The Sisterhood at Temple Beth Kaq-ix-Qxj.

The Great Plotnik and The Great Ducknik have a new favorite hotel room in the world, and that's Number 10 at the Mayan Inn in Chichicastenango. They knew it was special when they walked through the late Saturday marketplace in Chichi and spied a low yellow building with parrots in the patio, and they knew even more when they saw the room they'd been given, with the high Spanish exposed beams,cozy bed and window at street level, but they knew for sure when their waiter, Manuel, at the restaurant across the street, asked if he could bring them their coffee and hot chocolate and then go to their room and light the fire for them in their fireplace. When P and D got done with dinner they walked back across the street (no locks on the hotel room doors) and their room was cozy with a fire and the sheets turned back.

It was a good thing, because Chichicastenango is in the mountains and cold at night. Manuel thought to bring an extra blanket.

Then the next morning, yesterday, Sunday, the Mayan men and women started tramping past the hotel room at 3:30AM, setting up for the great Sunday Market of Chichicastenango. From their cozy covers, Plotnik and Ducknik could smell the incense from the church, and the tortillas cooking on the charcoal grills, and hear townspeople's sandals snapping on the cobbles, and the sound of chickens and pigs squealing in burlap bags, and poles being dragged for the kiosks, and kids running by laughing.

When P and D finally got out of bed, Duck went into the bathroom, so Plotnik decided to use the bathroom in the courtyard. The second he opened the door, "Hola!" said Manuel, just about scaring Plottie out of his pantalones. "Para servirle," he said, "How Can I Serve You?"

"Just let me go to the bathroom, please, Manuel," Plotnik said, thinking "OK, this is really enough now." He realized only afterwards that Manuel was making sure to hang close to his tip.

The superb Market of Chichicastenango is just that -- an indescribable collection of Maya sellers from across the region (you can tell which village the women come from by the color of their blouses and hats), mostly selling Mayan handcrafts (blouses, skirts, belts, shoes, jewelry, tablecloths, bedspreads and other Chotchkes a La Maya). It is too enormous to go through in one day, or maybe it's not, because you're basically lost the second you leave the main path. You have to find the church for your bearings.

The Church of Santo Tomas is pure CathoMaya. They call him Jesus, but everybody knows they mean Maximon, or Chac-Mool. Outside, the air is thick with more incense than Telegraph Avenue on Earth Day, while inside the earthen floor is filled with women on their knees supplicating before hundreds of burning candles. A fire burns on the steep stairs outside, which descend directly into the marketplace. On the bottom of the stairs Mayan women set up their tables and sell tacos and carnitas and chicharrones on little picnic tables. It's like the sisterhood at Temple Beth Kaq-ix-Qxj.

The bargaining process is the same in Chichi as elsewhere. They decide what you're going to pay them, and you do. Family members have been purchased for.

Plotnik and Ducknik arrived in Chichi on Saturday afternoon, but that morning they were on glorious Lake Atitlan, where they took a four-hour jaunt in a launch, blue water and sky, surrounded by great volcanoes. They visited three lake villages, all accessible only by boat. The two larger villages were touristy, but in the smallest, Jaibalito, there were no tourists at all, and very little village, only a few steep foot paths, but at the top of the village, where the forest began, Plotnik heard a tenor saxophone, or bassoon, coming through the trees. At the boat launch, someone told him it was Guido, and that Guido is the American who lives in the forest and plays sax all day. The locals shake their heads and smile at the thought of Crazy Guido.

It's amazing what you can see in six days. Today, Monday, back in Antigua, Plotnik will plan tomorrow through Saturday while Ducknik does her laundry back at the pension. Chac-mool willing, P and D should end up in Livingston, on the Mar Caribe, tomorrow night.