Adelante! Que buscas?
Good grief, this keyboard is going to kill me. Not only are there a ton of new symbols, meaning that all the regular keys are in the wrong place, but half the keys create symbols different than the ones marked on the keys and the other half have symbols worn off so I cant tell what Im doing. And I only have a half an hour while we´re waiting for transport to Antigua, so forgive the spelling and grammer.
We got into Guatemala city last night after a brisk 2.5 hour flight. Pippa was a little champ despite having been sick the day or two before and having a lingering cold and smoker´s cough. Mom brought lollipops to distract her during the flight, I brought my earplugs. See how we are? We finally retrieved our luggage at the smallest, lowest most crowded luggage carrousel I´ve ever seen, got through customs without any issues and then tried to find Nate, who was meeting us. As we walked out of the airport security area we entered the area where everyone waits for the incoming flights. It was a long hallway spilling into an open room that opens to the outdoors with a huge garage door type. They had roped off the center section into a hallway of sorts for the arriving people to walk down, and on both sides of the gauntlet were waiting people stacked about 20 deep. 20 people deep on either side for a hundred feet or more, then maybe a hundred more outside. I´ve never seen so many people waiting at the airport. All we needed was screaming and I would have felt like one of the Beatles arriving in that old footage from the 60´s. It was crazy. Somehow we found nate, haggled over taxis and got into the city to our hotel by about 10Pm. We ate at a French (!) restaurant at a two story mall = crepes and Gallo beer, which is like alcoholic water. And then we heard REALLy loud Christmas music so we investigate and they have set up a ¨snow¨ machine on the second floor spitting out tiny bits of soapy water falling to the first floor to the accompaniment of LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW. Everyone´s whirling around under the ¨snow¨ with their kids on their shoulders, looking at the ¨snow¨ in their hair and generally acting like `people do when it snows. It was fun and then slippery and then the floor was a complete hazard. It was about 80 degrees outside when we got here so this is as close to snow as we´re likely to get.
The next morning we had our desayuno tipico ‘ eggs, refried beans, fried plantains and salsa with café con leche, and headed to the market. The market was exactly like every movie or picture you´ve ever seen. Brightly dressed native women and kids selling every possible item, fresh flowers, live chickens, clothes, shoes, jewelry, icons, masks, junky souveniers, cheap electronics, food cooked on open grills, vegetables cut open to show their freshness, fruit stacked in pyramids and Christmas decorations galore. And of course the stalls are tiny and all crammed in next to eachother with super narrow aisles that you are sharing with the dog and the guy on the bicycle at any given moment and the ceilings are Low, because the native people here average about 5 feet tall. So Chris, my brother in law, constantly bumped his head on the ¨ceiling¨, really just umbrellas or tarps strung up over the stalls. Then from all sides are the calls of Adelante! Que buscas! Or Come on in! What are you looking for? And the tiny kids crowding up next to you to sell you hand made bracelets or small dolls or what have you. It´s insane.
We bought very little, knowing that we´re going to see a version of this Mercado everywhere we go for the next 10 days and the mother of all mercados is in chichicastenango where we´ll be on Thursday. But it´s a completely overwhelming experience. So many people and things and colors and smells and sounds packed into a very small area, like a solid cube of sensory overload
That was most of our day and of course I´m out of time. So I´m out of ehre so lorien can check her email before we leave. But one brief thing, the water situation. We aren´t supposed to drink it, brush our teeth in it, let it get in your mouth in the shower or even breathe near it, as far as I can tell. Muy malo. So the first night, no problem, I use bottled water. The next day I don´t think about it and then that night I´m brushing my teeth and realize the water´s running. Crap! Then I realize that I also brushed my teeth in the water that morning. Crap crap! So I´m telling this story at breakfast this morning and everyone´s giving me their dire health predictions and I´m agreeing with them and anxiously scanning my person for signs of trauma. I go back to the hotel and am brushing my teeth and again realize, the water´s running. Sigh. I do not follow directions well. So if this is my last post, it´s been fun! Merry Christmas everyone!
