Calves, Piglets, Ducklings & Lambs, Oh My!
Trip Start
Jul 04, 2010
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128
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Trip End
May 10, 2011
San Francisco El Alto, Totonicapán, Guatemala
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Dave was happy that the school scheduled another soccer outing this week. He was determined to play better. During the warm up, he grabbed an extra ball and practiced making kicks against the wall. Timing and placement of ball (close to the plant foot) seemed to increase the ball speed a lot. Then, he really began walloping the ball against the wall with power. That was it for the day. His quadriceps cramped. He did not heed the advice to warm up slowly and learned that lesson (again). He played in pain (what a hero) and hobbled around hoping not to do much damage to the team. This time, the sides and scoring were more even. Jared on offense and our speedy little impenetrable Danish goal keeper (we forgot her name too) tipped the balance in our favor. Michelle, our sports photographer, got another round of nice pix.
FEBRUARY 4 San Francisco El Alto Market
Calves, Piglets, Turkeys, & Lambs, Oh My!
Dave had a 7AM to 9AM Spanish lesson with Claudia before picking Michelle up and making our way the to the "Rotunda" to catch another chicken bus to San Francisco El Alto. Today's wacky driver had a monkey hanging from the top that was attached to the horn in the place of a pull chain. So he would pull the monkey to honk warnings all along the way. It’s the first bus I’ve seen refuse a passenger. As the bus stood waiting leisurely at a bus stand, a guy walked toward the bus to get on. The driver closed the door in his face. The guy showed only a little disappointment and went and stood on a step and began organizing the pamphlets he had with him. The bus waited there awhile longer. Then the driver jumped out to relieve himself (pee) and while his back was turned, the guy snuck on the bus and went to the back row. The driver noticed but ignored the guy and drove off.
San Francisco El Alto is only about 40 minutes from Xela. It has a busy Friday morning market that is packed with people. We arrived and made our way into the bustling fray. We worked our way to the center and things began to look familiar. This was the market where Dave was pick pocketed on our prior trip to Guatemala six years ago. We have been more careful since and now we were even more suspicious. Michelle spotted some teenagers noticing us too much. Then a couple of their friends came around. Ladrones (thieves) work in teams. When Dave was picked, we were in a crowd working our way through the aisles. The crowd was stopped by someone up front. The people in back kept coming forward and the crowd bunched up compressed behind the blocker. When the jamb cleared, Dave’s wallet was gone. And now we were being eyed by suspicious looking lads. Nothing happened to us this time. But a little later, we overheard a foreigner asking a shop owner for the location of the police station. We guessed he needed to go report a theft so he would have some paperwork for the insurance recovery.
We made it up the hill to the livestock area. Very colorful. Pigs, chickens, and goats were up for sale. Also shiny tin pots, used electronics as well as new spare parts and used shoes. We have seen dozens of used clothing stores here in Guatemala which sell, what looks like used and surplus clothing from the USA, at bargain prices. From the upper market where the livestock is, there is a great view of the volcano across the valley from there.
Michelle wanted to find some handcrafted embroidery work there. All she could find were the cheaper mass produced machine made stuff. We went home empty handed and with our wallets intact. (Actually, Dave did not bring his wallet this time.)
