I love a good story. My favorite part of traveling has always been hearing the legends of the places we’re visiting along with stories from locals and other travelers alike.
In Quetzaltenango, Guatemala (Xela) we happened across one of the great love stories of all time. Here’s the legend, as it was told to us, followed by our Xela travel guide.
The Legend of Xela
Fear not, dear unrequited lovers. Your true love need not escape your grasp.
We came upon this strange grave in Quetzaltenango, a colonial town in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. It was very curious for a few reasons: the Eastern European name and the fact that is was covered in flowers and messages written by those hoping to be reunited with the ones that got away.
Luckily, there was a kindly-looking, well-dressed, ancient old man standing in the shadows, not far from the grave. We asked him about it, and this, more or less, is what he told us:
Just about a century ago, a young Eastern European immigrant was denied her true love and paid the ultimate price — but she died not in vain, for the star-crossed Vanushka was a young woman of great empathy, and from the afterlife she intercedes on behalf of all those who have lost their true loves, adjusting ever so slightly the delicate ingredients that make up one’s destiny in order to reunite those that fate has torn apart.
Vanushka was a stunning beauty from Romania who made the long voyage to Central America as a dancer in her father’s circus, which he hoped would fare better in the New World after a dismal run through post-world-war (the first one) Germany. Mexico was awash it its own revolutionary troubles about this time, so the troupe quickly moved south to Guatemala, but did not make it very far. In Quetzaltenango, not more than a few days travels from the Mexican border, they found a rapt audience.
Quetzaltenango is an enchanted mountain town, nestled between volcanoes and just a stone’s throw away from a gorgeous volcanic crater lake. It was the crown jewel of Guatemala, but its isolation led to a certain boredom for those who had grown casually familiar with the mountain vistas. A traveling circus was still seen as a novelty, and Vanushka, the young star, made an immediate impression. Word of her beauty quickly spread through town until it reached the ears of even the most cultured young men.
Javier, the son of the city’s wealthiest merchant, had heard about her, but went to the circus on a bit of a lark. He — who had already seen all of Central America’s capitals despite his tender age — was sure the entertainment would be beneath him, but thought he would humor his friends, who insisted it was worth the meager price of admission.
It was true that Javier and his friends enjoyed more than a few pilsners, brewed by a recent wave of German immigrants, but that is hardly explanation for what happened when the group finally arrived at the fairgrounds.
The boisterous group was just taking their seats and Vanushka was just stepping on stage when she and Javier first locked eyes. It was just for the briefest of moments, as Vanushka was initially too shy to hold his gaze, but it felt significant to both. It felt like it would be the first of a lifetime of loving looks.
Vanushka put on a tremendous show that night. Every step she took was flawless, every leap was perfectly timed. Javier had been to a ballet in Panama City, but he had never seen anything like this. No one had.
Even Javier’s drunken friends, who had come just to make catcalls at Vanushka and the other dancers, were quieted by the pure artistry, the genius of the performance. They say the applause she received could be heard on the top of the Volcán Santa Maria.
Even Vanushka knew she had just given the performance of a lifetime, although dancers are often the last to know. She basked in the applause, soaked it all in, for she knew she would need every bit of it to build her confidence for what was coming next.
Javier was moving — you couldn’t even describe it as walking, for he was propelled by something so much stronger than his legs — towards the stage. Purple and white flowers, which had been purchased in jest to throw at the bearded woman (who would later appear in her “royal robes”) were now thrown upon the stage in utter sincerity and appreciation of Vanushka’s performance.
The flowers swirled around the pair as Javier arrived and was suddenly face to face with the bowing dancer. She didn’t drop her eyes this time. He took her hand and guided her off the stage, without ever breaking contact with the cool, icy blue of her eyes.
For the next week, they never left each other’s side, other than for Vanushka’s performances which were beyond inspired. After every show, the same rain of flowers and applause, and Javier was there to offer his hand. They’d spend their evenings walking around the circus grounds or taking long hikes through the mountain passes. For any other pair, their vastly different languages would have made communication difficult, but they hardly needed to speak. All that one might say to a new lover, they already understood.
