CHICHICASTENANGO CALLING!

I could  visit Chichicastenango just for the name alone. It is pronounced “Chee-chee-cast-en-an-go! “ , but try to sing a little as you say it. Guatemala is full of little towns with unusual names but this one has always sounded to me like a fun place to visit, and that it is.

I was picked up from my Guatemala City hotel at the indecent hour of 6 am by Victor, our very enthusiastic guide who would be with us for the next 3 days of our Mayan Markets sojourn.  At the time I was not quite as cheerful as Victor as it was early and I had ‘Tikal’ legs – the feeling where your thighs ache with the first few steps you take, after climbing half of the temples in Tikal the previous day. The condition improves and disappears over about 3 days. The funny thing is that it recurs every time you start walking up or down the steps of a church, of which there are many.

‘He went about all covered with powdered gold, as casually as if it were powdered salt. For it seemed to him that to wear any other finery was less beautiful, and that to put on ornaments or arms made of gold worked by hammering, stamping, or by other means, was a vulgar and common thing.’

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Spanish Historian, 1478-1557

For centuries the legend of “the gilded man” persisted in the Spanish conquered ‘New World’ territories of Peru and Colombia. But was the legend a true account of unimaginable riches as the Conquistadors believed, or a ruse by the enslaved Incas to lead the Spanish on treacherous expeditions into the dense Amazon jungles – and almost certain death?

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Impatient tourist, Rod Eime, learns the lore of the jungle - and that the jungle is a law unto itself.

The jungle is almost silent. A mossy natural junkyard of tree corpses and opportunistic vines line either side of the narrow rivulet while tall, spindly kapok trees merge overhead to form a verdant archway. Invisible birds call sporadically to each other in shrill chirps shattering the silence like distant gunshots. Chuka is perched precariously on the very rear of the slender canoe and barely makes a sound as his paddle caresses the still black water while my eyes dart in all directions fruitlessly trying to locate the source of these occasional noises.

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For centuries, the reclusive Uros tribe of Peru have lived in a real-life waterworld on Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian Andes.

Building huge floating pontoons from the buoyant totora reeds, the Uros Indians' waterborne communities of Islas Flotantes (floating islands) have afforded them protection from rival tribes, the Inca and Collas.

Now, despite hundreds of years of isolation, the Uros way of life is threatened by the encroaching land-based population in nearby Puno, Perus major port town on the 8300 square kilometre lake.

The plight of the Uros was highlighted in a feature story on National Geographic Channel recently.