Chichicastenango

I do not freak out often when driving but Chichicastenango got me wildly out of my comfort zone and I really did think, twice, we were stuck.

Overlanders like to drive vast spacious four wheel drive trucks to find isolation but I like driving a relatively narrow van to explore streets at will.

Chichicastenango brought me to my knees. The approach road was a wild ride of plunging canyons and hairpin bends and wildly aggressive Guatemalan lunatic drivers.

So far so good but in an attempt to find the campground Google sent us basically to our death. Imagine my horror when I recognized the steps I stood on 25 years ago overlooking the Mayan market. 

I had to turn around and get out as we’d have swept the market away like a James Bond  chase scene. The car behind me boxed me in and sounded his horn and the windows sprouted middle fingers like birds taking flight. I just backed up and got turned around under everyone’s malevolent glare. Cool or creepy I had a second chance to test the patience of the aggressive Guatemalans.

The next one was superb. Google sent us down a road blocked by a bridge with inexplicable narrow posts.

Too narrow to turn around and traffic wouldn’t let me back up. Added to the by now familiar horn chorus was the malevolent glare of unhelpful store owners trading in the shade of a Promaster van that was swelling by the minute and in their minds cutting them off from an endless supply of customers; they were not happy.

Layne got us out. I was ready to make tea and wait for night but she went out and organized traffic so I could back out of the dead end. Teamwork!

We sped out of town back to the PanAmerican Highway and ended up spending a quiet night in a park by ourselves just off the main road. 

By ourselves after the Mayan families left following their celebrations of Mother’s Day.

They do build tough piñatas I observed as blindfolded adults whacked and whacked and whacked. 












They found our rolling home utterly beguiling in between killing their hanging dolls.


 I told one mother if her husband gets annoying go live in a car and she burst out laughing. A seed is planted.