As a second week passed, word began to spread around town about the beautiful young dancer yet again, but this time it was spread not amongst the young men eager to see a pretty face, but amongst the cultured avant-garde, eager to see inspiration in the raw.
Vanushka’s father raised prices three times the next week, and she still danced for full houses, and the circus became a who’s who of the Quetzaltenango elite.
So of course it one day came to pass, after nearly four weeks of constant courtship, that Javier’s father came upon the fairgrounds. He was not unlike his son, and he too came on a bit of a lark. Few had sway over the elder Javier — certainly not his wife, who had already asked to visit the circus and had been rebuked — but a very old friend and a former business partner had made a rare social call on Javier Sr. that evening. After more than a few drinks, he insisted that the two should go.
Javier Sr. was not at all taken by the performance. He understood that it had some limited artistic merit, but he was a hard man to effect, and an impossible man to enthrall. The whole thing was decidedly beneath him.
As he bent to rebuke his former partner for being such a vulgar little man and wasting so much of his time, he noticed a strange smile on the other man’s face. The man nodded in the direction of the stage. The elder Javier turned just in time to see his only son, his namesake, approaching Vanushka in a state of dumb, all-smiles, dignity-be-damned, silly-as-a-schoolboy lovesickness. The familiarity of the couple was unmistakable to Javier Sr.
His anger wasn’t instant, because if we’re telling the truth, it took Javier Sr. a moment to even recognize his son. The young Javier that he knew was a boy without a hint of conviction or drive; a boy who didn’t know, and hopefully never would, the full weight of any sort of responsibility; a boy who processed an arrogance that only germinates in those that are completely untested; a boy who laughed at earnest effort, who unconsciously looked down upon everyone and everything. And this is exactly why Javier Sr. was proud of him. This was the type of person he had groomed him to be. The younger Javier, more than anything his father owned, was the ultimate testament to the wealth his father had obtained.
This boy, or man maybe, walking towards the stage, grabbing one of the filthy gypsy dancers, pulling her down into his arms, kissing her in public, encouraging the acceptance and applause of this vulgar audience. This was not his son.
Javier Sr. was far too conscious to put an end to his son’s charade that night in public. He slunk away from his grinning friend and from the glances — maybe even sneers — of those around him, into the shadows and made his way home.
As the night slowly deepened and then dissolved, Javier Sr. paced their massive foyer, awaiting his son who did not return. A discreet dalliance with a dancer, this the old man could understand — a conquest to condone — but what he had witnessed was tainted by a sick, embarrassing sincerity. Of course it was his wife to blame. She’d been too emotional around their son. Read him one too many fairy tales. Filled him with the fallacy that men required love.
The longer he waited, the worse his son’s indiscretion grew. By the first light of dawn, it was a full betrayal. Surely he had been the last to know — by now the whole town was laughing at the rich boy who wanted to run off with a gypsy circus freak. He could feel the respect he’d built, the envy he’d so purposefully cultivated, the arrogance he’d fostered. All he had worked for was being destroyed.
And that’s the thing about pride — it’s only rarely held in the collective, and more often then not it is merely in the mind of one man or one woman, making it all the more fragile.
It mattered not that the good people of Quetzaltenango, rather than passing judgement on young Javier, actually embraced his open love for Vanushka. They were happy for Javier, and for the first time in forever they looked fondly upon his family now that they were finally showing some humanity.
But the elder Javier could not perceive this. He did not understand the new warmth he felt on the street when walking to his offices the next day. He saw the people’s smiles not as camaraderie or pleasant acknowledgment but as a new condescending form of familiarity.
It was several days before the Javiers crossed paths. The younger saw no need to leave Vanushka’s side, and the elder would not dare approach the fairgrounds for fear it would be seen as an endorsement.
