Chichicastenango, Guatemala
This article is one of a series of travel entries from CMC Steamboat student Bailey Peth’s blog, and recounts one day of her recent trip to Guatemala. Bailey traveled to the Central American country as part of CMC’s study abroad program Art and Resistance in Guatemala. The program filled up in 2012; find out information about next year’s Guatemala trip, and other study abroad opportunities, through our study abroad page.
I wake in the early hours of the morning to a series of loud bangs and a jolt of adrenaline. I lay there for several seconds trying to form a coherent thought. The first hints of morning are just now starting to creep into the window. Julia and Amanda are still sleeping. The building is not shaking, no one is screaming, and so I decide the noise could have either been a car backfiring directly underneath the window, or a firework. In either case I shut my eyes and fall promptly back to sleep.
When I wake next it is to another bang, only the origin of this one is immediately apparent, someone is knocking at the door. It’s time to get up.
Out on the streets under the sunshine, we are greeted with a mob of sensations. The smell of mangos and pineapples and corn and raw meats and flowers and incense. There are make-shift booths lining the streets for as far as the eye can see. Each stacked high with colorful treasures; weavings, carvings, shirts, pants, hammocks, intricate beading, duffle bags, bootlegged C.Ds and movies, batteries, anything you could imagine. There are two distinct groups of people; those that are selling wares, the locals, none of them stand any taller than myself, most are a head shorter at least. The others are buying, these are all clearly tourists, and they come in every size and shape, each speaking a different language. Together the two groups along with the clucking of the chickens is the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.
We dive into the throng of people weaving our way past women with huge sacks atop their heads, men with large bundles on their backs held in place by a single strap across their forehead, and children; arms laden with everything from pens wrapped in fabric to head bands and scarves to candy and gum to little beaded animals on key chains.
This market place is a strain on the ears and the eyes, everywhere I turn there is more to process. Bangs like the one that woke me the night before go off every so often, making me jump every time without fail. On one such occasion I look up at the shop owner I am bargaining with and inquire to the nature of the noise. He laughs and says “bombs.” Sure the term means something else to him I ask Gloria, the only Spanish speaker among us, to talk with him. “Like firecrackers,” she tells me after a moment “they do it every Sunday to celebrate their saint.”
By eleven, my senses cannot handle the market anymore. Too much color, too many smells, too many people, not enough space. Having emptied my wallet into the local economy, I retreat to the peace of our hotel to pack away all my new treasures before lunch.