A Day in Chichicastenango, Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Today I took a tour to Chichicastenango. It was a bit of a drive from Guatemala City and originally wasn’t in my plan. But it only cost me $15 more to do the whole tour than it did just to get to Antigua which is where I needed to be by dinner time for our volunteer project introductions.

Mario picked me up at 5am. As we exited the city on the four-lane road with a median, traffic was already mounting. One of our two lanes was marked off by cones. It wasn’t long before I saw cars driving on our side of the street toward us. I gathered that this is the way Guatemala creates an HOV lane? I’m not sure.

Upon leaving the outskirts of town, we climbed hilly and winding terrain to Antigua where we picked up Alex and four Argentinians. Apparently Alex and I had unknowingly joined their “private” tour, and they were outraged. I can understand being upset, as that happened to me once in Jordan, but I didn’t throw a hissy fit and hold up the van for over 15 minutes and shout at the guide for saying, “Hi, my name is Mario” in English. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).