Food in Guatemala

Overall, we're fans of Guatemalan food.  Our meals have been simple but tasty.  Breakfast isn't usually included with our rooms, so we wander in the morning to find a small cafe.  Our breakfasts have been hearty, (allowing us to skip lunch many days) and are typically a few eggs scrambled or over easy, served with salsa picante, a scoop of refried black beans, and a basket of warm tortillas.  The eggs in the picture above are "huevos divorcados", or "divorced eggs", so named because of the two different sauces (orange and green).

Typical dinners are grilled chicken or beef served with seasoned rice, a garnish of tomatoes, and again- a basket of warm tortillas.  When you pass by open doors to private homes, you can often hear the slapping sound of women patting cornmeal into a ball and then flattening it on a hot griddle.  We took this picture of women making blue corn tortillas in the food stalls at the Chichicastenango market.

Some scruffy American ex-pats recommended a place in San Pedro for its variety of traditional Mayan cuisine.  We ordered chicken and squash in a green herbal sauce to share.  The dish arrived as a stew, the green liquid was still boiling when the bowl was set down.  I tasted lots of cilantro, though we weren't sure what else.  It wasn't our favorite, but it was definitely unique.

One of my favorite meals was a late lunch at a small place in Flores (after a long morning hiking at Tikal).  Mohit liked his banana-pineapple-papaya smoothie so much he drained it in a few long slurps.  My shrimp enchiladas were served with amazingly fresh guacamole (rivaled only by the guac Mohit was served with grilled chicken from a late-night street vendor in San Pedro).  Since it was a rainy afternoon, we lingered for awhile reading the cafe's books about Mayan history and ordered a dessert of crepes with banana, papaya, and chocolate.  The crepes were spongy and thick, different from the paper-thin crepes we're used to.

My only difficulty with the food is that vegetables are hard to come by.  The only veggies we can find (other than black beans and tomato garnishes) are usually on tourist menus and not at traditional Guatemalan places.  Still, the freshness of the produce, which is all grown locally and doesn't travel far to make it on your plate, makes everything yummy.  One night we had the most delicious appetizer of grilled eggplant served with a soft salty cheese similar to feta. Mmmmm.  I also ordered a "veggie burger" for dinner one night and was pleasantly surprised when a huge sandwich with layer upon layer of grilled spiced squash, potato, carrot, eggplant, and pepper was brought to the table.

Our next stop is Tokyo, it's hard to believe we'll be there 2 days from now!  We're both looking forward to sushi and noodles...

Tikal, Guatemala

The alarm was beeping at 4:15 a.m., which was rather painful after a sleepless night listening to the locals celebrating the annual fiesta of the black Jesus into the wee hours of the morning.  We'd learned about the legend of the black Jesus from a Guatemalan while we were in Antigua- apparently the Spanish conquistadors and missionaries were intent on converting the indigenous people to Christianity, and they installed a wooden statue of Jesus in the church built in the center of Flores, where we're now staying.  In the humid Central American air, the statue turned black, which the Spaniards hadn't anticipated, and which the locals took to be a sign- since Jesus was dark-skinned like them, maybe they should convert to Christianity after all.  Apparently it stuck, since evidence of devout Catholicism is apparent in everyday life around here.

We had a bumpy, sleepy ride through the dark in a stuffy, crowded bus headed north out of town toward the vast sprawling ruins of Tikal, one of the largest of the Mayan ruins in Central America.  Stumbling out of the bus in the growing dawn light (around 6 a.m.), we had our first real look at the landscape of northern Guatemala, since we'd arrived after dark last night.  The central highlands, where we've been for the past week, are dominated by steep mountains and deep valleys covered with alternating patches of scrub forest and farmland.

In contrast, the rain forest here in the Peten region is dense, thick, tropical (coconut trees, plants with huge waxy leaves, palm fronds, etc.) and teeming with the noises of abundant animal life.  Although the sun was slowly burning through the morning fog, each breeze brought a sprinkling of water drops down from the tree tops.  We heard the intimidating yell of howler monkeys off in the distance, a variety of loud bird calls, and in the quieter moments, the constant hum of insects and frogs.

