Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Jovenes can also take you to Tzununá via the Palitz waterfalls; to Santa Lucía
Utatlán along the old Maya trail; around the barrios of San Marcos to visit families who
weave bags with maguey fibers; and to a garden where you'll learn the names and uses of
medicinal herbs and talk to elderly healers who administer them.
TRADITIONAL MAYA CLOTHING
Anyone visiting the highlands can delight in the beautiful
traje indígena (
traditional Maya clothing). The styles,
patterns and colors used by each village - originally devised by the Spanish colonists to distinguish one village
from another - are unique, and each garment is the creation of its weaver, with subtle individual differences.
The basic elements of the traditional wardrobe are the
tocoyal
(head covering),
huipil
(blouse),
corte
or
refago
(skirt),
calzones
(trousers),
tzut
or
kaperraj
(cloth),
paz
(belt) or
faja
(sash) and
caïtes
or
xajáp
(sandals).
Women's head coverings are beautiful and elaborate bands of cloth up to several meters long, wound about the
head and often decorated with tassels, pompoms and silver ornaments.
Women proudly wear
huipiles
every day. Though some machine-made fabrics are now being used, many
hui-
piles
are still made completely by hand. The white blouse is woven on a backstrap loom, then decorated with ap-
pliqué and embroidery designs and motifs common to the weaver's village. Many of the motifs are traditional
symbols. No doubt all motifs originally had religious or historical significance, but today that meaning is often
lost to memory.
Cortes (refagos)
are pieces of cloth 7m to 10m long that are wrapped around the body. Traditionally, girls wear
theirs above the knee, married women at the knee and old women below the knee, though the style can differ
markedly from region to region.
Both men and women wear
fajas,
long strips of backstrap-loom-woven cloth wrapped around the midriff as
belts. When they're wrapped with folds upward like a cummerbund, the folds serve as pockets.
Tzutes
(for men) or
kaperraj
(for women) are the all-purpose cloths carried by local people and used as head
coverings, baby slings, produce sacks, basket covers and shawls. There are also shawls for women called
perraj
.
Sleeping
There aren't any street signs but most lodgings have posted their own fancifully painted
versions to point you in the right direction.
Hotel La Paz $
( 5061-5316;
www.lakeatitlanlapaz.com
; dm/r/bungalow Q50/150/250)
Along the upper trail that
links the two main paths, the holistically-minded La Paz has rambling gardens holding
bungalows of traditional
bajareque
(a stone, bamboo and mud material) with thatch roofs.
A vegetarian restaurant, traditional Maya sauna, Spanish lessons and morning yoga ses-
sions (Q40) are additional attractions.
HOSTEL
Hotel Paco Real $
HOTEL
