Travel was really smooth. Made connection in San Salvador, no problem, bag didn´t get lost, even though the international airport in Guatemala City blew a transformer yesterday leaving the entire airport with no electricity. I´m still not entirely sure how planes are landing. Anyway, couldn´t believe how quickly I got on a bus in Guatemala City headed for Quetaltenango (a.k.a. Xela, pron. shay-la, shortened from the Quiché Mayan Xelaju). As soon as we left the sunny valley, torrential rain and a cold breeze followed us through the trip, but we still made it up here in 4 hours.
Studying my map, I figured I´d have no problem finding my way from the Pullman bus station (I was too tired to deal with the sensory overload of a camioneta). Since Xela is based on a grid, I was sure that even on my most directionally-impaired day, I´d be able to navigate this new small city without getting lost. Yeah, right. I´m not sure when I became so deluded in thinking that I ever really know where I´m going. I may have gotten a bit cocky when I figured out that ¨north¨ doesn´t mean ¨whatever direction that is in front of you¨. In Xela, avenidas run north-south and calles run east-west. Trouble is I had no idea what avenida or calle I was on. Sometimes I would think I was on a calle but was really on an avenida…and forget about zona 1 and zona 3. Quisiera saber donde está zona 2???
Restaurante en 12a Avenida y 3a Calle
Anyway, I walked around for two hours in the wrong zona, on the wrong avenida looking for the wrong calle. In the rain. Finally a taxi driver approached the hopelessly lost version of me and directed me to the area I wanted to be in, which I definitely WAS NOT in. I understood his Spanish directions perfectly and finally ended up near the Parque Centroamérica, where I found a clean hotel for $6/night–Hotel Moriani, on 12a avenida y 2a calle (or is it 2a avenida y 12 calle?)
After dropping my bags, I set out to figure out this crazy grid system and got lost again. I´m blaming it on being really, really tired and really, really hungry, because even I couldn´t be this confused. When I finally found my street again, I decided to stick to a three block straight line from it, making sure I could at least see the corner of the block where my hotel is. Found a cute little restaurant that served traditional Xela dishes, had some pepián de pollo con tamalitos y sopa, yuuummmmm, then came to this cafe to post. Yes, I can still see my hotel from here.
be careful! I have a feeling I shall become very familiar with my spanish translate thingy on my comp whilst following your travels. Have an amazing time and post some pics…and be safe! xxxx Love you
I´ll be super careful, I promise. This city is beautiful, and very few people speak English, so I´m already using Spanish. AND, I got a volunteer job today which I´m about to post about. Hope all is well, chica. Love you too xoxo, say hola to tubs!
¿Entonces sólo son denominadas todas las calles y avenidas como números y no nombres? Suena como una aventura verdadera!
¿Hablas español???? ¿Significa que podríamos haber estado hablando de su mono pequeño en español este tiempo entero? Sí, solo números, es loco. Hice mucho más mejor hoy.
Ooh … I think it’s gonna be fun reading this diary of your trip!
This is so much fun…I hope I keep it up!