The first evening we walked into town with the guy who runs the show there at the Amatitlan ecotourism center. He immediately introduced me to a man from the town of Xocua. In the town of Xocua, women are very unlikely to be wearing costume, but the men still continue to wear the mantas known as calzones, which are muslin pants and a muslin shirt, and a wool poncho with stripes which are characteristic of this region. This man, when he spoke to us, had a sore on his bare foot, he was carrying a bag of dried corn, had a palm hat on, and he had another two hours walk back to his town.

On the third day, I drove along a dirt road into the town and took some pictures of it. The town is based on a river bed on the side of a mountain right next to a river. It’s a very small town of about 300 people.