At an elevation of 2330m, Xela is noticeably colder than Atitlán and Antigua. It was near here that the decisive battle in the conquest of Guatemala was fought in 1524, and the city was founded on the site of the capital of the K’iché Maya. You would have no idea of this if the guidebooks didn’t tell you, because today Xela is nothing but a modern city. It seemed very different from the rest of Guatemala, with incredibly friendly people and a chilly climate. It is surrounded by Mayan mountain towns, and on our first day there we visited one of these, Zunil.

We had intended to go to the markets at Chichicastenango, but when we got to the bus stop we couldn’t find any buses at all going there. We looked and looked, but were defeated, and, eager to go somewhere, got a bus to Zunil, a place about which we knew nothing, but which turned out to be very interesting. Like Santiago Atitlán, it has its own resident evil saint, San Simón, as well as a fine old church in the main square, a small handicrafts co-operative and a dramatic setting surrounded by towering hills.

After sampling all of Zunil’s other attractions, we went to visit the shrine of San Simón. It was a very different experience to Maximón’s shrine. Where everyone visiting and looking after Maximón had seemed to be having fun, and the whole thing seemed to be thought of as a bit of a laugh, San Simón was dead serious and quite scary. We were ushered into his presence, and found him sitting in a chair wearing shades, a bandana and a cowboy hat. The room was filled with hundreds of candles, and there was some serious worship going on. San Simón was represented by an old shop dummy, which looked a bit difficult to believe in, but people clearly did, and very seriously. There was a constant stream of worshippers, who would come in, cross themselves before San Simón, touch him and stroke him, talk to him, sometimes for half an hour or more, feed him Vodka and cigarettes, and light candles before him. The feeding of the vodka was a weird ritual – San Simón was tilted back in his chair, and the Vodka poured into his mouth. Meanwhile, the last offering of vodka had trickled down to his feet and collected there, and was poured out into a bowl when he was tilted back.

It was fascinating and surreal to watch the goings on at the shrine of San Simón, a strikingly visible fusion of ancient Mayan beliefs and Catholicism. But having seen two evil saints in two days, we decided we were getting too much religion, and we decided to climb up Volcán Santamaria the next day, and camp at the top.