Guatemala: Chichicastenango

Chichicastenago is a small, humble third-world village, which may lead you to wonder why it merits a whole journal of its own. But the Sunday marketplace that draws Mayan villagers from all over the Western Highlands makes Chichicastenango an absolute must-see for the curious traveller, and it can take a whole day to get there and back. It's not a quick stopover between investigating Mayan ruins and climbing volcanoes.

Quick Tips:

Bring plenty of cash, film and batteries as you are a long, long way from the nearest convenience store.

Best Way To Get Around:

You can walk through town in about a minute. The question is how will you get here? The road is so bumpy and curving that even in a luxury minvan you won't be able to sleep on the journey there or back. If maintaining your sanity and reducing bumbs and bruises are a priority spring for the cushiest transport available.

I am not a shopper by choice, but this is a top attraction in Guatemala for a number of reasons. After a sometimes harrowing van ride from Antigua, you find yourself transported to an entirely other world. Every Sunday and Thursday the local Mayans gather in Chichicastenago for what is the area's largest handicrafts market. They are ready to bargain with you shrewdly, and the experience of trying to communicate in fractured English is fun. Prices you will get in Chichicastenango for both souvenirs and high-end items tend to be lower than what you'd find in Antigua or Guatemala City. Amazingly the quality of these similar products remains significantly higher despite the price.

Bordering the southeast corner of the handicrafts market area is the unusual Mayan-Catholic hybrid church, Inglesia de Santo Tomas. While the Colonial Spanish expansion saw much of the indigenous culture's sacred lands and temples rechristened or demolished, the unique location of the El Quiche region of Guatemala and the tolerance of some forward thinking priests helped preserve some of the Mayan beliefs and ceremonial practices. The grateful Mayans showed their appreciation by adopting Catholic ideals and theologies into their spiritual communities, and a truly hybrid religious practice was born.

Visitors need to enter the church through a side entrance, as the traditional stairway entrance is considered quite holy, and a number of "services" are conducted on the steps with incense sticks and unfortunate chickens. Inside the church appears familiar sites like the altar and pews, but the incantation circles in the back of the church are certainly unlike any Catholic service I've attended.