August 13, 2013 · by · in , , , , , ,

Xela: The Gem Of Guatemala Xela, oh Xela, what a beautiful wee city you are. Travelers are warned to stay away from Guatemala’s largest city, Guatemala City, and with good reason. It’s huge, dangerous and distinctly ugly. But Xela, everybody should go to Xela. Aesthetically it is a beautiful city, with cobbled streets, antique stone buildings, all surrounded by a stunning landscape of volcanoes and rolling highlands. And there is a great energy, with a good mix of a vibrant local life and a trickle of open-minded travelers. The Spanish name is Quetzaltenango, named after the “Quetzal” feathers worn on the cloaks of the local Mayan tribes, whom the Spanish Conquistadors slaughtered in the tens of thousands upon arrival. The locals, funnily enough, prefer the Mayan name “Xelaju”, or “Xela” for short. Even a brief reading of Spanish colonialism might help you understand that choice. Situated in the western highlands of Guatemala at an altitude of 2400m (you really notice it walking upsome stairs, or maybe that’s the smoking), and nestled amongst a garden of volcanoes and mountains covered in think jungle green, Xela is what you would call a “colonial” city, in that the Spaniards and then the Germans played a large role in shaping its position in Guatemala’s modern history. The colonialists set about making Xela an “economic and cultural hub”, and much of the beautiful architecture is a tribute to that. A massive earthquake in 1904 destroyed much of this, and enabled the capital to overtake Xela, but today she still plays an important role in Guatemalan society. Many of the remaining buildings will have you wondering whether you are roaming the streets of Berlin or Lisbon, not the second largest city in “third world” Guatemala. The old church fell down in an earthquake, so they left the facade and built a new one behind it For Lewis and myself, who really don’t give a shit about architecture (man you see a lot of churches traveling), our prime reason for being inXela was to learn Spanish, aaand a little (large) dab of partying. I feel like a bit of a tool, as I spent two weeks trying to learn Spanish, yet I am writing this in my native tongue, and for that I am truly sorry. But in many ways that represents the pursuit of anyone trying to “learn” Spanish here, or anywhere while traveling for that matter. You sign up for five hours of one-on-one lessons per day, as well as a homestay “experience”, and during that time it all seems to be going well. Yet whenever you leave those confines, you find yourself with other travelers learning Spanish. As it is very difficult to “get to know” someone in a language that won’t get you beyond their name, where they are from, and what they like to do in their free time, you will always revert back to English. On top of that it is quite exhausting learning another language, and when the opportunity arises to slip back into English, the guilty satisfaction is like a deep-fried Moro bar after a four-hour surfsession. Lew, me and our maestras bonitas ¡Quiero aprender el español! All that said Xela is a great place for travelers to learn Spanish, for Xela is the best of both worlds. Xela is the cultural, political and artistic hub of Guatemala, and many of Guatemala’s great artists, writers and political thinkers have emerged from her womb. Consequently it has a rad buzz about it. Great hiking, great coffee, great bars, live music – if there was surf I would never leave, but alas. Unlike other places in Guatemala that are more purely tourist spots, such as Antigua or San Pedro, Xela is more of a “real” and “functioning” city. Catering for foreigners, in a tourism sense, still takes a backseat to people’s everyday lives. Locals will still eye you with an element of suspicion as to what you are doing in their city, and will always be intrigued when you explain to them where you are from and what you are doing there. When you go out at night you will probably be with other people from yourclasses, but you will still be in the minority and have the opportunity to socialise with the locals, and my god will you want to. The drinking alley – $2 litre beers can’t be wrong, ever But then it is also very different from simply planting yourself in a tiny village somewhere where nobody speaks English. That is the best way to purely learn the language, for sure, but if you are worried about missing out on the other aspects of life away from home then it might get a bit boring. In Xela you are not totally isolated from the “backpacking” scene, which we all love so very much, and thus have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and make good friends. All in all I think it is a perfect combination. My homestay family consisted of mi Mama, Aurora, and her three kids – Jennifer, William and Alex. Aurora was amazingly lovely, cooked great food and always made sure I had enough in my tummy. Though with refried beans accompanying every meal I often settled for a littlebit off full. Being somewhat vegetarian freaked the hell out of everybody I met in Guatemala. During the first dinner I had with my host family the entire conversation revolved around why I don’t eat meat. My limited Spanish made it difficult to put forth the environmental benefits of a low meat diet, but they couldn’t get past the fact I was still alive and wasn’t eating meat. William told me about a friend of his who stopped eating meat and then was informed by his Doctor that he had to eat it or he would get very sick. Slightly baffling