I spent this past weekend in HueHuetenango. Jaime told me that the name of the area literally translates to “the place of old men”.
Rodalfo`s friend Carlos invited me to his house for a long weekend. HueHue is about 4.5 – 5 hours and 2 camionetas north of Antigua. The bus ride was awesome, I actually wished it had been longer. Mountains, farms, small towns… and fog, lots of fog.
HueHue bus station / market
The weekend was spent “perfecting my Spanish” (a joke that was repeated many times… you had to be there). Most of the time was just spent talking and going around visiting the local sites. Carlos and his brother accept lots of couch surfers into there house and have a few places of interest to show their visitors.
Carlos`s brother took me to the ruins of Zaculeu. This was a suprise after a little chicharron (authentic pork rind – actually really good on a tortilla with salsa, lime, and some greens). You`ll have to google it if you want to see pictures, I didn`t have my camera on me.
Carlos is a baker. He has recently started teaching classes about a block from his house in a small space that he rents. He likes to teach the international folks how to cook things. He taught me how to french bread and baguettes. I can now add two more things to the long list of things I know how to cook. The list is probably approaching a grand total of almost 5 or 6 at this point.
Watching the machine mix the dough was mezmerizing. This quicky became Carlos`s word of the weekend. From there on out, everything was "mezmerizing".
Prepping the dough
Making dough balls
Rolling dough balls
Carlos took me to a place called “El Mitador”. Its one of the highest points in HueHuetenango. There was an incredible view there. There were also two awesome houses. I`d have to say, I was into the houses more than the view.
Yes
House 1 from the back
House 2
Pretty decent view out the window
Descansando
One night we went to Carlos`s parents house for a bit. Carlos asked me if I was hungry. Do you like mango`s? He opened the fridge.
Muchos mangos
“Why do they have so many mangos?”. “Because they are crazy, they went to Guatemala city and bought 100 mangos”. We then sat around and ate mangos.
sounds like a mango-lishous, dough-boy rolling, tee-pee housing weekend. Spectacular! I am mucho impressario with the KitchenAid machine Carlos is rocking… in fact just the other day I wished I had a dough hook attachment to kneed my soda bread… the old fashioned way is cool too, almost as cool as rolling pie crust with a beer bottle. I can hang!
oh and of course the missing jungle… good call. no one wants little beard fur in their pastries!
Those are some sweet houses. There needs to be a film about them.
el mirador, not mitador.
YOU SHOULD BUY ONE OF THOSE HOUSE WITH ALL YOUR MONEY U HAVE NOW (GET SOME LOAN FROM UR MAMA TOO, IF NECESSARY…AS HER RETIREMENT INVESTMENT)….AND FIX IT UP AS A BED AND BREAKFAST…AND LEARN HOW TO COOK FRENCH TOASTS FROM CARLOS AND SERVE YOUR GUESTS….WHEN YOU OPEN ‘LA CASA DEL GRINGO JONES’ I WILL GO WORK FOR U AS A HANDYMAN/BELLBOY….
Actually, Carlos knows the owner of the houses and has spoken with them. He wants to open a bed and breakfast / cafe there. He said once he saves up the money to renovate, I`ll have a project to work on…
BUY THAT HOUSE, GRINGO JONES!!…BUY THAT HOUSE!!…