East of Guatemala City

From the road, of the road ahead.

Lots of barbed wire. I haven't been brave enough to take a picture of the many many armed security people carrying semi-automatics. We're not just talking outside of banks. These armed guys are at gas stations, stores, as passengers in delivery trucks--basically anywhere where money is handled and sometimes for no apparent reason. Not everything here is beautiful.

But many things are beautiful. We have been up in the highlands of Guatemala since we arrived. We're now at about 5,000 feet but we've been as high as 8,000 feet and the plants and trees are as they would be most anywhere at this elevation. We're headed to more tropical climates soon, but as of now, I'm wearing long underwear under my pants, a down jacket and a scarf. Bet you didn't imagine that I'd be cold on this trip, did you? Yeah, neither did I and I'm kind of over it.

Cute boys at a school Rolene talked at.

More kiddos.
During her talks Rolene asks the kids to raise their hand if they commit to planting ten trees, eliminating the use of gasoline in 10 years and praying or meditating for a beautiful, sustainable and peaceful earth for 10 minutes every Sunday evening. They almost always raise their hands, though the gasoline one doesn't always get unanimous support, especially from kids and universtiy students who are old enough to drive.


A payphone! When's the last time you saw someone using one of these? Not that it worked...


I'm a little afraid of heights and this bridge made me woozy, especially when big trucks would go by and the whole thing would shake.
Byron and Jonathan who painted the logo on the side of the truck. Byron was always that smiley.

We're leaving the Nazarene seminary today. We walked the last three days from Guatemala City towards Chiquimula, but the road started to get dangerously curvy and much of it had no shoulder. We're going to skip that section and go a bit further ahead and then walk backwards for a couple days, if there's safe road to walk on. Rolene's friend Chirstian Sosa is joining us today and walking for the next week, when we'll arrive in Chiquimula (where Christian lives, and the place with all the Guatemalan Quakers).

Hope all is well back home!

Little post from la ciudad

Just a quick note, with no pictures.
We are now walking between Guatemala City and Chiquimula. Each kilometer brings us away from the city and therefore away from the heavy traffic, which is nice. There were moments (of about 10 seconds) today where there wasn't a big truck or car passing us. It was heavenly--to breathe without fumes, to have no chance of being hit, to hear ourselves think for a bit. It's very loud on the highway. It would be nice if there were reliable and safe rural roads to walk on, but the highway is the only way we can reliably know where we are and that we are safe, relatively speaking of course. There just aren't side roads that go the same direction as the highway, so it's what we've got. Also, there's not much camping here in Guatemala. Rolene did a lot of camping in Mexico, but camping is not common here and certainly not close to where we need to be. We've mostly stayed in people's homes with a few nights in hotels and in the truck. Right now we are staying in the dorms at a Nazarene Seminary, of all places.
We talked to a school today, middle school aged. They were very sweet and mostly attentive and then crowded around us to talk and ask questions. I'll post pictures next time, maybe even later tonight. Later, alligators!

Parramos

These pictures come to you by way of my new camera. I had a fun adventure in Guatemala City, comparing prices and talking to clerks in several stores, before finding the one I wanted and could afford. I think electronics prices are more expensive here than in the US. I´m not just talking about standard of living but that I paid more US dollars than I would have back home. Doesn´t seem fair, does it?

The buses are...full. Rolene snapped this picture before another 10 people got on. I know that people who have travelled in India, Latin America, Egypt, etc all have stories about crazy buses and overly fully taxis, so this may not impress anyone. But, this bus was made to comfortably seat 36 people, plus the driver. I counted 75, not including babies in arms. It wouldn´t be so bad if we were going straigh at a resonable speed, but instead we´re going really fast around mountain curves.

These next three are in Antigua, a beautiful colonial town pretty close to Guatemala City. It was the original capital at some point. There are ruins and crumbling churchs and convents all over the place. There are lots and lots of ex-pats in Antigua and lots of tourists so I saw more non-Guatemalan people than I have since the SF airport. This was strange, but honestly it was also nice to be anonymous (we had this some in Panajachel, but even more here) for a few days. Also, the friend we stayed with, Martha (an ex-pat Quaker from New York) took us out to Indian food. It was wonderful.

