Observations: signs of el "desarrollo" ("development")

 Every time I come to Guatemala, there seems to be more and more commercialization, what would in many contexts be called "development". Several years ago, I began to notice the emergence of "auto-hotels" (closer to what we would call in the U.S. "motels") along the highways near Xela. Judging by their names (Paraiso -- Paradise), and the fact that many were painted pink or red, they seemed to be designed for sexual encounters. They shared a common architectural style: ground floor garages and atop each garage, a room. 

But that was in a different part of the country and along major transit routes -- the Interamerican Highway, and one of the main roads leading into Xela. This time, as the bus I was riding from Los Encuentros to Santa Cruz del Quiché, I saw a few along the road, and then as I was leaving Chinique, a very small town in the department of El Quiché, there was an auto-hotel under construction on outskirts of Chinique, on the road leading to Santa Cruz del Quiché. There is also a new gas station (well, it was there last year) on the outskirts of Chinique, pretty much across the road from the house of my friends Catarino and Sandy. There are more gas stations on the road between Chichicastenango and Santa Cruz del Quiché, and more luxury-type hotels on the outskirts of Santa Cruz del Quiché -- as one would say here, on the exit to Chichicastenango. One wonders who is going to be staying at these luxury hotels, and why so many gas stations. The tourist traffic to Chichicastenango is mostly in the form of day trips on market days. Tourists from outside Guatemala generally don't stay overnight. They hop on a shuttle in Antigua, come to Chichi for the market, and return to Antigua the same day (market days are the only days that there are shuttles from Antigua to Chichi; if you want to get there on a non-market day, you have to take a chicken bus. 

My very informal observations in Santa Cruz del Quiché are that the hotels in town are not full. Here's my evidence. The hotel I stayed at, Hotel Rey Kiche, chosen for its proximity to the bus terminal, was not full. And when I decided to treat myself to a somewhat luxurious meal at a more upscale hotel that boasts a good restaurant, I was the only patron in the restaurant (which doubles as a gift shop). I asked the server, and he told me that the hotel was empty (this was a Friday night, mind you) and therefore they didn't expect many people at the restaurant.  I can't imagine that the more luxurious places on the outskirts are getting more business. So one wonders about all the money being spent on these developments. 

And then there are the fast food restaurants, the Starbuckses and Dunkin' Donuts and the Taco Bells. Those have long been in Guatemala City and environs, and also Antigua (and possibly other tourist locations that I am not aware of) but they are creeping into the rural areas. One thing I noticed when I arrived in the Parque Central of Santa Cruz del Quiché was a huge McDonald's sign looming over the cityscape. Obviously there is a middle class in the rural areas, and more so in towns like Santa Cruz del Quiché, where there is more of a concentration of people with more money (not necessarily wealthy in any absolute sense, but wealthier than those who live in adobe houses with corrugated metal roofs and dirt floors, only reachable by walking long distances on dirt footpaths).