the market

The rest of my yesterday was wonderful. Michael introduced me to a street snack of roasted corn that tasted exactly like popcorn. I already had a few cuba libres (rum and cokes) in me, so this find made me super excited. It was fun wandering the street at night, eating popcorn corn, seeing little mayan kids watch a religious movie in their native tongue, and walking by the lake in the rain. After a dinner of decent pizza, we spent the rest of our night at the Circus Bar again. This time the live music was more impressive (three guys playing wicked guitar and one guy on bongos). We met two dentists sitting next to us, one American and one Guatemalan, who kept us entertained with conversation for our visit, and Michael even ran into someone that he knew from 14 years ago, back when he lived in Pana. I had one too many cuba libres (as that's what my head and stomach told me this morning), but it was a great hangout.

Today was another slow wake-up, but when we finally got up and going, we hopped on a bus to Chichicastenago. It took two buses and a small shuttle to get there, but Michael and I were dying to go see the famous market. I will have to upload pictures later, as this computer wont read my camera, but the market was amazing. The entire town had been turned into stands where people were selling produce, tapestries or fried chicken. We started by checking out the two big churches near the center of the market (which were much different from Spain - hardly any ornamentation at all, but one did have a fake tomb of Jesus to pray to), got a fish burger to share, and spent the rest of the time wandering through the maze of stands. I felt like I was in a bizzare dream. I saw men walk by with baskets of live turkeys on their backs, with their little turkeys heads poking out. I saw the most brightly and beautifully colored clothes and table cloths hanging all around me. I heard hundreds of lies to make me buy wares, including 'you can have a discount for speaking good spanish'. It was overwhelming and incredibly worth the ride up there. I can just barely imagine what it's like for a local family to go there on a Sunday and buy what they need to live. It's certainly a different world.

The ride back in the shuttle was entertaining, as they kept trying to fill it with as many people as possible. If everyone had a seat the shuttle would hold 14, but there were more like 25 people in there at a time - it's amazing how people will squeeze for a ride and how the driver and his partner will work for as many quetzals as possible. The camionetas were actually fairly empty on the ride back, and we were finally able to get a window seat which gave us a great view of the lake as we rode into Pana.

Tomorrow Michael and I are moving across the lake to either San Pedro or San Marcos - most people I talked to before coming here told me that both of those towns are worth visiting and many liked them even more than Pana. The next night we'll hop over to the other town and then head back to Pana for one more night before moving on from the lake.

It's absolutely beautiful here at the lake, and so far this trip is making me seriously consider moving to Guatemala. I would be starting at the same place here that I would in America as far as finding a job and a house goes, and the pace of life here is one I could get really used to. It would certainly make my life exciting. There's a lot to think about on that front though because really, could I live without fast internet and great showers?