Pana and Chichi

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Hi travel fans! Yesterday we traveled by car with a driver over the considerable mountains to the market town of chichi, as it s called. we got in a traffic jam on the mountain road due to construction. they stopped all the cars and so we waited for an hour. a bus pulled in front of us and then another bus tried to get into the half car length space! so he was sticking out into the other lane. THEN two more buses passed the line of cars and of course couldn t get past the bus by us so they were stuck in the wrong lane. THEN they opened that lane because an ambulance was coming from the other direction, and of course it couldn t go past the bus stuck in the wrong lane, so, siren screaming, horns honking, people shouting, diesel smoke spewing we finally got untangled. meanwhile we spent the hour and a half chatting in spanish with our driver. he knew just enough english to help us and later he joked that the spanish lesson was free!! we became fast friends by the time we finally got to our destination. Today we hiked with another guide to a sacred mayan site, where shamans perform religious ceremonies. today we saw a chicken sacrificed as part of the elaborate ceremony. we walked the market among a throng of people and saw many wondrous things. yesterday also, we went into the catholic church where in the front part a mass was going on and in the back part a woman shaman was doing a fertility ceremony for a young woman. Take care everyone!

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