Xela

Picture: Xela´s central plaza. Xela is short for ¨Quetzaltenango,¨ which is the city´s full name, but is actually a shortened version of the original Mayan word for the area.





When we first arrived here in Xela (Shee-la), Guatemala, it looked like there was very little to do in the city itself, a first impression that was confirmed by Hannah´s ¨Central America on a Shoestring¨ Lonely Planet book. The town itself is very pretty, though, with narrow cobble streets and low tin-roof buildings with a pretty central plaza, all completely surrounded by a beautiful panorama of green hills and volcanoes. The city is a popular launching point for many excursions to hot volcanic springs and volcano-hiking. We´re going to the hot springs tomorrow, as well as a market that has some of the most freakishly massive vegetables in Central America. The minerals in the water from the surrounding volcanoes account for the massive produce, bringing forth a bounty of nutrient-rich, radioactive freak plants that turn you into a superhero with just a few small bites--carrots as big as the length of my forearm, for example.










Picture 2: A market stand in Xela, though not the one with the volcanic freak-veggies. Couldn´t find a picture of them on the ´net, but I´ll return with my own photos of them.




Yesterday we stayed in a hostel that offered a massive free breakfast, and tonight/tomorrow night we´re staying in Oscar´s house, someone else we met through Couchsurfing.com. Last night we went out to a vegetarian feast with him, his friend Eddy, and some of Eddy´s students from the Spanish school that he teaches at here. Apparently this town is very popular for Spanish students; there are schools everywhere. We were all talking about where we´re from, and Oscar was astonished and appalled when I told him that New York City is not the capital of New York, but Albany, a place he´s unsurprisingly never heard of.

Tonight, like we did for Ronny, we´re cooking Oscar and Eddy dinner as a token of our gratitude for Oscar´s offering a free bed and bathroom (with hot water this time, unlike at Ronny´s place).

Couchsurfing has given me plenty of good Spanish practice, not to mention free lodging and local perspectives on these cities. Next Hannah and I are heading to San Pedro, a town by lake Atitlan where things should be cheaper--we were very dismayed to find that Guatemala seems to be more expensive than Mexico, not less. Other than that it´s great here...so far so good, Guatemala.