Mayan Fascinations

You know those travelers that every place is AH-MAZING and you just want to gag? We know them too because it may be us, as we drive around discovering Guatemala and are in love again! From the border entry where we joked with the border guard about sheep without passports crossing in front of us, to an hour later being offered to kayak with a Guatemalan just enjoying time with her family on a Sunday at the river, and being invited to a birthday dinner with a family we met some really sweet hospitality that was palpable and genuine feeling.

We started off Guatemala with friends! We have made friends! Two lovely Canadians we met in language school that are doing this trek on their motorcycles aligned well timing wise to rent a house together near Tikal and explore. Tikal blew our minds - I'm feeling it kind of on par with Machu Picchu, just a place to revel in history.

Since the pyramids you know are like living artifacts, their wear and tear along with tourists with normal size feet falling; modern steps coming up the back were built on many of them.

The best part of Tikal is the reward from your climb, just how huge it is and how buildings pop out the jungle tree tops while you can hear howler monkeys and toucans in the distance.

The Mayans were/are fascinating peoples. Very advanced in calendars, cocoa and coffee loving people, with just a slight penchant for some odd standards of beauty. The flat head with slightly crossed eyes was deemed superior, and many infants skulls were pushed with flat boards to form this attractive sloped forehead.

Queue the coatamundi! A south american cousin to the raccoon, it has a long flexible snout but also really big sharp teeth make it not a great pet.

We feel really fortunate to have made some traveling buddies on our same route and I'm sure our paths will cross many times. Ride on friends, ride on and look out for those potholes!

I guess our extrovert meter was running vibrant as our next stop we met an American and Peruvivian who have been running 'The Jungle School' for 25 years. They were so warm and friendly and invited us to homemade dinner with them that was the best meal I've had this whole trip. Luckily we still have a 'wine cellar / laundry storage' in the van so I was able to bring a bottle of prosecco which was a special treat for them. They also really want to bring groups to their renovated school so I was pleased as punch to help them develop a tour. I so love getting all these inspirations along the way to a future life we could live abroad. I'm definitely taking notes!

Note, these guys are difficult to catch and set free in the garden.

Many Mayan cities went kapput due to wars, weather, and unknown reasons, but some were still thriving when the Spaniards arrived in the 1500's and ruined their party. Currently about 50% of Guatamalans have Mayan roots, while Spanish is spoken by about 70% and 21 other Mayan languages spoken by 30%.

You can feel the hardwork of these people, the standard work week is 44 hours ( they work half days on Saturdays ) and $560 / mo is the minimum wage, which is considered a good job. 60% of Guatemalans live below the poverty line ( of Guatemala ) and this is especially true of Mayan families who are discriminated against.

We've had alot of time to reflect behind the wheel as we watch folks working so hard how lucky we are to be born where we were and to get to sit on our asses and punch some keys on a keyboard for a living that allows us to travel the world while for many locals it's cost prohibitive to even make it to the next town. We've been doing what we can to be generous as we travel and support people who our dollar means a lot more to them than to us.

One way of support is buying things and just saying yes, instead of the constant no gracias. We were fortunate that the timing worked out to be in Chiciccastenango for the best market in all of Central America, or so the web says.

We got up there at 8am ( nothing really starts much before 10am ) and it was the perfect calm time to people watch and explore the beautiful goods before the crowds and vendors were all set up. That's a secret we've found of going early is that people are so busy setting up that they can't pressure you into sales quite yet.

The modern Mayans stand about 5 ft tall, wearing beautiful clothing, and their cell phones tuck nicely into their woven belts.

I am fascinated with the Mayan dress, and how we've seen it change from village to village. I started chatting with this young woman who was selling some beautiful laptop covers (oh how Mayans have adapted) who was 25 and got to ask my dress questions finally. She let me know they wear this every single day, and the exact dress is location specific.

So if she travels to another town she will wear her longer dress to match what they have there. She showed me her wedding picture and got married in one as well.

Next thing I knew her moms stall was next door that sold the Mayan Traje and I was being wrapped up. Normally I truly hate dress up, but for some reason this felt like a genuine fun experience and she didn't pressure me to buy it, she just wanted to show me how it worked. And it was all surprisingly comfortable with cool heavy lovely fabric.

I did end up buying the top off her, which is really interesting because the ends of it aren't finished. I realized then it's because you always tuck this shirt into your skirt so why finish it?

And luckily as Gordon eats his way thru the protein bars he packed we found some extra hidey spots for our gift stash. I just couldn't resist the beautiful colors and weaves and the lovely people.

I still am just in awe of walking around with present day Mayans, and while they are more reserved than the Guatemalans we meet, we luckily have a giant fluffy white icebreaker who is irresistible. You didn't think I'd get thru a post without a pic of Gus did you? City dog in the jungle.

But what do the men wear you ask? Uh yeah, same as every other place in the world - whatever the heck they want, usually jeans/shorts and a t-shirt. Back at the ranch, they also got parched and tried the local sugar cane based alcohol in flavors of jimaca and tamarind. At $3 a bottle and 36% alcohol, it actually wasn't as bad as we thought it would be!

Luckily we didn't pick up any chickens to kill at the Mayan altar at our campsite as that's prohibited. You can see the ladies with the birds tucked under there arms for sale at the market.

The church has provided a Mayan altar as well that the dogs are warming themselves by. We did see many of them in use and lots of smoke and smells coming from them.

I guess maybe everything isn't AH-MAZING here, I'd like less smoke (burning trash) everywhere, something other to eat in the stores than chips, and a shower head that doesn't electrocute me, along with some hot water coming from it. I still count ourselves as pretty damn lucky and fortunate to get a glimpse into Mayan life. Thanks for coming along with us!