A Party is a Party in All Parts

After the hike from Xela to Lago de Atitlan, I left San Pedro for the pueblo of Nebaj, fifly miles north, in the Ixil Triangle region. From Nebaj, I'm planning to hike the same distance I'd hiked in the days before, plus another twenty miles, across the Cordillera de los Cuchumatanes, the Sierras of Guatemala, back to Todos Santos Cuchumatanes, and then to take a bus back to Xela, completing a big circle.

Getting to Nebaj was an adventure in it of itself. The ride required a camioneta, microbus and pickup truck over six hours. It was getting dark and there was a driving rainstorm as I rode the last hour into Nebaj, on a steep, winding and bone-jarringly rutted dirt road, in the back of a pickup truck.

Because Nebaj is a very small and traditional town, I was terrified that I would arrive to find all the windows dark, everyone already in bed. Imagine my delight when approaching town I could hear bits of banda and ranchera music, punctuated by fireworks. When we rounded the corner to town, we could see a ferriswheel, and the town's annual fair in full swing. I felt like they were putting it on just for me!

However, because it was feria, there were no rooms for rent anywhere. I must have asked at every hotel in town. There were absolutely no white people around to ask for advice, or to share a room. I couldn't even find someone who would rent me a blanket and some floorspace. Fortunately, just I was beginning to get desperate, I bumped into a blonde girl. "English !?!" I asked her. As it turned out she was a student in Vancouver, BC, was super sweet and was willing to share her room with me. We romped around the central park for a bit, watching the fireworks, mingling with the locals, dancing to the marimba, drinking Gallo and sampling the local tamales.

Many of the campesinos from the surrounding countryside also came out to enjoy the festivites. Everyone was strutting around, dressed in their Sunday best. The local dress, calle traje, here is breath-taking. As in other parts of Guatemala, the women wear elaborately embroidered blouses called huipiles and skirts called cortes, held up with wide belts called fajas, covered in symbols that represent Mayan mythology and the local flora and fauna. Outsiders often think that the patterns are random, but in reality, they require incredible effort and skill. The planning, hand dyeing, and weaving on a backstrap loom require hundreds of hours of work. A good huipile will cost at least Q500 ($65). Thus, women generally only have a few and they will last for decades.

While there are some constants to traje, it is also highly reigonal. Indigenous people can often identify where other indigenous people come from just by looking at thier clothes. This was a terrible problem during the Civil War, as army officials identified certain areas as enemy zones. Wearing traditional traje, which is one of the most important parts of the indigenous identity, was like being branded a target. When homes were burned or looted, all of the women's traje were lost. Replacing them would take years and in the meantime women would be forced to wear rags.

In Nebaj, the traje is generally green, with an especially elaborate huipil. Most indigenous outfits include a shawl, called a rebozo, which doubles as a baby wrap, a knapsack and a headcovering for hot days. In Nebaj, the rebozo was green or maroon, striped, with white stitching of stars and flowers stretching across the width and tassels on each end. The women were also wearing their hair up, braided under bundles of thread with pom-poms on either end called cintas.

Unfortunately, because Nebaj is a very small town with few tourists, entirely indigenous, and was particularly hard-hit by the Civil War, people are very wary of outsiders. The women were absolutely unwilling to have their pictures taken, which is understanable. I had to settle for buying a shawl and sharing this picture, which is from Corbis.