This is in the courtyard of the Hotel Santo Domingo, the only 5 star hotel in Guatemala and the Clintons stayed here, or so I´ve heard. The hotel is built around the ruins of this church and there is now a covered area where mass is still held. It´s hard to say how gorgeous this place was.

There was also a museum at the hotel, but it was closed when we got there. We snuck into one room though, and it had skeleton remains under glass and then this big pile of bones in the corner.

With Carolina, sister of Jaime, who works at the Mayan Scholarship fund in Parramos. She walked with us for a few days.

A pretty farm between Chimaltenengo and Guatemala City.

A recently clear cut hill. Not sure why I included this one.

The highway we are walking on, with more trees and less fumes than usual.

¨Oooh, a ditch...great!¨

From near the shot of the highway--that´s Guatemala City out there. population 3 million, I think.

Didn´t mean to put this twice. I don´t like ditches that much.

On the walk between Parramos and Antigua.

Typical cemetery--lots of color, tucked in behind some trees right next to the road.

A sometimes-still-active volcano, with corn planted up the side of the hill.

The sign says ¨No dumping garbage.¨ This is an especially bad section of road, garbage wise...though there are many especially bad sections.

I just like this one.

It´s been a week or so since I last posted, which makes it hard to remember what has happened. I´m sure it´ll come to me. I´m feeling a little better now but I´m pretty cranky today. I´m a little homesick and a little stir crazy because we haven´t walked in three days and a little frustrated about trying to buy my plane ticket from Costa Rica to Mexico City (the old plan was that I´d come home from Costa Rica, but I realized I was scheduled to go to a Quaker thing in Monterrey in early May and then found out my friend from Mexico City, Betty, is getting married May 8th so I´m coming home via Mexico City May 9th).

A few further explainations--

homesick: I actually miss you all less acutely than I did the first couple weeks (this does not mean that you should stop writing to me!) but I miss feeling comfortable. I´m not constantly uncomfortable, but I´m also not home. I miss knowing the people around me and not having to explain to a disbelieving audience what I´m doing. I miss knowing where I´m going to be tomorrow and eating food I recognize. I think I got a little spoiled in Antigua because we were staying in Martha´s beautiful an comfortable home and hanging out with other people from the States and eating good food. I´m anxious to get walking but it´s also a bit of a letdown to come back from our mini-vacation. I love going on these adventures and I´m eternally grateful for the support I´ve been given to have these opportunities, but I´m also realizing that I basically like being at home and won´t mind staying put for a while once I get back.

stir crazy: it´s Tuesday and we haven´t walked since Saturday. It was nice to have a couple days off to relax in Antigua and we happened to be there for the monthy Quaker meeting in town. But, we were supposed to come back to Parramos this morning to pick up the truck and head to the east side of Guatemala City (we´re not walking through the city because too many people have warned us that it´s too dangerous) and start walking again. Jaime´s brother is painting the Walk With Earth logo on the side of the truck and he´s not done so we have to stay here another night. We´ll be moving tomorrow so if we might not have time to walk. Oh well. I´m having a hard time going with the flow today so I kind of want to throw a temper tantrum but I guess I won´t.

frustrated: i´m going to try to buy my ticket again after I write this, but if it still doesn´t work I might just have that temper tantrum.

So, we walked between Chimaltenengo and Guatemala City and to Antigua and when we start walking again we´ll be going about a hundred miles to Chiquimula where there´s a bunch of Quakers. Those of you who are of the Quaker persuasion know that there´s more than one kind of Quaker, but as it turns out, many of you aren´t Quakers. I´m not going to go into the history, but I´ll just say that there have been splits in Quakerism and there are a few different branches. The Quakers in Latin America and Africa are almost entirely Evangelical Quakers. You might be thinking, ¨but wait, Quakers don´t proseltize!¨ Well, the branch I´m a part of doesn´t and many people believe ¨my¨Quakers are about as similar to the evangelical ones as we are to conservative Presbyterians. So, going to the Quaker churches here is very different and very interesting. I´m pretty good at finding similarities to focus on and I have some practice with the skill of spiritual translation (where I try to hear the part I relate to and to figure out how their words could mean something for me even though they are so different than my words).

