Salcaja and the Strange Moonshine

Today was amazing. First, I had met my new maestra. I wasn’t completely and totally satisfied with my teachers the past two weeks. My first maestra was a bit too easy, and my next maestra a bit to hard, and not too friendly. I asked around for recommendations, my friend Leslie recommended Cory, and I requested her. We both agreed that my reading and writing are fine and that my speaking and aural comprehension need help. So we spend almost the entire day talking about all of my favorite subjects; politics, economics and women’s lib, Guatemalteco and Estadounidenese. She’s super warm and friendly, but a hardliner on grammar. It’s going to be a great week.

In the afternoon, a group of us ventured to Salcaja, a little town outside of Xela known because it has the oldest church in Central America. The Iglesia de San Jacinto was built in 1524 by the Spanish. Unfortunately, the church is state property, and as such, it’s only open on certain days. Determining which these days are requires some sort of Mayan divination ritual. Needless to say, a rainy Monday afternoon was not a good prospect and the exterior isn’t very exciting. It looks exactly what you’d expect something built in 1524 with the Latin American preservation ethic to look like. It’s falling apart.

Fortunately, Salcaja is known for two local liquors. The first, Caldo de Frutas, is literally a fruit soup. It’s made from fermented oranges, apples, cherries, peaches and all manner of local fruits and spices that we don’t have in the states. It’s a strong sweet alcohol, a cross between a sangria and a port. We got to see it being brewed in a bathtub in someone’s kitchen, and when they strained it into bottles for us (used, Johnnie Walker and Bacardi), they gave us the leftover fruit to eat. The second, Rompopo, is basically eggnog made with more sugar, spices, and condensed milk. It’s even stickier and sweeter than you would expect and a deep yellow appropriate for a magic potion. It’s good to know that it is possible to by eggnog outside of Christmastime, you just have to travel thousands of miles via plane, camioneta and foot, knock on some stranger’s door and barter for bootlegged liquor. Granted, the Rompopo actually seemed slightly safer than the Caldo de Frutas, since it came in pretty new bottles with labels.