Questions and Answers

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Q: Were there guardrails on that curvy, mountainous road?

A: The quality of the road was actually very good. Part of the Pan-American Highway runs through Guatemala (it starts in Alaska and ends in Chile), so the road is well maintained. However, this past week we had a lot of mudslides and part of the highway has washed out. There are now long detours, so the time from Guatemala City to Xela is now 7-8 hours instead of 4-5 hours.


Q: How about the cooking? What type of stove and fuel?

A: My host mother cooks everything on top of her gas stove. I don´t think she can bake, because it is very expensive to run the gas stove. Xela has tons of bake shops and places that sell cakes and other sweets. My favorite bakery is Xelapan, which is everywhere in Xela. I enjoy walking down the street and smelling fresh baked bread. There is a lady that comes to our house daily selling little bread rolls and tortillas for a couple of quetzales.


Q: My only concern about Guatemala is the numerous entries about being robbed at gunpoint. I think that would be stressful and demoralizing (and dangerous). Therefore I would enjoy any thoughts you may have about safety for a woman traveling on her own.

A: I have heard stories about people being robbed at gunpoint (a friend told me of a story in Ecuador) but it usually happens at night, on a dark street. Also, it is not advisable to be on a bus at night time, for there are robberies that occur on the buses. Just use good sense and be aware of your surroundings. And remember to distribute your money in different places, so if you do get robbed, they don´t take everything.


Q: You mention you eat red meat. What kind is it?

A: I´ve only had red meat once, and I think it was beef from a cow. Meat is supposedly expensive, but we do have chicken pretty regularly. Walking in the markets and seeing the meat hanging in the open kind of dissolved my appetite for red meat.


Q: How much of a grasp of the language did you posess prior to your trip? Do you have much interaction with the locals... how do they respond to "the foreigner"?

A: I had two years of Spanish in high school, which really had little purpose. I took 3 months of Spanish (2 hrs each week) at a language school in LA. I knew some conversational Spanish, but that was all. Xela has many language schools (50 or so) so I think the locals are used to seeing foreigners. However, you do get a lot of curious looks from men and women. I interact with the locals everyday- from going to the bookstore, sitting at a café, walking around the city. People are very friendly and willing to help. I speak to them in my broken Spanish, ask them to repeat themselves, and they tolerate me.

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