Happy New Year - Not so Santa Free

Quetzaltenango is a colonial town settled by the Spanish and surrounded by the Santa Maria volcano and the active Santiaguito volcano. It is the commerial center of Southwestern Guatemala and is the center of the Quiche Maya people and the second largest city of Guatemala.
We drove to San Francisco El Alto's for their Friday market.

While Chichi’s market was a mixture of local and tourist stalls, this was truly a local market—selling everything from textiles to animals of every kind.


It was New Years Eve and we were looking for a place to celebrate—we found a buffet dinner and musical entertainment at the local hotel. Happy New Year!

The Market at Chichicastenango

We had to follow the tourist trail to Chichicastenango, 2 hours NW of Guatemala City. “Chichi” is known for one of the biggest native markets in Central America. The vendors start setting up their portable booths in the main plaza and on the surrounding streets the night before and continue on until the following morning.

At night, you can wander through the booths and see the Guatemalan families cooking their evening meals - and serving to the visitors.


We spent the day wandering through the market. John looked quite a site—there aren’t many 6’2” Guatemalans…. We bought a beautiful woven table cloth.

We wandered into the 400 year old Church of Santo Tomas, next to the market. There are 18 stairs leading up to the church- each one standing for a month of the Mayan calendar year (The Mayan calendar has 18 months with 20 days per month).

From Tikal to Huehuetenango

From Tikal , we headed to Huehuetenango.
On our way to Chichicastenango, we made a side trip to Momostenago, famous for their thick woolen blankets. We weren’t sure how we were going to get it home, but we had to have one.

A trip to Ceibal

We made friends with our guide, Tony, and contracted with him to take us to the outlying ruins of Ceibal.

We took a boat on la Pasión river and had to climb to the ruins in the midst of a tropical rainforest.

It was first inhabited around 800 B.C., abandoned between 500 and 590 A.D., then reoccupied in 735 A.D. It grew dramatically around 830 – 930 A.D. when its population reached 10,000. Then it was abandoned and wasn’t rediscovered until 1890.

Guatemala Route

From Guatemala City to Tikal

We decided that we wanted to have a “Santa free” Christmas, so we were off to Guatemala. We landed in Guatemala City and soon after, we were off to Tikal.

We were staying right at the park-not the most luxurious of accommodations, but a great place for access to the ruins. The ruins cover 10 square miles and over 3000 structures- palaces, temples, ceremonial platforms, ball courts, plazas….(It took the University of Pennsylvania 13 years to uncover the structures at Tikal). The Mayans began building Tikal around 600 B.C. and for 1500 years, it was the center their civilization. It was abandoned over 1000 years ago and was overgrown by the tropical jungle where it was re-discovered in 1848.

For info on Tikal, see the web site: http://www.tikalpark.com