A highland Maya town that becomes one vast market twice a week, with copal smoke rising from the steps of its white church.
Chichicastenango, "Chichi", is a K'iche' Maya town in the mountains of Quiché. On Thursdays and Sundays its streets and plaza fill with what is often called the biggest market in Central America.
Stalls sell everything from vegetables, flowers and live hens to woven huipiles, masks, carved wood and blankets. Traders come from villages across the highlands, and the colours are astonishing.
On one side of the plaza, the white church of Santo Tomás stands on an older platform. Its steps are a place of prayer where incense and candles burn, mixing Catholic and Maya tradition. The Popol Vuh, the K'iche' book of creation, was copied down here by a friar in the early 1700s.
On the edge of town, the cemetery is a hillside of tombs painted turquoise, yellow and pink, repainted by families each year.
A full day from Antigua.
Leave Antigua before dawn on a shuttle up through the highlands to Chichi.
Wander the covered lanes of stalls around the plaza, from food and flowers to textiles.
Watch from the side as incense rises from the steps; visitors use the side entrance.
Eat at a comedor in the market hall, with a view over the stalls below.
Walk to the painted cemetery at the edge of town before the shuttle home.
.jpg?width=960)
.jpg?width=1280)
Shuttles from Antigua run on market days, leaving before dawn and returning mid-afternoon. Book the day before.
Some shuttles continue to Lake Atitlán afterwards, a good way to move on rather than return.
Bargain politely; start lower, meet in the middle, and buy if you've agreed a price.
Antigua practical notes →Photographs from Wikimedia Commons and Pexels under their licences.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}