Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
with a cook shack in the middle for breakfast and supper. You'll find firm beds, fresh
paint, and huge spotless bathrooms with blasting-hot showers.
Restaurant Al Ast' $
(6a Av 7-50, Zona 3; mains Q30-45; 7:30am-9pm)
Catalonian cuisine in Uspantán? Hailing from
that Iberian region, the owner of this unpretentious eatery whips up dishes like
fidevada
(a
paella variation) and
fricandó
(a beef-mushroom stew). It's two blocks west of the band-
shell on the central plaza.
SPANISH
Getting There & Away
Microbuses for Quiché (Q30, 2½ hours), via Sacapulas, leave whenever full from
Uspantán's bus terminal on 6a Calle, three blocks west of the Parque Central, until 7pm.
For Cobán (Q40, three hours), microbuses go hourly from 4am to 4pm. For Nebaj, there
are a couple of direct microbuses (coming from Cobán), or get a Sacapulas microbus and
change at the
ent- ronque de Nebaj
(Nebaj turnoff), about 8km before Sacapulas.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Nebaj
POP 42,382 / ELEV 2000M
Hidden in a remote fold of the Cuchumatanes mountains north of Sacapulas is the Trián-
gulo Ixil (Ixil Triangle), a 2300-sq-km zone comprising the towns of Santa María Nebaj,
San Juan Cotzal and San Gaspar Chajul, as well as dozens of outlying villages and ham-
lets. The local Ixil Maya people, though they suffered perhaps more than anybody in
Guatemala's civil war, cling proudly to their traditions and speak the Ixil language. Nebaj
women are celebrated for their beautiful purple, green and yellow pom-pommed hair
braids, scarlet
cortes
, and their
huipiles
and
rebozos
(shawls), with many bird and animal
motifs.
Living in this beautiful mountain vastness has long been both a blessing and a curse.
The invading Spaniards found it difficult to conquer, and they laid waste to the inhabitants
when they did. During the civil war years, massacres and disappearances were rife, with
more than two dozen villages destroyed. According to estimates by church groups and
human-rights organizations, some 25,000 Ixil inhabitants (of a population of 85,000) were
either killed or displaced by the army between 1978 and 1983 as part of the campaign to