but I can kind of understand it. Meat is expensive here, and they don’t eat meat with every meal, but when they get the chance they definitely don’t hesitate. Mi familia de Xela The kids were all around my age, about midway through university, and were great for me to try out my Spanish with. One of them was studying law and politics and wanted to be a politician one day. Needless to say we had some great conversations and I learnt a hell of a lotabout Guatemalan political history. La Politica It is fascinating, but the same old sad story. Ravaged through colonialism, gains “independence” only to have sadistic  take control and mess with every step of development. Then a brutal  lasting over thirty years (funded and weapons provided by guess who??) left hundreds of thousands dead and missing. It is really sad traveling around Guatemala and seeing all of the poverty, but also learning how messed up the last century has been. They have never had a chance to develop by their own means, and whenever they elected a  who tried to change things,  dropped in and took them out. And now they are part of the “Third World” and everybody is wondering why?? What is really positive is that the youth coming through are quite upbeat about the future and really believe they can turn things around. One of many rad pieces of street art around the city, and a fucking dirty hipster But there are still many obstacles and today Guatemalans are farfrom overcoming their tempestuous history. First of all, Guatemala is incredibly diverse. There are relatively few wealthy people, then a lot of poor and even some extremely poor. On top of that is the vast range of Maya groups scattered throughout the countryside, who face many development challenges of their own. But one thing they can all agree on is a distrust of their government. Ask any Guatemalan what they think of their current government, and unless they are right-wing rich kids with corrupt Fathers then they will have some very fiery and passionate words for you. The current President, Otto Perez Molina, was an army general during President Rios Montt’s reign from 1982-83, regarded as the darkest years of the Civil War (Montt was recently convicted of , only to have it suspiciously ). While people are physically prevented from investigating much of the atrocities committed during the war (many human rights workers are  every year) you don’t have to be a genius to figure outthat their current President must have committed war crimes as well. Too much to put into words here, but it is fascinating, and I’ll come back to it, don’t you worry. Volunteering Is In! Apart from trying to learn Spanish, backpackers flock to Xela to volunteer. Volunteering, or simply general do-goodedness, is normally performed by a select few in society. But in Xela, if you are not spending your free time entertaining deprived Mayan preschoolers, teaching English to orphans or or feeding street kids, then you are simply not in Xela for anything worthwhile. Every second conversation will be regarding some sort of volunteer work. Volunteering here is like trying magic milkshakes in Bali, it might not normally be on your daily to-do list, but the ancient laws of peer pressure and “when in Rome” dictate that you will volunteer, whether you want to or not. It reminded me of the How I Met Your Mother episode where Barney, Robin and Ted are volunteering at the Homeless Shelter oneThanksgiving Day, all-trying to outdo one another in their “goodwill”. I’m not at all saying it’s a bad thing, just an interesting observation. Just doing my bit for the youth of the world, you know?? I am not going to try and claim that I came to Xela with any intention of doing volunteer work, or really participated in it of any sort, but I did one day accompany my friend Eloise to a preschool she was volunteering at. I’ll admit it was pretty cool, except for the part where they all thought I was a girl, just because I had long hair. I tried to teach them about gender roles and diversity, but they weren’t having a bar of it, little fucking rednecks. Couldn’t be mad at them for long though. God dammit they were cute, beautiful little Mayan kids coming up to you and holding your hand, looking up with their little puppy eyes. Except when they pulled my hair and tried to swing from it. I also brought along a guitar and sang them songs and we all got up and danced. It was nice, probably alittle healthier than a milkshake too. La Fiesta Another primary reason for coming to Xela is the nightlife. Not in a going out every night and getting absolutely off your tits kind of nightlife, but more in the way you can go out for a few drinks any night of the week and have a great time. But if you do want to get completely off your tits, then clearly that is possible too. You are in Guatemala, do the math. The first evening in Xela Lewis and I took a salsa class. It was incredibly funny as growing up in New Zealand the only dance moves we tend to acquire are the haka (which Lewis and I shamelessly performed to a packed bar the next night for trivia night), and whatever we can muster after several hours of heavy binge drinking. Still, we were actually quite good by the end of the lesson; well, we thought so until we went out later in the week to “salsa night”. Salsa is rather difficult for guys to learn as the men are supposed to “lead” the dance – not at all sexist. But when youdon’t have a clue what you are doing it can get a bit weird. When you are at a club and you ask a girl to dance, as sexy as it