We followed our guide Jose down poorly-marked and slippery trails into the rain forest.  We'd been debating whether to pay for a guide, but were glad we did since it is easy to get lost in the vastness of the park.  He pointed out a crocodile poking his nose above the greenish water below the trail, then a pair of foraging rodents similar to a guinea pig but about the size of a raccoon.

A few leaves and a hard green nut dropped on the path next to us and Jose pointed out two spider monkeys with skinny limbs and long tails swinging through the canopy overhead.  We made sure to step out from directly beneath them after being informed that the monkeys like to defecate from above to warn off invaders below.  Further on, we saw a trio of Keel-Billed toucans with heavy green beaks as big as their yellow and black bodies.  In a clearing, there were a few ocellated turkeys, which look like a cross between the scruffy wild turkeys we see back home and more colorful peacocks.

Jose's tour through the expansive ruins, which cover several square miles, was designed to slowly reveal the Mayan city.  After a few kilometers of walking, one of our first stops was Temple IV, the tallest of Tikal's pyramids.  The structure itself was only partly visible through the dense vegetation at the base.  We climbed the rickety wooden stairs at least ten stories high and emerged above the jungle canopy.  Looking out through the mist we could see the tops (called "combs") of other pyramids rising above the trees.

In a clearing in front of another set of ruins, Jose plucked a velvety black tarantula out of his hole in the ground.  Jose says he's been bitten many times, and although the bites are painful, they're not harmful.  Still, neither of us were convinced to let the spider crawl on us (me especially, the dedicated arachnophobe that I am!).

Our further wanderings through the damp forest brought us to a half dozen areas that have been partially cleared to expose the 1000+ years-old ruins.  The pyramids, ceremonial platforms, and palace complexes were constructed beginning around 900 B.C., mostly out of blocks of the local limestone.  Archaeological evidence suggests the city was home to hundreds of thousands of Mayans at its peak, and then suddenly was abandoned around 900 A.D., for reasons that are still unknown.  We could imagine what it might have been like to be the first Spanish explorers discovering the overgrown ruins, since more than 85% of the city remains buried under centuries of humic earth, crawling vines, and tall trees clinging to the side of what appear to be steep mounds in the middle of the rain forest, their roots digging into the limestone structures underneath.  Where the ruins were uncovered only 20 or 30 years ago, they are already covered again in moss, and the forest lurks close, threatening to take over quickly if the humans rest too long.  Throughout the park, we saw rangers working hard in the humidity to trim back plants and re-clear paths.  We ducked into the door of one structure and shined our flashlights upward just in time to see several bats drop from the ceiling and fly at us!

Our exploration culminated at Tikal's Gran Plaza, flanked by two impressive pyramids positioned perfectly at cardinal east and west, each looming hundreds of feet tall.  Climbing to the top of one left us out of breath and sweaty.  It would take a year or more to construct each of these using cranes and modern construction equipment, so it's pretty amazing to imagine how the ancient civilization built these by hand so long ago.

I just finished reading "The Lost City of Z" by David Grann, about Percy Harrison Fawcett's obsessive search in the Xingu area of the Amazon jungle for a supposed lost city, a decades-long quest that ended when he never returned from the jungle on his last expedition in 1925 (which, I discovered after I read it, is being made into a movie starring Brad Pitt).  Since then, an estimated 100+ men and women have either died or similarly vanished in the jungle while trying to trace Fawcett's last steps and solve the mystery of his disappearance.  I know that the Peten rain forest is nowhere near as dense as the Amazonian jungle; still, after our experience at Tikal, it's easy to imagine how difficult Fawcett's journey must have been, and how easy it would be to walk right past the ruins without even knowing it...

Coffee Plantations, Guatemala

It’s funny that San Pedro is so sleepy during the day, because it’s downright raucous at night!  We’ve adapted to “vacation time” and have been calling it a night relatively early after active days in the sun.  But it’s clear that somewhere in town, there’s a lot more action.  We can hear a mixture of local Spanish music and U.S./ British music (Black Eyed Peas, Killers, Lady Gaga) booming in the background at the backpacker bars.  Even more noisy is the chorus of barking dogs and yowling cats!  The dogs and cats continue all night, finally ceasing around dawn, at which point roosters take over.  I’m so glad I packed foam ear plugs!  Mohit is fine, since he can sleep through anything.