I´m sure there´s specific stories from the days we walked but I can´t remember them now. I mostly day dream for the 3 or 4 hours that we walk each day. I think part of the stir-crazy is that I haven´t had sufficient time to run around in my own head!

I´ll write again soonish, though I´ve heard that it´s less populated between Guat. City and Chiquimula so there may be less internet cafes. I promise to be safe, so don´t worry!

Tecpan

A few people requested more photos and less words. I can´t guarantee less words, but here´s some more photos. Sadly, tragically even, my camera broke. I don´t know why, but yesterday it shuddered as it took its final breath and looked at me as if to say, ¨It´s been real, kid...but my work here is done.¨ The thing is, it´s work wasn´t done. Shucks. Oh well, I´ll get a new one when I get to Guatemala City in a few days. Hopefully Rolene´s camera, iffy as it is, will hold up till then so I can keep posting photos.

From the road on the way back from Lake Atitlán with Volcán San Pedro and Volcán Tolimán behind it. The bus ride down there was atrocious. It took two hours from Chimaltenengo and for the first hour I was the third person on a seat made for two so I was only halfway on the seat, going around crazy twists and turns. When we finally got there, carsick and cranky, I wasn´t sure that the ride was worth it, but it most definitely was. This is the deepest lake in Central America at about 5,000 feet deep.

The two aforementioned volcanoes on the left and Volcán Atitlán on the right. This shot and the next were taken from our table at a restaurant called Sunset in the town of Panajachel. It was ridiculously beautiful and only a little bit chilly (it´s been cold in the mountains--cold enough to see our breath and there was ice on the ground a few nights ago, in Xela).

Sigh...as we ate, we chatted with Melody, from San Francisco and a man from Holland. It was lovely, and the wine didn´t hurt either :)

Somewhere between Tecpan and Chimaltenengo. These ¨from the road¨ shots start to blend together and it´s hard to remember where exactly we were. Not a terribly exciting shot, but a typical view of farmland with the hills in the background.

These guys were walking, in the opposite direction, on the highway near Tecpan. They´d found an injured bird and were taking it home to try and nurse it back to health.

From the road on our way from Xela to Tecpan. It´s beautiful, but you can also see the deforestation in the hills. Lots of clearcut mountains around here.

The family we stayed with in Tecpan. Miguel Angel, his two kids Gaby and Angel and their grandma and great-aunt came to check out our truck before we left town. Juanita, Miguel Angel´s wife, had already left for work (teaching 4th grade).

Angel is a real ham. Cute as a bug, easy to laugh and very full of personality.

Miguel Angel and the kids watching Rolene play her harp.

Gaby is very smart. She´s 5 yrs old and can read upside down. She unknowingly gave me a vocabulary lesson when we were playing one night. She has a toy cell phone and it would ¨ring¨and I´d pick it up and pretend to talk to whoever she said was on the phone. I talked to Jesus, a sheep, a angel, her dad, grandpa, the Virgin. Then she told me it was Santa Claus and I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and we named about a thousand nouns. I think I only remember a few of them by heart, but it was fun and we cracked up a bunch of times.


We are now in a small town called Parramos, staying in the home of Lauren Lasalle, who is in the States right now. This is also the office of the Mayan Scholarship Fund, which gives money to Mayans who are doing work in the community.

Miguel Angel, from the pictures, is the director of MSF. It was really great to stay with his family. Having little kids around is always fun for me and when the adult Spanish-talk got too overwhelming I could go goof around with the kids. The first day I felt really cranky (and my stomach, though not keeping me layed out as it did when I was really sick, was still a little shaky) and I felt shy/unwilling to sit around and not understand a lot of the chatting. I took some time to be alone and listen to music, which really helped. Rolene and I get along quite well, but we are basically always together. I need more alone time to sit with my thoughts and quietly process my day. This is true when I´m in a regular routine back home, and even more so on this constantly stimulating trip.

We are getting into a good routine with walking, doing about 10 miles a day with breaks on the days when we move the truck to a new town and need to resettle. I feel strong and healthy and only have one small blister so far. I´m much happier on the days when we are walking than on the days where we move to a new town. The constant state of transition is hard for me and once we´ve stayed somewhere for more than one night I want to call it home and settle in. So, each time we move it´s a readjustment and on the first day I think that there´s no way that this new place is going to live up to the last place and I don´t like it very much. Then, I get comfortable with the people and we start walking and I cheer up. I´m seeing this pattern happen, so I can just relax and take it a little easy on the first day, knowing that I´ll feel better the next day.