might sound, it can get very awkward with lots of toes being stepped on and countless “lo siento”s being thrown around. It’s even more embarrassing when the locals are out in packs hunting down the “gringas” with their ridiculously sexual salsa moves. Definitely left us for fools on countless occasions. We preferred to wait until the music shifted to something more familiar than reggaeton, and when everybody was drunk enough to appreciate our classic moves straight out of the eighties. Both dance styles have the same “payoffs” just one can probably be regarded as more classy. But I’m not complaining. Virtually every night we were in Xela we sampled variations of the nightlife, and though it may not have been the best for our Spanish (we started at 9am each morning) it certainly made for some amusing lessons, usually beginning with “perdoname, estoy de goma” (“Iam gummy”, meaning “hungover” in Guatemala), followed by much laughter. While being gay in Guatemala is sadly not something one should be at all open about, Xela was surprisingly cool towards it. We met loads of gay people, and everybody in town knew about the “Gay Bar”, a sick little bar reminiscent of any of the trendy little back alley bars you’d find in Wellington or the lanes of pre-2011 CHCH. Very hipster, but I don’t think that word has even reached Guatemala yet. It was famous not only because of its liberal atmosphere but also because by law every bar in Xela (and Guatemala for that matter) has to close at 1am. The Gay Bar, in typical anti-authoritarian style, would simply ignore this rule. Everybody seemed to know about it, but for some reason it just worked. Occasionally the cops would come and shut it down, but all you had to do was leave for half an hour then return and the party would be back on again. Thus the Gay Bar was the place to be for those that are gay, thosethat want to party, and those not too worried about their Spanish classes in the morning, or all three. Two boys who strayed a little far from the Gay Bar, atop Volcan Santa Maria On An Adventure During the afternoons after classes or in weekends most students in town will shoot up to the hot pools of Las Fuentes Georginas (highly recommended!), or have a go at climbing one of the many volcanic peaks surrounding the city. You can do guided tours to all of them, and most people recommend them as it is easy to get lost and there have been instances of dudes with machetes hacking off limbs of unsuspecting travelers, but Lewis and I thought as we are from New Zealand we will be sweet – logic that pays off most of the time. Lew in Xela’s main cemetery, with Volcan Santa Maria in the background   One Saturday we settled for the volcano of Santa Maria – a perfectly cylindrical cone visible from most of the city. Going out the night before until 3am and setting off at 8am for the hike probablywasn’t the wisest of moves and I had to try really hard to keep my myself from passing out in a pool of my own vomit. We nearly killed ourselves but ended up making record time smashing the peak in two and a half hours (after an hour bus from the city). Much to our dismay upon reaching the summit the daily clouds had come in and our views of the city and other volcanoes sprawled out over the landscape were totally blocked. While we were a bit gutted it was even funnier to meet four of our friends at the summit who had set off at 5am, taxied from the city, but had gotten lost on their way up and ended up spending five hours trudging through dense jungle and climbing a rock lava wall. Sometimes guides can be a good idea. Regardless of the lack of view it was still a rad wee adventure. Smashed it! Smashed us though. One day in the town a bunch of us set off to walk up the nearest hill overlooking the city. We were told there were some awesome slides at the top and we wanted to check themout. As we got closer to the track locals would constantly speak to us in very worried voices informing us that it was too late in the day, and that we were going to be robbed and raped by crazy guys with machetes if we continued up. I thought it was just crazy gossip, but as we had a few girls with us we thought it best to leave it. I was a bit gutted about not going up, until a few days later when my friend Joe and I met an American with a heavily bandaged hand. I just thought he was your typical ex-pat Yankee who had drunk a little to much rum, snorted a little too much coke and fallen into a fire, or something typical like that. Well, it turns out he and his girlfriend had tried to walk up the same track we had turned back from. About halfway up he heard some yelling behind him, and turned around to be confronted by a man swinging a machete. He blocked his face and had four fingers sliced off; probably a good decision not to go up in the end. I don’t know why I am ending this poston that note, but I just had to throw it in somewhere, as it was pretty gnarly. All in all Xela was super rad and I recommend a visit, especially one slightly prolonged, to anyone traveling through Guatemala. We were at the Utatlan Spanish School, very easy to Google, and they were awesome, also cheaper than most of the others. They always had activities to do and most of the other students are up for a good time. Next up will be a little getaway to San Pedro de la Laguna – a wee party town on the shores of Lago Atitlan – before descending to El Salvador for a long overdue reunion with Tangaroa and the Pacific Ocean.   Much love amigos

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