Today we headed up into the hills above the lake on horseback with our excellent guide, Francisco.  He seemed a bit shy about his English, which he says he started teaching himself a few years ago.  We reassured him that his English is much better than our Spanish!

Our horses were named Muchacha (a female) and Mujiego (a male, though “castrado”, as Francisco pointed out, to keep him calm).  The saddles were carved from wood and covered with rough woven cloth, which left us a bit sore after four and a half hours of riding, but it was well worth it.

First we set off into the hills above the nearby town of San Juan del Lago to see coffee plantations.  Francisco explained that about 70% of the town’s income is derived from the coffee trade.  The farmers pay a tax to use public land to grow coffee plants.  As we headed beyond the outskirts of town, the pavement ended and the path grew steeper.  Dark green coffee plants grew on both sides of the lane in the shade of tall avocado trees.  Most of the plants were heavy with red (Arabica) coffee berries, but a few had yellow (Robusto) berries.  This is the time of year that the coffee is harvested, and men and women were scattered among the bushes picking the berries by hand and filling tall burlap bags.  The full bags sat along the roadside waiting to be picked up by truck or lugged downhill on the backs of men.

Francisco explained that these plantations stopped using chemicals two years ago, and now the coffee is farmed organically.  The beans are laid out in the sun to dry on long sheets of black plastic, and then transported to Guatemala City, where they’re purchased by a large processing company that shells and roasts them for international distribution.  The shells are brought back to the fields, and we saw piles being spread under the coffee plants as fertilizer.

Sunlight filtered through the trees and we could see the hill known as “Indian’s Nose” in the background, and the sparkling lake below us.  It was incredibly beautiful.

The second half of our horseback outing was along the ridge above the lake on the other side of San Pedro, where the vegetation was quite different.  Dry brown grasses were as tall as the horses’ bellies, and the field beyond were planted with corn and cabbage.  As we continued, we entered beneath a canopy of trees and vines, and were thankful for the shade since the thermometer attached to Mohit’s bag read 85 degrees F.  I kept my eyes peeled for butterflies (I’ve been fascinated by butterflies since I was a kid!) and saw small black ones with blue-green stripes, and large butterflies with black and orange oblong wings tipped in yellow.  I also saw tons of bright yellow butterflies similar to the Sulphur Butterflies that are common back home in New England.

We returned to town around 2:30 p.m. and were starving.  We’ve been skipping lunch most days since our breakfasts have been pretty hearty, but we devoured big lunches today!  Tonight, we’ll probably select a light dinner from the stands along the roadside.

San Pedro and Santiago at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

The descent into Panajachel from the ridge above gave us a great view of Lake Atitlan, a huge expanse of blue-green water ringed by volcanoes and hills on all sides.  We drove into town down the main road (Calle Santander) and our microbus let us off a few blocks above the lake.  After a minor detour that had us scrambling along the sandy cliffs above the shore to get from the Santiago docks to the San Pedro docks, we handed over the equivalent of $3.50 for the two of us, threw our bags into the front of the small boat, and started off toward the opposite shore, getting splashed every few minutes as we bumped our way across the windy lake.

San Pedro, our home for the next three nights, is a super laid-back hippie beach town without a beach, since the town sits on a steep hill above the water.  San Pedro is clearly influenced by the range of international tourists here to chill for a few days, weeks, or years, but it’s not crowded at all.  In fact, it’s a bit sleepy.  But we’re enjoying the place.  We’re staying at one of the pricier (and cleaner) hotels in town for a whopping $15/night.  I enjoyed three glasses of wine on our first night here for a total of $5.50, and Mohit’s been ordering liters of Gallo beer for $3 each.  I bought a brightly colored handwoven scarf for 15 quetzales, which is about $2.  We could definitely afford to chill here for quite awhile, and it seems that’s exactly what many ex-pats have done, since the bars and restaurants are staffed by a variety of Americans and Europeans who now call San Pedro home.