A few mostly unrelated notes: After the hot showers at Miguel Angel´s the cold bucket of water sponge bath here in Parramos leaves something to be desired. I hate bus/truck/car fumes and the smell of roadkill. I hate roosters. I love the hours of daydreaming while walking. I love long underwear. I miss you guys.

Quetzaltenengo II

Here's Rolene and Marco Antonio playing music together. It was such a nice family feeling to have everyone sitting around, more or less doing their own thing but doing it together.

Marco Antonio and Sandra, the parents of the Rivera family. They have three kids--Jonathan, Shesnarda, y Pedro Pablo. I miss them already.

Here's a shot from the road in Chiapas, on our way to Guatemala. I don't have any photos of Guatemala near the border because we hid our cameras and money in case we were robbed. It was unlikely that we would be since we followed advice to cross before 2pm, when it's safer.

This is Maria, my friend from Las Palmas, which is a little island in the middle of the mangrove swamp. She walked around with us and was completely charming. I like talking to kids because they don't ask me complicated questions.

Here's a shot from the shore of Las Palmas. It was so amazing to be there because there were no cars! Not even one and there probably had never been a car here ever. We met a archeologist from UCSB, Barbara, who was leading a group (one from Texas and two from Chile) of archaelogists who were studying the mounds of discarded shells in the swamps. They have found evidence of human civilization as far back as 7.5 thousand years ago.

Mangroves. Amazing. We could hear lots of birds, but they were in the canopy above us so I didn't see many. We went on a boat taxi through the swamp and out to Las Palmas.

The beach we camped at in Perto Arista, Mexico. Right after taking this picture I saw at least 4 dolphins swimming really close to shore. It was magical and I was the only one out on the beach as far as I could see so I got/had to enjoy it all by myself.

The baby sea turtles at the reserve we went to near Puerta Arista. These tortugas had just been born and were to be released that night at 9pm. I hope they made it! Each one was about half as big as my palm.

There were a couple things I forgot to say last night. One is that I love it when I hear sentences that I've never heard before. When Rolene and I were walking into Quetzaltenengo yesterday, the shoulder came to an end and Rolene exclaimed, "Oooh, a ditch! Great!" I've never heard anyone so excited to see a ditch by the side of the road, but when one has been walking through Mexico and Guatemala for 10 months as she has, one's priorities change. Sidewalks are rare here, and very nice to have when they exist. Cars, trucks and buses go really fast and when there's not even a shoulder to walk on it can be dangerous, so we won't do that unless we have no other options.

The other thing I meant to say is that I think it's so cool that cities have nicknames here. We use acronyms, but not nicknames as much...Well, I guess we have The Big Apple and The City of Angels. The nicknames here are different. Quetzaltenengo is called Xela, and Retalhuleu is Reu. I just learned, as I was writing this, that when the Spanish conquerors came here they brought soldiers from the north (what is now Mexico) of the Nahuatl people. Quetzaltenengo and Retalhuleu are Nahuatl names and Xela and Reu are the Mayan names. One place we went today is called San Antonio Xecul, which is a combo of the Spanish name and the Mayan name.

I'm having a really hard time uploading the photos onto this post. I was going to end here and then do a new one with photos and stories from today. But, I think I'll tell you about today and hope to get some photos up too.

We walked along the highway for a while until the shoulder disappeared and then asked where we could safely walk. We were directed to go through some farmland and up through a tiny puebla I mentioned above, San Antonio Xecul. We saw the school so Rolene went to go see if there were kids to talk to, but school wasn't in session today. The teachers were there though so we hung out with them and talked about the walk and they shared what they were doing with their students. They're doing a reforestation project with the kids, which was exciting to hear. When we were leaving they told us to go see a man in the town nearby, Salcaja, because he runs the local TV station and might want to broacast something about the walk. When we got there he took us up to his studio above his house and we talked about the walk (well, Rolene did most of the talking) and then found out that he'd been broadcasting live. I was on TV! I'm gonna be famous! What a funny day.

