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Published: February 7th 2024
In Quetzaltenango (thankfully also called Xela) we found a little piece of heaven. The
Hotel Muchá was set in an old colonial courtyarded house and it was just stunning. We could easily have stayed for a lot longer than the three nights we did! It was really cheap, for what it was, and breakfast was excellent too. The staff were super friendly (but the receptionist needs to learn to smile!) and when
my sunglasses arrived after we had left,they posted them on again! There are Spanish language schools in the city and if anyone was interested in studying there, we would highly recommend this hotel for your accommodation.
The city itself will not be to everyone's taste. It's low rise, in need of a bit of TLC, and reminded us so much of Bolivia! That's not surprising as the local population is something like 61 per cent indigenous and 34 per cent mestizo so there are very few paler faces around. It is cheap and cheerful with some surprisingly high quality food and accommodation options around.
La Stampa was particularly impressive on the edge of the central
Parque a Centro América. There's even a covered boulevard full of bars, although it wasn't as crowded as we had expected.
Perhaps the incredibly loud music puts people off! We settled for some locally produced ale at
Casa Guin which was very good.
Xela is a city where you can just wander around safely. Even around the cemetery area we felt perfectly safe, although it was clear they don't get too many independent non-guided curious visitors. The
niches were painted in all sorts of bright (lurid?) colours and there were some extraordinary designs of tombs. The pyramids seemed completely out of place!! From there we walked up past the beer bottling factory, but couldn't find any signs of accessibility for visitors. Not too far away was a strongly air conditioned shopping centre with a good food court and spotlessly clean toilets. Always a bonus on a trip like this!
Our destination was the Centro Intercultural where there may or may not have been a railway museum. It turns out there wasn't! That was disappointing, but next door is the textiles museum. We think it was actually closed but there was a visit, possibly from a language school. We walked in as though we owned the place and nobody said a thing. We were treated to a bit of a ramshackle
collection of costumes on mannequins which was interesting but a bit tatty. There was very little information other than the regions that they came from. The stars of the show were the ladies creating brightly coloured textiles on their looms. That is such a complex thing to do.
From there we walked up to the Minerva bus station. We never actually found a bus station but there does seem to be a square where chicken buses and minibuses leave from. It was hectic but felt fairly safe, as did the nearby market which we walked a short way in to. There is a Greek/Roman-like structure from which the bus station gets its name. There are a few curiosities like this around. In 1901 the then-president Cabrera decided to build a few temples around the country. This one survived as did the impressive theatre which we did manage to get inside with the permission of a gentleman from the municipality who told me all about the wooden structure of the interior. It's just a shame there were no performances on during our stay.
The next day we had a hectic morning. We walked to the aforementioned theatre then on
to the football stadium but there was no way inside and no games scheduled while we were there. Then we saw a huge Mayan artefact on the
Plaza a Benito Juárez. That square was next to the impressive St Nicholas' church. From there we took an Uber out to San Andres Xecul where we saw the impressive yellow churches, thread for textiles being dyed, a Mayan temple being tended, and finally got to ride a chicken bus. I'm not going to repeat everything about that excursion as you can read it here on
Anything But Paella. As you can see, we loved Xela. Moving on was a bit of a wrench but we had to go. Our transfer was the best part of an hour in a car to a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. From there we were put on a minibus after a short wait, and on our way to Antigua Guatemala.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Wow
Great pic that captures your subject matter perfectly. Love it!!!