Making Xela Pretty

Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala, and it is still vastly smaller than Guatemala City (4.1 million versus 167,000 ), but still it is a large, bustling city, full of diesel pollution, narrow sidewalks, roaring buses, and dog poop.  Autos rule in Latin cities.  It's not like a bus would try to hit a pedestrian. But they don't slow down, either.  So walking in this city is not very relaxing--you have to stay alert.  Greenery is decidedly absent in Xela.  In many tropical cities, even the weeds are lovely, and homes have small gardens or potted plants, but Xela just did not have very much of this.  I walked for miles and miles in this city.  What follows are my best efforts to find the prettiest spots. 

The Parque Central is always a sure bet to find an oasis of greenery in the concrete jungle, and Xela's was lovely, ringed by colonial buildings and an ornate church, and bustling with families and tourists and small-scale entrepreneurs alike.

Parque Central panorama

Feeding pigeons on Sunday in the park. Women line the sidewalk here, selling tiny bags of seed. 

I'm always struck by how many children are out rustling up business in the park, as this young shoe-shine boy is doing.  I think about all the American children, doing anything but shining shoes to earn a living. I wonder how much this boy earns in a day, and where he lives and what it is like.  Children also sell things like peeled oranges, tiny popsicles, sticks of gum...I mean, how much money can you earn selling sticks of gum???

Happily having some more comfort food--a bagel!!  With some sort of vegetables!!  I also liked this cafe because it had the rare garden setting, in a little patio out back and away from the street., so I returned here often.

Xela's main church, and cityscape from the hill

It is a stretch to call this pretty, but I included it because a little garden with flowers like this was, in fact, so uncommon, that I worked it as best I could to find an attractive angle here. 

But what Xela lacks in green spaces it makes up for with other colorful accents.