We also heard that the oldest Catholic church in Guatemala, built in 1524, is in Salcaja so we went to go see it. It's always impressive to see such old bulidings, but it mostly made me sad. Churches like this one are a symbol of the conversion of a people from their native, earth-based religions...and were mostly likely built with slave labor. So, it was interesting, but not joyful to visit there.

It's now Saturday morning. I tried to post the above last night and it failed, so I'm trying again now. We're headed out and will park the truck in some town between here and Guatemala City and do some walking. Not sure when I'll have internet again, but I'm sure it won't be long. Until then...

Quetzaltenengo

Hola a todos!
It´s becoming abundantly clear to me that I´m not going to be able to tell you about all the places we visit on this adventure. I have notes in my journal of stories that I want to write about, but the last time I had a chance to write to this blog I only had time enough to tell about Oaxaca and Tuxtla. Since then we´ve stayed on the beach in Puerta Arista, Mexico, crossed the border into Guatemala, gotten lost and then found, blind and then seen...no wait...I mean we got lost and then found our way, I got super sick for about 24 hours from something I ate, and now we are in Quetzaltenengo, Guatemala at the home of a lovely family who we met through a Guatemalan Quaker named Christian Sosa. I haven´t met Christian yet but he´s joining us once we get to Guatemala City. Soooo, hope springs eternal, but I don´t think I can tell you about all of that in one or three posts. I´ll just tell you about today and hope that the stories from the past few days will come out in their own time.
Before I proceed I want to put out a request, a plea, if you will: write to me! I can´t tell you how wonderful it is to get news from home, even boring news. It´s very sad to open my email and only have one from my credit card saying my bill is ready and another from Netflix wondering if I want to open an account. That is not exciting, not at all. Tell me stories about how you went to work and an idiot pissed you off, or how you had dinner with a friend and they paid the bill, which made your day, or how you didn´t do anything today except eat saltines and watch the entire first, and only, season of My So Called Life. Tell me anything about your life or just tell me you love me (if you do) and miss me (you must by now!). Ok, end plea.
I can´t add any pictures today because my camera cord is out in the car. Let me explian the car situation because when I told you all I was walking across Central America I was mostly correct, but slightly uninformed. This is a project built around walking. However, when Rolene was getting ready to set out, she was happy to take a burro (como un burro!) and just start walking. Walk With Earth is a non-profit started by Rolene, but run by a board of directors who have some say over how the walk goes. They insisted that Rolene have a support vehicle in case of emergency, medical or otherwise. We have this small RV that we can sleep in when we aren´t taken in by generous people like we were tonight. It´s calming to know that if one of us got sick or hurt or if some danger presented itself, we could get to help quickly. But, the truck presents us with complications also. At the beginning of the walk, in northern Mexico, Rolene´s friend was driving the truck ahead of Rolene and the other walkers. At this point, we don´t have a driver so we have to drive to a town and find a safe place to leave the truck, then bus backwards and walk to the truck, or walk forward and take a bus back. Kind of silly, but we don´t have another option (unless YOU want to come join the adventure, for any amount of time, and drive for awhile. It´s a really fun and cheap way to travel and see this beautiful area of the world. Think about it, you will not regret it!).
Today we left Retalhuleu, where we spent the last two nights in a hotel (I was way too sick to travel, even by car, so instead I lay sweating through the sheets of my bed while Rolene did a bunch of work on the computer) and arrived about an hour and a half later in Quetzaltenengo. The drive was beautiful, with sharp mountains covered in pine trees and precarious looking corn fields on either side of us (the Sierra Madres mountains, I believe). The curves were reminicent of the drive to Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco. Rolene had a speaking gig at the Universidad San Marcos at 5pm so we had enough time eat lunch and take a bus a few miles out of town and walk back to the University. The walk was easy, though the traffic offered us a healthy dose of fumes and dust. When we got back to the University we had a little time to rest before Rolene spoke to a group of agriculture students about the walk and her ideas about how to move towards a sustainable human existence on earth. The 30 or so students were very interested and receptive, and were kind enough to stay for the talk after finishing an exam. I´m not sure that, if I were in their shoes, I would have stayed to hear a strange gringa talk, but either they are more obedient than I, or maybe more polite.
Alex, who came to the talk, then took us to his aunt and uncle´s house where we were given a delicious and simple dinner of scrambled eggs, refried black beans, and fresh tortillas. After dinner, two of their kids came home and in conversation we learned that they lived for two years in Las Cruces, NM! It was very exciting to hear this because a) I was just living there with my sister, Brooke, her husband, Issa and my new nephew, Kouli; and b) it means they speak some English! My brain gets so tired of constantly listening to Spanish and trying to respond appriopriately. It´s nice to let my brain relax for a little while. Granted, Rolene speaks English with me, but still...
As I was writing this, Rolene was playing her harp (not a full-sized one) and Marco Antonio, the father, was playing the guitar and people were singing. It was beautiful and peaceful and altogether lovely. It´s time for bed now. I´m so grateful to be where I am right now and am excited to wake up and see where tomorrow takes me (about 10 miles, give or take, from where I am now). Goodnight and buenas noches!