But one night, as son stopped home for a quick change of clothes, father returned from an unusually long day at the office. The younger smiled at his father, as he had recently become in the habit of smiling at everyone, and again Javier Sr. mistook joy for ridicule. He cuffed his son across the face with a swipe from one of his enormous hands, still powerful from the many years he had spent loading oxcarts as a child and young man. His son fell to the floor, out of shock as much as the force.
The father was pitiless. He towered over the boy. He shouted first his rebukes and his epithets. Then his suspicions, followed by his own, self-made legend and how his son was tarnishing what he’d worked so hard to build. He ranted until he ran out of breath, and had to put his hands to knees.
The younger seized the pause and stood up – literally, but not figuratively, to his old man. He could keep eye contact for only a moment before scurrying out the front door.
That night, in a small tent just beyond the fairgrounds, Javier and Vanushka began to make their plans. They would head north to Mexico, to the port city of Veracruz, where Vanushka believed they would find tolerance and work.
Vanushuka was a very resourceful young woman, and was certain that she could navigate their way back over the Sierra Madre mountains with even the most limited amount of provisions. They would leave at dawn’s first light. That night was the very best of their already amazing courtship. They had a plan. They had a purpose. They had a future. They were blissfully content. Neither had ever felt more loved or more certain.
Javier Sr. understood his son well enough to suspect he would flee, and understood ambition and greed well enough to know that Vanushka’s father wouldn’t want to lose his main attraction. The two businessmen met late that evening. Vanushka’s father, who up to this point had been quite pleased with his daughter’s relationship and its effect on her dancing, was made to realize that his business was at stake.
The two men planned to conspire or conspired to plan something elaborate, but since they were both more business than heart or imagination and found that even speaking of their children’s love was far too uncomfortable, they quickly decided that a simple enforced separation would suffice. They believed that their children, buffeted by a change of scenery, would, after a brief period of heartache, go on to live their lives as their fathers saw fit.
They immediately put the plan into action as Vanushka’s father awakened the camp and ordered a move southward onto Guatemala City. Javier’s father readied a carriage to take his son to the coast — from there he would book passage to Spain, where he could study at the same university as a distant cousin.
The arrangements quickly made, the fathers followed the path of purple and white flower petals up to the tent where the two lovers had made their happy home, stopping briefly to rouse the circus strong man, in case there was trouble.
The trio found the young lovers, asleep and intertwined, with their packed baggage close at hand. Javier Sr. took a look at his son, with a welt still growing on his cheek.
Young Javier awakened as his father grabbed him, but physically did not put up much of a fight. Instead he pled, begged, pleaded, cajoled, implored and asked — a whole thesaurus worth of words meant to persuade you of his efforts, his desperation — but his father showed little mercy, trying only briefly to sugarcoat the banishment to Spain.
When Javier Sr grew tired of the argument, he merely nodded at the strong man, who pulled the boy up, grabbed his packed bag, and dragged him from the tent. Vanushka screamed and held on to Javier for as long as she possibly could, but was soon pulled away by her father.
As they were wrestled their separate ways, the couple simultaneously realized that this may be their ultimate parting. Javier called out to his lover over his shoulder. He swore he would be back for her, as soon as he could. He would think of her every moment of every day, he would not rest, not sleep without her, he would wait for her forever, fight for her soul for all eternity if that is what it took… He said all things that separating lovers say.
Vanushka didn’t believe a word. She sank to the ground in tears. Vanushka knew what the transatlantic voyage was like, and the Europe she knew was a dark and bloody place, thrown open often to the horrors of war and disease — she had lost a mother and several siblings which had precipitated their departure to Guatemala. She was now sure she’d never see her love again, when their future together had felt so destined just hours before.
So certain was she of their Veracruz plans, so certain was she of the power of love, so certain was she that her destiny was wrapped up in Javier. She was too young, too idealistic or too stubborn to accept how much grey compromise exists in most people’s worlds. She could see only her love or her death.
Vanushka stopped eating, stopped sleeping, certainly stopped dancing. Without food, rest or creativity, she wasted away at an alarming rate. Despite interventions from her father and everyone she new, within two weeks she was gone.
