Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chajul's ornate church
The main attraction here is the town's church,
Iglesia de San Gaspar Los Reyes,
one
of Guatemala's most ornate, with wooden doors containing finely carved depictions of an-
imals. Inside, an elaborate goldleaf altar guarded by two figures dressed in traditional garb
surrounds its
Cristo de Golgotha
statue. Check out the cool wool red coats, which are now
rarely seen on the town's male inhabitants. The church is a major pilgrimage site on the
second Friday of Lent.
Chajul's plaza was also the site of a grisly public execution of EGP guerrillas carried
out by the Guatemalan military in retaliation for the 1979 murder of landowner Enrique
Brol, an event which is narrated in Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú's autobi-
ography. While the basic facts of the army's extrajudicial murders has not come into ques-
tion, Menchú's testimony certainly has. An investigation by author David Stoll has since
revealed Menchú may not have been there at all and is also at odds with her claims that
the prisoners were burnt alive, claiming instead that they were mowed down with machine
guns. The research and evidence supporting his claims and questioning much of Menchú's