Oaxaca to Tuxtla-Gutierrez

sorry about the sideways pictures...this is the Parachico celebration. it takes way too long to download pictures so that´s all you get for now.

These are from Monte Alban. Pretty cool, right?

I didn´t mean to include these two photos, but now I can´t take them off...look at them, but not with as much interest as the ones I meant to include.

These past four days have been very full. We were in Oaxaca for two days, Tuxtla-Gutierrez for one and a half days, a tiny ocean town called Puerto Arista for one night and now we are in a small town called Escuintle, really close to Tapachula, the border town just this side of Guatemala. It might be boring if I told you everything that has happened, but it amazes me how much can fit into four days, so I want to at least tell you the highlights. I´ll write each leg of the trip in a different post so that this one doesn´t get too long. Sorry if I say too much for those of you who like the short-n-sweet, and if I say to little for those of you who want all the details. Oh, if you´re interested in what Rolene has to say you can check her blog at www.walkwithearth.org.
I didn’t do much on Thursday in Oaxaca because I have some sort of illness that involves a sore throat. It ended up not being the pollution in Mexico City because it got worse when we left and I was pretty worn out. I´m finally feeling a little better today, which is a big relief because I was getting tired of being in constant pain every time I swallowed.

However, Friday was pretty awesome even though I was still sick. I felt well enough to go to some ruins called Monte Alban, about ½ hour outside of Oaxaca. I’ve never been to ruins like this before and I was totally impressed. Monte Alban was inhabited for 500 B.C. to 850 A.D., when it was abandoned for unknown reasons. The Zapotecs built it and later the Mixtecs arrived and buried high status people in the Zapoteca tombs. I’ll include a couple pictures, but as you know, the pictures don’t really capture the whole experience. It was a very windy day and only mildly warm. I was there by myself because Rolene had already been there twice. I haven’t done many touristy things like this by myself, and I was surprised to find how nice it was to wander with only my own agenda and walk quietly with my thoughts, not needing to articulate them to anyone.

I pissed some Zapoteca spirits off and then saw a disappearing man. Enough said….
Just kidding, I’ll tell you about it. Before going down into the main plaza of Monte Alban, I walked through the surrounding buildings, some of which were ceremonial buildings and some were houses, and almost all buildings included tombs. I approached one house and read the sign outside that said it was an unusual home because it contained 4 tombs instead of one. I walked through the front hallway and as soon as I entered the first room, I got really uncomfortable and my mind kept saying, “Get out of here, get out of here.” I told myself to chill out and stop being so dramatic, but the “get out of here” continued so I left and apologized to whoever didn’t want me there. Then I turned to go back toward the main plaza and saw a little hill with a man in a white shirt sitting on top. I was a little freaked out by what had just happened so I thought I’d ask him if I could sit with him. I walked up the hill, practicing how to say, “can I sit with you?” in Spanish, but when I got there, he was gone. I don’t know how he could have gotten down except for the way I came up because it was all brambles and steep drop offs. I sat on that hill for a while until I felt normal again. When I got back to Oaxaca and told Rolene about my experience, she told me that when she’d been to Monte Alban before she’d had really bad feelings by the exact same house. Word to the wise: stay away from the house with 4 tombs on the far north side of Monte Alban--you are not wanted there! Or, I wasn’t anyhow, and I’m choosing to not take it personally.

