Vacation to Guatemala
Traveling on vacation to Chichicastenango Guatemala
Surrounded by valleys with mountains serrating the horizons, Chichicastenango can sound isolated over time and space on the rest of Guatemala. When its narrow cobbled streets and red-tiled roofs are enveloped in mist, it's downright magical. The crowds of crafts vendors and tour groups who flock set for the huge Thursday and Sunday markets lend it a lot worldlier, more commercial atmosphere, but Chichi retains its mystery. Masheños (citizens of Chichicastenango) are famous for his or
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her adherence to pre-Christian beliefs and ceremonies, as well as the town's various cofradías (religious brotherhoods) hold processions in observance in their saints across the church of Santo Tomás.
- Market
- Tickets & tours
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Chichicastenango Market Day Tour From Guatemala City or Antigua. At dawn on Thursday and Sunday vendors pay off their vegetables, chunks of chalk (ground with a powder and boiled with dried maize to soften it), handmade harnesses along with merchandise, and await customers. In the past vendors erected their stands of tree limbs and covered these with cotton sheeting each market day, however, these days an ocean of tin roofs remain an enduring fixture atop the plaza.
Tourist-oriented handicraft stalls selling masks, textiles, pottery and so forth now occupy a lot of the plaza as well as the streets to your north. Things villagers need – food, soap, clothing, sewing notions, toys – cluster on the north end from the square along with the covered Centro Comercial Santo Tomás from the north side, whose upper deck offers irresistible photo opportunities in the fruit and vegetable-selling business conducted below.
Tourist-oriented handicraft stalls selling masks, textiles, pottery and so forth now occupy a lot of the plaza as well as the streets to your north. Things villagers need – food, soap, clothing, sewing notions, toys – cluster on the north end from the square along with the covered Centro Comercial Santo Tomás from the north side, whose upper deck offers irresistible photo opportunities in the fruit and vegetable-selling business conducted below.
- Iglesia de Santo Tomás
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Church in Chichicastenango. This church within the plaza's east side dates from 1540 which is often the scene of rituals which are more distinctly Maya than Catholic. Inside, the floor with the church could be dotted with offerings of maize, flowers and bottles of liquor covered with corn husks; candles are arranged in specific patterns along low stone platforms. Enter over the side door instead of the front entrance and be aware that photography is quite strictly not permitted inside.
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The church's front steps serve a very similar purpose since the great flights of stairs before Maya pyramids (you will find 20 steps, for every single day on the Maya calendar). For high of the day (especially Sunday), they smolder with incense of copal resin, while indigenous prayer leaders called chuchkajaues (mother-fathers) swing censers (usually tin cans poked with holes) and chant magic words marking the days on the ancient Maya calendar along with honor of ancestors. The candles and offerings inside recall those ancestors, a lot of whom are buried beneath the ground just as Maya kings were buried beneath pyramids.
- Pascual Abaj
Chuchkajaues come regularly to supply incense, food, cigarettes, flowers, liquor and maybe even a sacrificial chicken, in thanks and a cure for the earth's continuing fertility. The area is full of past offerings. The worshippers won't mind should you watch the goings on, but you'll want to request permission before thinking about photos. You can be asked in case you want to make an offering yourself.
Even if you will discover no ceremonies occurring, it is possible to still start to see the idol and like the walk within the pine-clad hill. To get there in the plaza, walk down 5a Av, turn straight into 9a Calle and proceed downhill. At the bottom, bear left along a path and head up through either on the morerías (ceremonial mask workshops) which are signposted here; the one within the right houses a museum of local culture. Exiting with the rear, stick to the path uphill throughout the trees towards the top on the hill.
Another lengthy mural, emphasizing village life, fronts the Museo Arqueológico Regional, around the plaza's south side.
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Even if you will discover no ceremonies occurring, it is possible to still start to see the idol and like the walk within the pine-clad hill. To get there in the plaza, walk down 5a Av, turn straight into 9a Calle and proceed downhill. At the bottom, bear left along a path and head up through either on the morerías (ceremonial mask workshops) which are signposted here; the one within the right houses a museum of local culture. Exiting with the rear, stick to the path uphill throughout the trees towards the top on the hill.
- Mural
Another lengthy mural, emphasizing village life, fronts the Museo Arqueológico Regional, around the plaza's south side.
- Galería Pop-Wuj
- Capilla del Calvario
- Centro Comercial Santo Tomás
- Museo Arqueológico Regional
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