A Very Michael Bolton Christmas" and the sound from a spaghetti western playing on TV.  For atmosphere, the manager had hung a picture of a waterfall over the door, but he didn't know which one it was and admitted the photograph had come with the frame.  We were the only patrons, and so there we sat, eating truly unremarkable food watching the blinking lights of the Christmas decorations as well as the casino across the parking lot.  Glamorous!

And then, finally, we arrived in Xela.  Got our propane on the outskirts of town, got stuck in a tiny cobbled street with a line of 12 or 15 cars honking behind us, and eventually parked in front of a park and, more importantly, the police station.  

Xela is stunning, so we spent that first afternoon just walking around the main park, and the little streets departing from it.

The central park is lush surrounded by beautiful old buildings, including the facade of a church that dates to the sixteenth century.  

Eatin' mandarin oranges from a baggie.

We also spent some time wandering around the excellent cemetery, where we saw two funeral processions: a huge one, with all attendees wearing traditional Mayan garb, and a much smaller procession with Western-styled mourners.  

So thrilled to have his picture taken.

After looking at the above-ground mausoleums, we passed through a gate and up some stairs at the far side of the cemetery, into the poor burial section.  Gone were the cobbled walkways, replaced by worn dirt footpaths.  Also gone were the mausoleums, replaced by bare graves, sometimes marked only by a rock.  Other graves had homemade, handwritten gravestones.  But the graves were still well-decorated, even if the flower pots had been re-purposed from old Orange Crush bottles.  

The rich dead.

The poorer dead.

We stayed a couple of nights in Xela, exploring the town, relaxing, eating things like Indian food, climbing volcano Santa Maria.

For sleeping, we parked right in front of the police station, in front of an open doorway in which stood two or three policemen with shotguns.  When we asked if they thought it would be safe to camp on the street, they looked surprised and said, "Of course it will be.  We're right here, all night.  We'll keep an eye on you."  And so, assured -- and further assured by goodwill we certainly earned when Chuck jumpstarted one of the policeman's personal trucks, parked next to us -- we slept peacefully.

Peacefully, that is, until one night, we awoke to a crash, like an earthquake, but louder.  Sleepy, we couldn't figure out what had happened.  Our first thought was that we had been hit by a car, but we didn't hear any engine noise.  We peeked out.  The cobbled street was totally empty, eerily so.  I may or may not have pictured a gang of killers waiting outside the car to get us.  A few moments later, one of our shotgunned police guards wandered over.  He appeared to be examining our back bumper.  Chuck, braver than I, went out to ask if the cop had seen what happened. (Lena and I may or may not have remained cowering in the van.)  Apparently, someone did hit the van, but, as the cop told Chuck, looking at our bumper -- a bumper already tied on with two types of rope --and probably suppressing a smile, we likely weren't any worse for wear.

Next up, maybe: A Tour of the Rattlevan, or Something About Lake Atitlan.