That night Rolene and I got on an overnight bus, headed for Tuxtla-Gutierrez in Chiapas, where the support car was parked over the holidays. The bus was comfortable enough, but the ride was horrible. I had worn myself out going to Monte Alban so my throat hurt like crazy and I just wanted to sleep, but after the first hour, the road was so curvy I had to keep my eyes opened and keep all my energy focused on not puking. Rolene wasn’t so lucky, but I managed to make it through the hours of windy roads and we both got a couple hours of sleep eventually. We arrived in Tuxtla at 7am, exhausted, hungry and and zonked-out. After hooking up with the guy who had watched Rolene’s car for the past few weeks, we had to charge the car battery, get a new tire, get the brakes fixed and then finally we ate breakfast with Tony, a gringo friend who is living with his wife and her family in town.

Tony told us that we had come on a good day because not only was his family having a party to celebrate the day baby Jesus first sat up (oh, did you think that Christmas was over weeks ago…wrong!! Christmas is still going strong here. Yeah, maybe he was born on the 25th (though that’s historically debatable) but he apparently did a bunch of stuff after he was born. Christmas goes almost until Easter here. Bet you didn’t realize what a bunch of holiday slackers we are back home!), but we were also in town for the festival of the year, going on about 45 minutes away in Chiapa del Corzo. I have to say, though, that I think there’s about 15 “festival of the year”celebrations. In any case, Tony told us that we were required to go to Chiapa del Corzo for Parachico (para=for, chico=boy or more loosely, child). If we didn’t go, his family would be mad at him for not making us go. Rolene and I were so bone tired, but we had a couple hours to kill while the brakes were being worked on and nowhere to sleep anyhow so we got in a taxi and slept on the way to Chiapa del Corzo.

We arrived in Chiapa del Corzo right on time for the procession to start (or at least one of the processions. There are apparently more than one and the one we saw was probably not the biggest) and got a good spot for taking pictures. I have a rough understanding of the signifgance of Parachico and I´ll try to piece it together here. Back in the 1500´s there was a rich Spanish lady in Chiapas and her son got sick. The locals dressed up with masks and head dresses and danced to make the boy better. Since then, Parachico is still celebrated, but honestly, I´m not sure why. As I understand it, the boys who are involved in Parachico don´t just participate in the one parade that we saw. It´s more of a devotional practice in that they do a bunch of prayers and preparation before Parachico. One the actual day, they dress up in the costume (there´s pictures above) and do the march/dance for hours. Keep in mind that this is Chiapas, Mexico and it´s really hot. The costumes are dark and heavy and with all the dancing for hours, many boys reach an altered state of consciousness, according to Tony. The girls and women wear these incredibly beautiful dresses (also pictured above) and the effect of the whole things is generally overwhelming and beautiful. Parachico only happens in Chiapas, and I´m not sure if it is celebrated in all of Chiapas or just this region.

When we finally got to Tony´s house we had a few hours to sleep before the party. I came downstairs just as the religious part of the party was starting. We all had candles and the kids who had been chosen at a previous party also held figurines of baby Jesus sitting on the throne. They sang a beautiul song while we stood in the entrance to the house, then everyone went inside and they sang another song while they put the figurines around a little altar. People were lighting sparklers and the littler kids were running around. This was a religious ceremony, but it was also just fun and relaxed. After this part ended, it was just a party. There were about 60 people there and they were all from Maria´s (Tony´s wife) fathers side of the family, who come from the Zoque indigeonous group. Maria´s mom´s family is Zapateca and they live further away so they weren´t at the party. The families who were chosen as the baby Jesus holders at the last party are also epected to bring the food for the party. Tony warned us that Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico so the food would be made from ingredients that people could afford. I was really grateful to be included in this family party (it´s not every day that a couple of gringas get to go to a family party celebrating the day Jesus sat up...come to think of it, Jesus was pretty advanced to be able to sit up at one month old...). I can´t say, though, that I was very interested in the hotdog/mayonaise combination on top of a mini tostada shell or the other hotdog dishes available. But did I eat them? Hell yes, I did, thanking them profusely the whole time.

Ok, this post is getting REALLY long. I´ll stop now, and put the Tuxtla to Puerto Arista leg of the trip in the next entry.