Mercifully, It took months for the news to reach Javier in Spain. By the time he heard of her death, they had been apart for long enough that he had already begun to think of her as some sort of phantom, an angel of bliss, so that when he heard she was dead, it made a certain amount of sense. Surely nothing as beautiful, splendid or divine as their love could have been bound to this earth for long.
And indeed, there was a certain divine quality, for Vanushka was one of ever so few allowed to keep a certain amount of influence in the earthly world.
Just a few short months after Vanushka had been buried in a regal grave erected with the money of her ardent aficionados in Quetzaltenango, a young woman sought Vanushka’s council. She brought flowers – purple and white, as had once rained down upon Vanushka and Javier – and after trying to say a few prayers about her dear love who had recently disappeared on a trek through the treacherous mountains, she decided instead to write it all down directly on the grave.
She had never tried her hand at writing before, but the words poured from her pen, and out of the depth of her emotions came a hope so strong that she left the grave completely renewed. Within days her young man returned and soon thereafter proposed. This was Vanushka’s first of many intercessions.
For almost 100 years now, Quetzaltenango’s lovesick have flocked to Vanushka’s final resting place, with pens, hopes and purple and white flowers. The cemetery has nearly been driven bankrupt by how many times they have had to repaint her tomb, but it is widely known that Quetzaltenango is a place of love and joy like you cannot find anywhere else in the Americas, and with each intercession, Vanushka rests a little better, a little closer to true peace.
—
The man seemed quite moved by the story, and when he was done we sat in silence for more than a few moments. Finally I asked the old man what had happened to Javier.
“You mean the coward who wouldn’t stand up to his father?
The old man shook his head, sadly.
“No one knows.”
How to find Vanushka’s grave
Vanushka is buried in the Cementerio Calvario. We stayed near the Parque Centro America, which is a gathering point and the focal point for a lot of tourist activities. Odds are pretty good you’ll be staying near the Parque Centro America as well. If so, you’re in luck. It’s a very straightforward, 1km walk from there to Vanushka’s grave.
How to find Vanushka’s grave
Vanushka is buried in the Cementerio Calvario. We stayed in the Black Cat Hostel near the Parque Centro America, which is a gathering point and the focal point for a lot of tourist activities. Odds are pretty good you’ll be staying near the Parque Centro America as well. If so, you’re in luck. It’s a very straightforward, 1km walk from there to Vanushka’s grave.
The cemetery is presided over by Iglesia Calvario and fronted by Parque El Calvario. On the side of the church, to the left of the park, there’s a series of flower shops (feel free to grab a bouquet for dear Vanushka’s grave) that lead right up to the main gate of the cemetery.
Once inside the cemetery, Vanushka’s grave is down the main walkway to the left. It’s a little hidden, but you’ll come across it eventually. Don’t forget to take in the rest of the cemetery as well. It’s a pretty remarkable place.
Is Quetzaltenango safe?
In our experience, yes. We always felt safe in Xela. If you’re coming from Antigua, Xela might feel a little more gritty, but we never felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
I was surprised to see that both “Local Guides” on Google Maps and the guides at Lonely Planet recommend traveling to the cemetery in groups for safety purposes. Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala and deals with issues such as homelessness and poverty like any other big city in the Americas, but again, we always felt safe. Take typical big city precautions, and you’ll be fine.
Is Quetzaltenango worth a visit?
We certainly thought so, but not everyone shares that opinion. If you’re looking for the Guatemala so often hashtagged on instagram, you can probably skip Xela and hang out a while longer in Antigua or Lake Atitlan. For us, however, Xela represented a far less touristy, much more authentic Guatemala.
Our time Guatemala was unfortunately short, so our perspective is limited, but we felt like Xela gave us a better feel for workaday, everyday Guatemala city life.
We spent our Xela time in cafes and bookstores. We ate well and ate cheaply. We lingered in parks. I wrote a lot. There are a staggering amount of tours of the local mountains and volcanoes available, and we did none of them. Xela was enough for us. I think we’re richer for having visited (and not much poorer in the pocketbook.)
