Quetzaltenango- a world of its own

We´ve made our way from the capital, west down the pacific coast, and then headed north where we now are enjoying our time in the Guatemalan Highlands. Quetzaltenango is the second largest city in Guatemala, and for this reason i thought it would be similar to the bustling-crazy-don´t walk alone-and never at night- city of Guate, but boy was I wrong. Quetzaltenango, or Xela, is a world of its own, and unlike any city I´ve seen thus far in Guatemala. Its nestled in the middle of 7 mountains and 3 volcanoes and the air is crisp. The streets are small and many made of cobble stone, and so narrow that It blows my mind to see the brightly colored chicken buses navigating the city.

While pollution still seems to be a problem, it doesn´t put a damper on the beautiful colores of the city. With a colonial feel, every house and store is painted a different color and it seems the families put extra effort into making their doors beautiful. The doors and windows are covered with elaborate rod iron coverings, and its easy to stroll down the street at an extremely slow pace gazing at the details and character of the city.

There are many indegenous men and women in the capital city, but nothing compared to Xela. Hot pink, green, orange, blue, purple, and red tops and pants, embroidered with floweres, birds, and vines is more common than blue jeans and tee shirts. Babies are swoddled in the huge woven clothes and tied on the mothers back while she carries a bucket of steaming hot black corn tortillas on her head.

A typical guatemalan women´s top costs up to 3000Q (divide by 7 for usd!) and takes over two months to hand embroider all of the detail. What I´d do for one of those beautiful tops!

Today sara and I are back at our spanish 5 hours a day with a one on one teacher , and later today are off to a womens co-op that employs women and coordinates their handicraft work into a bussiness. I´m not sure about the details...but we shall see!