We got into Guatemala city last night after a brisk 2.5 hour flight. Pippa was a little champ despite having been sick the day or two before and having a lingering cold and smoker´s cough. Mom brought lollipops to distract her during the flight, I brought my earplugs. See how we are? We finally retrieved our luggage at the smallest, lowest most crowded luggage carrousel I´ve ever seen, got through customs without any issues and then tried to find Nate, who was meeting us. As we walked out of the airport security area we entered the area where everyone waits for the incoming flights. It was a long hallway spilling into an open room that opens to the outdoors with a huge garage door type. They had roped off the center section into a hallway of sorts for the arriving people to walk down, and on both sides of the gauntlet were waiting people stacked about 20 deep. 20 people deep on either side for a hundred feet or more, then maybe a hundred more outside. I´ve never seen so many people waiting at the airport. All we needed was screaming and I would have felt like one of the Beatles arriving in that old footage from the 60´s. It was crazy. Somehow we found nate, haggled over taxis and got into the city to our hotel by about 10Pm. We ate at a French (!) restaurant at a two story mall = crepes and Gallo beer, which is like alcoholic water. And then we heard REALLy loud Christmas music so we investigate and they have set up a ¨snow¨ machine on the second floor spitting out tiny bits of soapy water falling to the first floor to the accompaniment of LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW. Everyone´s whirling around under the ¨snow¨ with their kids on their shoulders, looking at the ¨snow¨ in their hair and generally acting like `people do when it snows. It was fun and then slippery and then the floor was a complete hazard. It was about 80 degrees outside when we got here so this is as close to snow as we´re likely to get.
The next morning we had our desayuno tipico ‘ eggs, refried beans, fried plantains and salsa with café con leche, and headed to the market. The market was exactly like every movie or picture you´ve ever seen. Brightly dressed native women and kids selling every possible item, fresh flowers, live chickens, clothes, shoes, jewelry, icons, masks, junky souveniers, cheap electronics, food cooked on open grills, vegetables cut open to show their freshness, fruit stacked in pyramids and Christmas decorations galore. And of course the stalls are tiny and all crammed in next to eachother with super narrow aisles that you are sharing with the dog and the guy on the bicycle at any given moment and the ceilings are Low, because the native people here average about 5 feet tall. So Chris, my brother in law, constantly bumped his head on the ¨ceiling¨, really just umbrellas or tarps strung up over the stalls. Then from all sides are the calls of Adelante! Que buscas! Or Come on in! What are you looking for? And the tiny kids crowding up next to you to sell you hand made bracelets or small dolls or what have you. It´s insane.
We bought very little, knowing that we´re going to see a version of this Mercado everywhere we go for the next 10 days and the mother of all mercados is in chichicastenango where we´ll be on Thursday. But it´s a completely overwhelming experience. So many people and things and colors and smells and sounds packed into a very small area, like a solid cube of sensory overload
That was most of our day and of course I´m out of time. So I´m out of ehre so lorien can check her email before we leave. But one brief thing, the water situation. We aren´t supposed to drink it, brush our teeth in it, let it get in your mouth in the shower or even breathe near it, as far as I can tell. Muy malo. So the first night, no problem, I use bottled water. The next day I don´t think about it and then that night I´m brushing my teeth and realize the water´s running. Crap! Then I realize that I also brushed my teeth in the water that morning. Crap crap! So I´m telling this story at breakfast this morning and everyone´s giving me their dire health predictions and I´m agreeing with them and anxiously scanning my person for signs of trauma. I go back to the hotel and am brushing my teeth and again realize, the water´s running. Sigh. I do not follow directions well. So if this is my last post, it´s been fun! Merry Christmas everyone!
posted by KBARRETT at 9:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home