Sept 4 Tuesday The Trip to Zunil That Wasn't
Had a skimpy breakfast and walked to school. Today we have to find a "liberia" to buy new ball point pens since we are out of ink again. Patty begins with great gusto and then we left on a field trip that did not include the cemetery which was where Don/Juan were going. It was Spanish on foot or as the guys kept saying "Spanish para Mujers" (Spanish for women). We ended up at Hyper Paiz. We compared things and looked at shoes, clothes and all sorts of things speaking Spanish as much as I was able.
The afternoon activity was a trip to Zunil to visit a coop operation. We loaded up on a "Chicken Bus" with Palmenia our teach and guide. Everything was fine until we were about half way to Zunil at Almalonga. There we ran smack into a political parade that involved the whole town! The bus could not drive down the street. Everybody got off of the bus and had a partial refund. We thought that we could walk around the parade and get transportation on the other side to continue on to Zunil. The people were all very excited and friendly. The three of us made up a counter parade! Many people have here work in the USA and one man actually spoke to us in English! The parade had bands, dance groups, decorated cars and trucks and fireworks and decorated horses with riders in costume. Men on the horses were spectacular and put their horses through a parade routine. I got spooked at one point and jumped for the sidewalk! A Mayan women grabbed my arm and helped me up. We turned around and laughed when it turned out the horse did not come as close as it looked like he was going to. The Mayan women helped me back down to the street since the side walk was 2 feet or more off of the road.
We reached the center of the parade with the candidates and mongo rolls of fire works. I looked down as the roll of fireworks went by my feet and I realized they were going to light these things! We jumped and ran back with a large portion of the crowd standing around us. They also set a box of Roman candles in the street and lit those as well. It was supremely noisy!
We walked on and on and on and the parade had no end. Everybody in town and the surrounding area was IN the parade. No traffic was moving; No taxis, No buses --Nothing was going anywhere until the parade cleared. We were not able to continue to Zunil or return to Xela.
We took a side road to miss the parade going back the way we had come. We were hoping to find something moving on the other end to take us back to Xela. We walked through the outskirts of the village where we could see the fields and plots of land as far as the eye could see. We estimated that the side trip was at least 2 miles long. At the end of the road we attempted to get back to the main road through town and come out near the beginning of the parade. Not possible to do that-- we were back at the middle of the parade. Turning around we took another side street to by pass the parade and found that there was still no vehicle of any kind moving. By this time our little teacher, Palmenia, was beginning to mutter to herself. She was stuck in a town with two gringos with no idea how to get them home again! We came to a gas station and guess who needed to use the facilities there? While I was gone a microbus pulled in and both Palmenia and Don spoke to the driver about taking us back to Xela. The driver said he was not going to Xela until Don offered him 50 quetzales ($7.50) to make the trip. With relief Palmenia loaded us into the van and we headed back to be met with rain. We had our trusty umbrellas with us so we ran for McDonald's for something to eat because we were all starving. We finished at McDonald's and went home to dry off and rest. Our dinner was One chicken wing and a spoonful of carrots! Thank heavens we stopped and ate or it would have been a long night.
