We have visited the different markets of Antigua, you can find everything you need on the streets, fabrics, crafts, books, food.... We have eaten our first "comida chapina" (chapín=guatemalteco) at the market, a nice enchilada, a ball of fried banana with frijol dulce (sweet beans) inside, something with chicken, and we have not experienced any sickness :p yesss!!
Even though you can find Thai, Japanese, Greek, Italian, etc food here, there are still some typical places with very cheap and nice food: you can have a whole meal, including a just made orange with papaya juice, for 3 euros, even cheaper if you eat at the market, could be an euro for 2 people!
My first impressions about what is maya are confusing. You can see "maya restaurant", "maya this", "maya that" everywhere, but what does that really mean? So far I see it as a marketing issue rather than cultural. The mayas were extinct long time ago, and most of the current population hold the catholic, protestant or evangelic religion, don't wear the tipical clothes and don't consider themselves as indigenous. And currently, there are communities that try to maintain their culture or rescue it.
In general, it's very difficult to assess who are indigenous and who are not, unless they are pale, then it's easy. And the ones that wear the typical clothes are the conservative people, the ones are selling crafts on the streets or fruits on the markets. But, I would like to know how do they live, and what makes them conservative, do they still maintain their religion? practices? We will know more about this further in our trip...