Our second day in San Pedro was a beautiful sunny day, the warmest yet.  We enjoyed a late breakfast on a concrete terrace overlooking the lake, and then hopped onto a boat taxi headed to another shore town, Santiago, around noon.  Santiago is less touristy, and once we made our way uphill from the docks and past a few blocks of tourist shops, we found ourselves in a town filled with locals going about their everyday business.  We wandered into a huge empty plaza in front of the church in the center of town.  Kids had just been let out of school for the day, and they clearly enjoy teasing the tourists as an afternoon pasttime.  Six kids circled us, a chorus of requests for a few quetzales with outstretched hands.  Mohit obliged and emptied the small change out of his pocket and we were rewarded with big grins and a photo.

The oldest of the group, an entrepreneurial boy about 10 years old, convinced us to let him be our tour guide to see Maximon, a local Mayan god, the saint of gamblers and drunkards, according to our guide book.  We followed the boy through town, took some photos along a pretty outlook at the edge of town, where local women were washing laundry in the lake below us, and continued along a dusty road leaded out of town to the neighboring village.  We passed small concrete houses with coffee beans growing in the yards, and after walking in the sun for a few kilometers, we came to a private house where the Maximon idol is being kept this year.  Our guide explained that Maximon moves among a handful of the most influential familes’ houses from year to year.  Maximon was in a dark cinderblock room surrounded by lit candles stuck to the floor of the room with melted wax.

The squat wooden statue was of a mustachioed man wearing a leather cowboy hat and layers and layers of silk scarves and men’s ties.  Three men were reciting something in the local Mayan language that our guide, who spoke Spanish and English, said he could not understand. Then men were sipping tequila and periodically offering some to the wooden statue.  We paid 10 quetzales to take a picture, and the money was tucked into the layers of silk worn by Maximon.

We took a water taxi back to San Pedro and spent the afternoon reading and enjoying snacks at a cafe garden in the shade of a palm tree.

Vulcan Pacaya and Chichicastenango, Guatemala

I've been looking forward to getting up close and personal with flowing lava as one of the highlights of our four-month adventure, and Vulcan Pacaya did not disappoint!  After a cramped hour-and-a-half van ride from Antigua, we arrived at the base of the volcano.  Hopping out of the van, we were swarmed by little boys with armloads of walking sticks, "Stick for you?  Stick for you?".

I'd read that the hike up Pacaya is challenging, but we were both still surprised when our guide led us up steep inclines for the first half hour at a sprinting pace, and we were immediately winded and already wondering...how much longer?  The guides are clearly in cahoots with the guys following hikers with horses, trying to get us to pay to take a rest and ride a horse up.  We were determined to get our workout without the horses.  The landscape changed from green fields under a grey sky, to green shrubs in the middle of clouds, and then suddenly to a vast horizon of loose, coarse dark grey pebbles.  Off in the distance, we could see another volcano that was erupting steam into the sky.

Trekking through a cold drizzle, the pebbles underfoot gradually changed to sharp pointy rocks, and then we started passing what looked like cooled lava flows- the rock had liquid shapes but was sharp to the touch and sounded hollow when we stomped on it.   Suddenly, the air around us grew warm.  We were several hundred  yards from the top and yet the rocks around us were definitely giving off heat, which was much appreciated since it was really windy and cold!  Coming over the last rise, the sight of bright orange glowing lava was breathtaking, a surprising sight even though it was what we'd been working toward for the past hour and a half.  So cool!  We were able to get within feet of the lava flow, careful not to let the wind blow us into it, and worried about the soles of our sneakers melting to the hot rocks.  There's no way you'd ever be able to get this close to a live eruption in the U.S.- thank you Central America and your lack of safety rules!

By the time we started down, it was past 6pm and rapidly getting darker.  It was pitch black before we made it to the bottom of the ash flow and back onto green earth, with still an hour of hiking ahead of us.  We'd brought a headlamp and a flashlight but most hikers were headed down through the darkness.  At this point we were thankful for the literally hundreds of other hikers coming down the mountain with us, since it didn't seem like the smartest idea to be trekking through parts unknown in the dark and vulnerable.

