Today has been our last full day in Xela. It has been a pretty typical day so far. We got up, got ready, CJ whined and fussed, we went to school, ate lunch, and then went on a trip to San Andres, which, like the last one, was surprisingly free of catastrophies or unpredictable problems. San Andres is a very cute little town not too far outside of Xela, on the side of a mountain like pretty much every town in the highlands, at least from what I have seen. The town is mostly famous because it has the only brightly painted churches in Guatemala. (Given this, it may come as no real surprise that it is not especially famous.)
We took the chicken bus out a nearby town, and then had to switch to the back of a pickup truck for the remainder of the trip, as that is the only kind of vehicle that goes out that far. The ride from the bus drop off point to the San Andres could actually have been in the midwest, aside from the buildings and people, because it was pretty much just one long stretch of corn fields the entire way.
We got to the village and were standing near the big church in the center ouf town, and our guide pointed up the side of the mountain, and basically said ¨okay, you guys go up there and I´ll meet you¨and then walked off into a nearby store. Given that this was one of the very few significant streets in town there was no way we would get lost, but this street was pretty much completely straight up the mountain, which meant that it was a rather... intense walk up. Our guide used to live in the moutains around Xela during the war as part of the anti-government gurrila forces and used to carry 150 pound packs of food up and down multiple moutains for hours on end as a matter of course, so he had no problem catching up to us by the time we reached the little church at the top. While the church at the top was nothing special (though pretty) we got very nice views of the town, and our guide told us about the textile work that people do in San Andres, and we got to learn a bit about the town. There were also a group of people having some kind of religous service in the lot next to the church, which was mostly dug into huge piles of mud. They were facing a cross in the middle of the lot, with something smoldering and creating a lot of smoke around them, and they were praying. I´m not at all sure what that was about, and one person tried to ask our guide in Spanish, but I don´t think she communicated the question very clearly because he kind of looked at her like she was crazy or something and said ¨the church only functions on Saturdays¨ (though in Spanish).
After we looked around and took pictures, we walked back down the mountain, and went into the bigger church. Although there was some kind of small prayer service going on, they were cleaning and most of the pews were standing up on end. We got to walk around inide, and I have to say that the most intersting aspect of this particular church was that at the front, up above the cross hanging ove the alter it said ¨Pescada de hombres¨ (fisherman of men) in neon lights. It was really the neon that really threw me.
After we finished there looking in the church, we wandered acoss to the market that was closing for the day. CJ was captivated by the stray dogs wandering around, and interstingly, there was a parrot in there.
After looking around for a bit, we got back in the pickup and went back to the bus and back to Xela. Tonight we have some packing to do, as well as homework, etc, and then tomorrow morning we´re taking our things with us to school and we will leave after classes are over.
All the pictures today are of San Andres: some show the churches, one shows a chicken bus, and others show some of the animals we saw in town.
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