|
|
|
|
| =============================================
XELA PAGES GUATEMALAN NEWSLETTER http://www.xelapages.com/ Issue #9, August 31, 1999 Current Subscriber - 700 ============================================== Copyright 1999 By Tom Lingenfelter -- Xela Pages NOTE: This Newsletter is sent to subscribers, friends, and business associates. This is NOT UCE or SPAM everyone on this list has contacted me in the past or subscribed to this newsletter. Xela Pages will NEVER provide its subscriber list to ANYONE. We respect
the privacy of our readers. If you would like to be removed from this newsletter
list, send an email to:
**********************************************************
As a sponsor of xelapages.com we would like to cordially welcome you
BootsnAll.com provides: 50+ new travel articles per month
Have a look at our travel commentary and participate in the hottest
http://www.BootsnAll.com/xela1.html
I was in Guatemala six weeks this summer. I was there with one other Norwegian, because of an exchange program between a Norwegian youth-organization, and a youth-organization in Guatemala. We spent about 5 weeks in Xela and Totonicapan, and the last week we could do whatever we wanted to. We decided to visit Tacamulco, Antigua and Panajachel. We took a first class bus (Alamo) from Xela to Antigua, and that was a really nice experience! Much better than the yellow "chicken-buses." But when we'd exited the bus in Chimaltenango, and were about to find our way to Antigua I realized that I'd forgot my wallet at the bus. All my money and my VISA card were there, and the situation seemed pretty hopeless. We went to Antigua, and planed to go to the tourist-office to get some help. We hoped they could call Alamos office in Guatemala City, to ask if my wallet was still on the bus. We didn't speak that much Spanish, so a phone-conversation seemed too difficult to make for us. My friend had about 100Q, but he had his VISA card also, so could get some money. I didn't think I'd get my wallet back, so my friend offered to lend me some money. We checked in at a hotel before we went to the tourist information. Of course they had closed for a siesta right then and we had to wait for two hours before they opened again. My friend hadn't got more money, so we went to look for a cash machine. We found some, but some of them just took MasterCard, and some didn't work at all. We hadn't eaten since early in the morning, and started to get really hungry. After a while we found a restaurant where we could use the VISA card, so at least we got something to eat, but we still hadn't got any money. Finally the tourist information opened, and we went there to ask them to help us. The two men who worked there were really nice, and did what they could to help us. They called the office in Guatemala City, and there was good news! There were two other Norwegians on the bus, and they had found the wallet and sent it back to Antigua, to a hotel they had recommended there. The man at the tourist office called this hotel, and he walked us there. The wallet hadn't came yet, but I could pick it up there the very next day. After a while we tried one of the cash machines again, and it worked! Everything turned out fine, but when I tell people this story and say I was lucky, they say "this is not luck, this is a miracle, this kind of things just doesn't happen here in Guatemala." Might be... but at least I got my wallet back. Lots of thanks to the helpful people at the tourist office and at the hotel, and last, but not least: the two Norwegians on the bus! Synnove Veien (18), Norway
Lonely Planet Central America : On a Shoestring (3rd Ed)
Lonely Planet Guatemala, Belize & Yucatan LA Ruta Maya (3rd Ed)
Rough Guide to Guatemala by Rough Guides, Mark Whatmore
The Rough Guide to Guatemala and Belize (3rd Ed)
Fodor's Belize & Guatemala: The Complete Guide With Beaches, Maya
Ruins and Dive Sites (1st Ed)
To see all my recommendations goto:
+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+
=======================================
We decide to stop there on our way to Copán, Honduras. Coming out of the mountains, the terrain becomes more barren. Lush cloud-forest growth gives way to cactus. The hills in the distance are criss-crossed with white foot trails marking the paths from home to market. Many people walk along the roadside, some carrying large bundles of firewood on their backs supported with tumplines. We pass a drunk on a slowly plodding mount, swaying as the horse ambles toward home, oblivious to the traffic. Pickup trucks are crammed with 15 people in the back, some sitting, others standing. In the town of Chiquimula, women bathe or wash clothes in the stream as young children swim. A few miles down the road we reach a military checkpoint. The soldiers are brusquely polite as they examine our passports and rental car papers. There are not many gringos who make the trek to Esquipulas and we must stick out. Lying on the Guatemala/El Salvador border, Esquipulas is rarely visited by gringo tourists, but we want to see the famed Basilica Del Cristo Negro – the cathedral of the Black Christ, so- called because of a figure of Jesus on the cross carved out of black wood. The famous crucifix was commissioned by the first Archbishop of Guatemala 250 years ago and is venerated as having curative powers. This border town, a Mecca for devout Catholics throughout Central America, offers the hope of a miracle to the sick, the injured and the destitute, of which there is no shortage in Guatemala. We have come out of the curiosity that sophisticated first-world vacationers have for the quaint customs of the third-world poor. At the mirador, a lookout point along the highway, we pull over for a panoramic view from the hillside looking down on the town dominated by the enormous stone cathedral. Famed 