Chichicastenango

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  Chichicastenango, Guatemala
Sunday, March 2, 2008

After a week of being in Antigua, i decided to leave the city for a day. I was headed to Chichicastenango, a town in the highlands famous for its Sunday market. Mayan traders from outlying villages come to Chichi to sell carved wood masks, lengths of embroided cloth and clothes to the tourists and anything else they can sell to the locals.
I decided to get there by ¨chicken bus¨. These are old american school buses packed with people, animals and whatever else you might want to carry. They are perfect for the Mayan people because of their short stature. They can easily seat 3 to a seat and not bang their knees on the seat in front. Anyone of a more normal proportion does find it a little claustrophobic.
  To say the roads in Guatemala are bad is an understatement and the 100km trip took just under 4 hours, but is was worth it. The market was massive and crowded As it was Sunday, there was a parade of religious floats from the cathedral amid fireworks being let off.
Chichi also has shamanistic and ceremonial undertones and i ventured just out of town to visit the shrine of Pasual Abaj (sacrifice stone), the local shrine to Huyup Tak'ah, the mayan earth god. Shamans come here to offer incense, food, cigarettes, flowers, liquor and coco-cola to the earth god - all to express their thanks and hope for the Earth`s continuing fertity
After a massive lunch of chicken,rice,vegetables,tortillas and a coke for about $2.50US, i headed back to Antigua. The bus driver was obviously in a hurry as overtaking on blind corners and hairpins was the norm and several on coming cars were forced off the road. He also only had 1 tape so for 2 hours was force to listen to glockenspiel music over and over. After 2 hours even the bus driver had had enough as he turned it off. All in all a good day

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Market in Chichi	Mask	Masks	Religioud Parade
Pascual Abaj	Shaman

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