Thurs­day was mar­ket day in Chichi­cas­te­nango, aka Chichi for trav­el­ers and locals alike. For both vis­i­tors and sell­ers, the day started early and it involved a long bus ride uphill in twisty moun­tain roads.

I love mar­kets. Sure, I usu­ally don’t like to wan­der around raw meat stalls very early in the morn­ing, and walk­ing in packed alleys can be a tir­ing exer­cise. But mar­kets, from Beijing’s Silk Mar­ket to France’s quaint Sat­ur­day food frenzy, tell a lot about a country’s culture.

It was a long three-hour bus ride from Antigua to Chichi. While the roads dra­mat­i­cally improved in Guatemala, the last part was a heart-stopping climb in the steep­est moun­tain road you can imag­ine. The turns offered no vis­i­bil­ity what­so­ever and I had to men­tally remind myself the dri­ver prob­a­bly knew what he was doing to pre­vent me from scream­ing. I was too sleepy for that, anyway.

Chichi is small rural town in the high­lands that really only comes alive on mar­ket days. Still a major trad­ing cen­tre, Mayas from all the nearby pueb­los make the trip twice a week. Parts of the mar­ket sell mostly sou­venirs to tourists, such as carved masks and var­i­ous objects made of the tra­di­tional Maya tex­tile (bags, table­cloths etc.). Unlike in many Asian mar­kets, there are no fake brand names here and no clothes either but for the odd sou­venir t-shirt. The rest of the mar­ket caters to local who buy and sell chick­ens, cook­ing tools, fruits and veg­gies etc.

In 2003, we fin­ished our trip around Antigua and bought one of the big “Maya blan­ket” that we still use every win­ter in Canada. This time, with still over a month to go, we didn’t want to buy much. Our back­packs can only hold so much! Feng bought a small table­cloth and I got a scarf. This is my tra­di­tional sou­venir. I have a thing for scarves—they fold eas­ily and are com­fort­ing when it’s cold.

Buy­ing sou­venir took us about 30 min­utes. We kind of knew what we wanted and not much bar­gain­ing was involved. Unlike in Asia where it can last for half an hour, prices in Chich weren’t as flex­i­ble. We were quoted a price (too high), we counter-attacked with another price (too low) and agreed on a suit­able price at the third attempt. In total, we spent about $15 for the scarf and table­cloth. Fine by me, I’m not going to argue just for the sake of sav­ing a dollar.

We spent the rest of the time in Chichi tak­ing pic­tures. It proved tricky at first: the light wasn’t great (too bright and shad­owy around the stalls) and the streets were packed. But I found the peo­ple fas­ci­nat­ing and I wanted to cap­ture it.

Colour­ful Blankets

Shop­ping

Sell­ing Flowers

Meat

Mak­ing Tortillas

Sell­ing Chickens

Maya Girl

Mar­ket Street

Old Man

Embroi­dered Scarves

Sell­ing Flowers

Old Man

Pray­ing

Entrance of the City

Girl in a Shop

On the Steps of the Church

On the Steps of the Church

Sou­venirs

Masks

Bus and Souvenirs

Sell­ing Chickens

Maya-style Fab­ric

Related arti­cles:

1. Montréal’s Jean Talon Market
2. Syd­ney Fish Market
3. Faces of Antigua
4. Wang­fu­jing (王府井）
5. St Lawrence Market