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I happen to be an honorary Chapin. I spent about a year in Departamento Quetzaltenango, and several more months in Mazatenango and near San Marcos.
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You went to Esquipulas? I knew a guy whose elderly mother dragged him there to see the Black Christ and attend some kind of related festival. She even bought him souvenirs, including some kind of silly hat that was apparently a part of the festivities. In the photos I saw, his mother and everyone else looks all solemn, and he can't help but make silly faces. She must have been furious with him, but he didn't mean any harm by it.
What a wonderful country that is.
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My old boyfriend was a Guatemalophile, and had me quite talked into really wanting to visit. He turned out to be kind of a jerk, but I don't hold it against Guatemala. I still really want to go. I also want to go to Chiapas, Mexico. Sigh. If I were only rich!
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I'm glad you didn't go to Chiapas by yourself, but I think it would be absolutely insane to do Guatemala alone. The crime rate was bad when I was there, and it has just gotten worse in the last eleven years. You would need to be with a decent-sized group, and even then there are no guarantees (remember the Book of Mormon tour group not long ago?)
I loved Guatemala, and would love to go back, but I would be very nervous about taking my family with me.
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I heard about the various maras all the time, but always in connection with the Capital. There were no maras, as such, in any of the cities I was in.
Crime most often took the form of highway robberies.
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