We spent the next day at the Sunday market in Chichicastenango, a small mountain village northwest of Antigua.  Mohit loved that he was at least a full head taller than all the locals, and he was also in heaven selecting from the street food options for lunch.  We bought a few small things that we'll ship home when we pass through Dallas on our way to Hong Kong next week.  We made friends with two Swiss girls, a French couple, and an Argentine couple riding our bus on the way back, and got some great recommendations for our next stops.  Tonight we're chilling at a rooftop cafe, enjoying grilled vegetable sandwiches and a yummy brownie with cinnamon-sprinkled ice cream and plotting the rest of the week.  We just watched a volcano erupt off in the distance, a spurt of red up into the air and then a gradually dimming stream of orange down the side of the volcano.  This wasn't even Pacaya, someone just told us there are something like 30+ active volcanoes in Guatemala.  Pretty cool scenery to top off a fun few days!

Antigua, Guatemala

After an early wakeup in Mississauga and a mad dash through the Miami airport to make our tight connection, we arrived in Guatemala City early afternoon on New Year’s Eve!  Unfortunately, our bags did not (even 30 hours later, as I type this post), but we’re taking it in stride since we figure we’re likely to be tested far more than this over the next 4 months. 

We arrived in Antigua after a 45-min drive out of the city and up and down mountains.  Mohit is thrilled that there’s a Pollo Campero about every two blocks (literally!), since he’s enjoyed their fried chicken at the one in East Boston.  At a stop light, the car trunk in front of us was stuffed with several silly pinatas, a hint at the New Year’s Eve party to come….

After checking into our hotel we immediately headed out to explore the town in the fading afternoon sun.  Antigua is quaint and beautiful, all cobblestone streets,  faded pastel stucco houses with clay tile roofs, and a Volcano looming green and grey in the background.  We ventured warily at first, cautiously sticking to well-populated streets, thinking about all the warnings we’d read about risk of theft in Guatemala.  But it didn’t take long for us to feel comfortable wandering more freely, since we’re finding the Guatemalan people to be warm, friendly, and leaving us entirely alone.  We’re so used to being stared at and subjected to aggressive sales techniques in places like Istanbul and Hanoi that we are surprised to be able to browse in shops and not be hassled.  We also feel relatively safe since families have been out together the past two nights to celebrate the New Year, and small children are underfoot everywhere. 

After an early dinner of chiles rellenos and chicken in a cinnamon sauce (yum!), we joined the thousands of locals in the streets to ring in 2010 al fresco.  We enjoyed live guitar music, a guy juggling flaming sticks, a strange dance performance by people dressed up as political characters, including a statue of liberty with an Obama mask, and picked out some churros con chocolat from a sidewalk stall in front of a beautiful church.

At about 8 p.m., the fireworks gradually began.  Lit mostly by kids, the fireworks exploded in the middle of crowded streets, sending the tourists like us running for cover, and the locals running closer to see.  Boys ran through the streets with frames shaped like a bull or a bird strapped to their back and loaded with exploding sparklers.  Everyone wore either glowing devil horns or what looked like Mickey Mouse ears.   Public drinking in the streets is not allowed, and police with machine guns lurked at the edges of the crowd to ensure compliance.  For the last hour of 2009, the fireworks grew even bigger, louder, and more frequent, until car alarms were ringing everywhere from the vibrations and the whole city smelled like gunpowder.  If you closed your eyes you could imagine what it's like to be in the middle of a full-on firefight in the middle of a warzone.  Welcome 2010!!

We woke up late to streets littered with confetti and fireworks remains.  We spent today exploring the city, grateful for the moderate weather (sunny and breezy, about 70 F), since we’re stuck wearing the same jeans, sneakers, and long sleeves that kept us warm when we  left Toronto yesterday.   Everyone assumes Mohit is Central American, and after we had to tell a cute little old lady at a church that sorry, “no habla espanol” she looked really surprised and asked Mohit in perfect English “what are you, Italian?”  When he told her he is Indian, she said with a huge grin “Ah!  Beautiful country!  I want to go to India someday and ride an elephant!”  Me too.  But for now I’m enjoying Guatemala…