mish&grey: Xela

We stayed in Quezaltenango (also known as Xela) for 9 nights – the longest stop so far.

Xela is a small city in the highlands. It has a pretty central area, with a large cathedral and modern coffee shops and bars, however the surrounding city appeared reasonably poor. The city is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. Xela was a good opportunity for us to experience a less-touristy side of Guatemala.

Rubbish gets burnt in the street each night

Self timer photo from lookout over city

Windmill in the square on Sunday

We caught a minibus from Lake Atitlan to Xela. It was about a 1.5 hour drive through the highlands. Landslides were everywhere! Sections of the road stretching kilometers were covered in rocks and dirt from landslides and where this happened traffic would be diverted onto the uncovered side of the street. It was bizarre to see this building/planning fail on such a massive scale.

Half the road covered by landslides

We stayed in a posada called Hotel Casa Real del Viajero, which was decent for $14 a night. Things we enjoyed doing in Xela:

Eating and drinking

Xela is a popular place for people to visit to learn Spanish and do volunteer work. Quite a few fun bars/restaurants have sprung up around the town to cater to this crowd. We loved Tecun Salon, the oldest bar in town, for its big glasses of cheap wine, tasty tomato soup and bustling vibe. “&café” served amazing coffee by Guatemalan standards, and “La Luna” did a pretty good job as well. We ate at what Lonely Planet described as “the most authentic Indian in Guatemala” – very fun, and we counted ourselves lucky that we didn’t get sick – but we resolved that if that was the most authentic Indian Guatemala had to offer, we probably shouldn’t spend any more money on it. We also drank jugs of mojitos at Café El Cuartito and had a good Hawaiian pizza at an Italian place called Guiseppes.

Cafe La Luna - filled with cute trinkets

Windmill etc selling man

Buying aguacate at the mercado

We were also able to get a better grasp on Guatemalan cuisine. We became big fans of the “menu del dia”, a cheap set-menu lunch option ($4-$7) offered at most local places where mains come with a soup starter, tortillas, drink and sometimes dessert. Our favourite (until Grey ordered a fish with it’s guts still in it) was a little place called Utz-something (the sign was illegible). We also worked up the courage to try street food – some okay-attempts at tacos (though hygienic standards were questionable), tortillas filled with cheese and topped with chopped cabbage and salsa (we ordered ours sin lechuga) and PONCHE DE LECHE. Probably the only thing we tried of any real note, ponche de leche is a hot milk drink with flavours of cinnamon and vanilla (think hot liquid rice pudding). Amazing on freezing Xela nights.

Our coffee lady on the way to work

Grey eating a doughnut with pink icing and sprinkles

Bar above the main square

Grey (not) eating an ungutted fish

We ordered too much at the Indian restaurant

Making dinner at home - bread, radishes, aguacate and local cheese wrapped in banana leaf

Our local market

Free pencil with mayonnaise!

Maccas!

Football

We went to a football game at the local stadium – Xela (Xelaju) v Some Other Team – with a bunch of Aussies and Americans we’d met in Lake Atitlan and co. It was a really fun night. Tickets to the game were about $4.50 each. You were only allowed to buy beers outside the ground (two beers poured into one cup) and tasty street food (hot dogs, sausages etc) were for sale inside the stadium. The Xela crowd were all dressed up in the team colours (red and blue), had an impressive, impromptu, brass band (complete with drums) and fireworks to boot (let off sporadically before and during the game (in good times and bad)). At half time Xela were ahead 2-0, however by full time the visitors had caught up 2-2.

Then the highlight of the night – a massive brawl broke out on the field! We witnessed a couple of fly-kicks to the backs of players by other players, lots of punches, and fans ran out onto the field (after climbing over a tall fence topped with barbed wire) to join in the fun. It was a little concerning at the time, but funny in retrospect. Apparently it happens all the time…

Fireworks, flags and music at the soccer

Trekking up Santa Maria Volcano

We were picked up from our hotel at 5am to start our trek up this 3700 meter volcano. Xela sits at about 2500 meters high so we had a fair bit of upwards climbing to do. It was so hard. Maybe the hardest walk I have ever done in my life. We started in the pitch black with one torch between 3 of us (difficult, but the stars were amazing) and it took us about 3 hours to get to the top. The view at the top was incredible - the volcano looks west out over the lowlands towards the Pacific Ocean, and to the north and south are a string of other volcanoes along the same fault line. Directly below the volcano is a shorter, active volcano that smokes and rumbles every 30 minutes or so. We watched clouds forming as the air from the ocean hit the hills. We also had an hour nap.

View of the active volcano from atop Santa Maria

On top of the volcano

View looking south over other volcanoes towards Lake Atitlan

Wild puppy!

Grey and I had multiple falls on the way down. We got home about 2pm, had showers, drank cokes and made a stop by Pollo Campero, then fell asleep.

Working at the orphanage

When we arrived in Xela we visited Entremundos, an organization that assists volunteers to find opportunities suited to them. We came across the details of an orphanage close to where we were staying and thought we would spend some time there. The orphanage is a hybrid living-school-babysitting affair, and is home to about 80 kids aged from 4 months to 12 years. Grey played a lot of soccer with the older boys, and we both spent the majority of our time with the younger kids who are left inside their communal bedroom for most of the day (being too young to be involved in normal school classes, and the budget being too tight for permanent supervision/entertainment/any preschool equivalent). We got to know the kids well over the week – Maria (4 years), Alex (1.5 years), Alicia (2 years), Baby (name unknown, 4 months) and Carmen (age unknown) (all ages are estimates as no one in the place really seemed to know). We brought books and crayons along with us one day, and the kids were so excited about them that every day after that we brought more and more so as to leave them with a stash when we left. I’ve never seen kids be so excited for something so simple that most kids would take for granted. Very different, sad. Absolutely fell in love with Alicia. Such a smart little thing.