19th century explorer John Lloyd Stephens said of his first glimpse of the basilica in the 1830s, "Descending, the clouds were lifted, and I looked down upon an almost boundless plain, running from the foot of the Sierra, and afar off saw, standing alone in the wilderness, the great church of Esquipulas, like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the Caaba in Mecca, the holiest of temples." (Stephens, 1841). The cathedral dominates the town and draws the faithful like a magnet. Outside, before the vast brick plaza that fronts the cathedral, vendors sell candles and hats, baskets and ice cream. Winding like a languid snake alongside the church, a long line of the faithful wait to enter. We join them. We are the only gringos in line and feel conspicuous. The air of devotion is palpable, almost contagious. We wonder what afflictions each of these people is praying for, what favor from God they expect from this pilgrimage. It is almost an hour before we reach the door to the church, and another 15 minutes to wind our way through a side vestibule to the altar where the cross hangs. Everyone shuffles slowly by, not wishing to delay those behind but wanting to spend at least a few moments with this icon that may bring them salvation or peace. The cross is life-sized, clad in silver and flanked by statues of two saints. All around it are cards, photos and plaques attesting to cures attributed to the cross. We approach up a wooden ramp and pass behind the cross. From the altar you can look out at the vast, dark church and see people kneeling or sitting, silently praying and burning candles. As they file by, the people kiss the cross or its silver cladding before being forced along. After their turn, they back away from it down a ramp, not wanting to turn their back to the cross. Our turn comes. We approach the cross, sensing that we are being watched by the faithful wondering if the gringos will do something sacrilegious or rash. Not wishing to embarrass anyone or ourselves, each of us in turn kneels and kisses the silver-wrapped crucifixes, as those before have done. And in that instant, the spirit that pervades the church and infuses the faithful pilgrims reaches a couple of gringo tourists who had nothing more in mind than observing quaint customs. We are changed from observers to participants in this shuffling dance of devotion. I recall Claude Levi-Strauss writing of the phenomenon through which a non-believer experiences the faith of others and partakes of rituals without self-consciousness. He found a visit to a simple Buddhist shrine to be: "… closer than I had ever been before to my idea of what a shrine should be like. 'You need not do what I am doing,' my [Buddhist] companion said to me as he prostrated himself on the ground four times before the altar, and I follow his advice. However, I did so less through self-consciousness than discretion: he knew that I did not share his beliefs, and I would have been afraid of debasing the ritual gestures by letting him think I considered them as mere conventions: but, for once, I would have felt no embarrassment in performing them. Between this form of religion and myself, there was no likelihood of misunderstanding. It was not a question of bowing down in front of idols or of adoring a supposed supernatural order, but only of paying homage to the decisive wisdom that a thinker, or the society which created his legend, had evolved twenty-five centuries before and to which my civilization could contribute only by confirming it. " We exit the altar, as the others before us have done, walking backward down the ramp. As we shuffle along, I read brief passages in Spanish on the cards and photographs hung on the wall. " ...my mother's leg was healed...," "...thank you for curing my disease ...," "... his heart is better now ..." Photographs depict mothers with babies, husbands with wives, the faith of the blessed in Kodacolor. Leaving by the side door, we see the line has not grown shorter: hundreds of Christians still queue up on this late Saturday afternoon for their glimpse of hope, their chance to kiss the cross. We walk around and enter the church to see the crucifix from the front. People kneel or sit in the pews, fingering rosaries, lighting candles shaped like body parts or trimmed in tinsel. Coins tinkle as the faithful drop their offerings in the wooden boxes. In the plaza in front of the church, vendors sell the candles we saw burning inside. Tiny Bees wax candles in the shapes of arms, legs, heads, hearts are purchased to ease a particular affliction. Other candles are wrapped in sparkling tinsel with pictures of saints embedded within. Next to the church is a gift shop, the only place you can purchase a photo of the cross. It is forbidden to take pictures inside, which you sense even without being told. We stroll among the vendors. They offer straw hats decorated with colorful items like miniature baskets, and embroidered with the name Esquipulas. Everyone who comes here buys a hat, a custom to prove that you made the pilgrimage. The town loses electricity that evening for about five hours. No matter -- our motel is stocked with candles for everyone, and the restaurant is undaunted, as its cooking, like most, is done over wood fires. They are so well prepared and so composed; we have the impression that this happens often. The lights eventually come back just when we were making plans for tomorrow's drive to Honduras. My husband notices that his knee, injured the previous day in a stumble on the slippery steps of a jungle park, has felt much better since this afternoon. He pauses to wonder if perhaps El Cristo Negro had something to do with that. Susan Hoffman
Xela Pages Guatemalan Newsletter is published online from Quetzaltenango,
Guatemala.
Have a great trip!!
|
|
|
|
|