dia del mercado es muy grande y loco

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well its good to hear from the tikal crew. weve just retruned from chichicastenango, otherwise known as chichi, famous for its glorius sunday market and mix of pre christain and catholic religiousity. the shuttle ride tehre was fine, except we were forced to stop at the guatemalanb equivalent of a dennys for about 40 minutes- we figured that the dirvers (there were lost of shuttles there!) got free meals for brining in their "willnig" customers. they had a playground, which cedar liked, and clean bathrooms, which the rest of us liked. on to the market, the roads in guatemala- pretty nice condition, really, but at 30% grades and steeper, with- literally- 250 degree turns- we couldnt believe that fully loaded 50 year olds school buses and semis were taking this thing. it would never pass any code in the states- we were literally careening and then ascending straight up it seemed. the only part more fun would be the return, in the slick slick rain, going down.the market started off slow, then it was just madness. lots of tourists, but apparently this is the weekly market, so plenty more locals, too. comlete with pigs, goats in the road, baskets ful of chickens and turkeys, and more textiles than you can shake a stick at. each village has their own pattern of cloth, or traje, and -if you know- you can tell where everyone is from by their traje. after some spend therapy- and it wasnt the girls, it was eddie we couldnt pull away- we dined on guatemalan french fries and homeade cheese, thick corn tortillas, guacamole, etc. Ill get some pics up when I can compress the ones I took- they are too huge for this site.
the street kids were particularly aggressive, but eddie had a whole clan of them talking to him and following him, even though we reall didnt want to buy what they were selling. the begging culture was a bit of a downer, especially being asked to pay for pictures, but with the hordes of scandanavians, germans, etc milling around, they knew that they could get some quetzals out of it.
the return home- well we had to wiat for all the shutt;le drivers to quit gambling, thern we had to wait to fully fil up the mercedes minibus we were in. the driver was gone for some time, then brought back a harried older spanish couple, who werent going to allow him to put their stuff on the roof rack. so we forced and shoved until we got all their crap inside, and everyone in the car was cracking jokes at them which I guess they didnt understand. finally we were off, yet it was the driver who got the final laugh- he charged them $20 US for a one way ride that we had got for $6, just for their nonsense and demands. guatemala is wonderful, but customer service and speed arent the same, which is a good thing.
the sick one is happy and well, all are doing well in our group. the hostel is eagerly awaiting the arrival of, gulp, 24 of our kids. the reason students havent written is simply their lack of desire to, but Ill keep trying. I only have 4 with me, and they are very good at being in the moment. the weather is in the 60s and we just had another huge downpour. tomorrow- well it looks like a volcano hike, exploring, and a group off to the lanquin caves. we will see.
oh, and as far as we can tell, guatemalan food is black beans, homeade cheese, thick blue corn tortillas, rice, and gallo beer. apparently alot of gallo beer. and some stringy yellow chicken.

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