Guatemala: Day 2

This morning I woke up to an amazing breakfast of tamale with hen, fried plantains, lemonade, and bread. I needed my energy since we were going to hit the markets looking for fruits and other good things to eat.

Escuintla has two main markets (that I know of), and we went to the larger one first. It had a big underground parking area, and I must admit I was little shocked at this little bit of modernity. The market itself started with mostly fruit and dry goods stands, but as you made your way deeper into the crowds, you eventually found the meats and housewares.

We were picking up fruits left and right: papayas, pineapples, mandarins, starfruit, guavas, and at least six fruits I had never seen before, including the mamey sapote. Everything was incredibly fresh and inticing. As we worked our way further in, we found the meat stands, with chickens split open to show the bright organs and pork ribs hanging from large hooks. Women with large baskets on their heads wove deftly through the crowds. We even found two young women that were making fresh tortillas for sale. We stopped at several stands looking for a comal for making tortillas back home, and after much haggling, managed to acquire some. My friend's aunt even bought her daughter some chicks to raise.

We finally pushed our way back out into the sunshine, and walked across the street to the main square. We stopped at a small convenience store to get bottled water. In Guatemala these small stores are typically covered in heavy iron railings so that everything has to be handed through the spaces in between bars. We moved through the shady plaza until we could see the tall yellow cathedral. In the background was one of the many volcanos in the area. A small boy tried to sell us flavored soda served in a plastic bag with a straw for 1 quetzal.

We finally jumped into the car to head to the second market. This one was much smaller, and it appeared that many of the vendors were already breaking down their stalls for the day. Inside we found the plantains we had been looking for, and I noticed a shrine of some sort in the center of the building.

After the markets, we headed to a house belonging to the mother of my friend's aunt, who was busily making lunch for us. As she finished cooking, we wandered around and at a sweet papaya ice served in a bag that she had made for us. The main sink in the back of the house obviously ran to some sort of stream since there were live fish inside. And we saw the tiny kitten that had wandered in a couple of days previous, looking for food. He didn't look big enough to be away from his mother, but I was quickly told that in Guatemala, cats drink cow milk (even though "American" cats can't digest it). Oh, well, what can you do?

We went out into the front yard and looked at the spindly papaya trees, with large green fruits hanging, and we were told our ices had come from those papayas. We walked next door to look at the birds of a lady who lived there. She had around twenty parakeets, and they made a pleasant racket. We loaded everyone into the car and started off down the road, stopping to grab some tortillas from some obliging women cooking in their front yard. I also grabbed a shot of a personable street dog (chucho in Spanish).

We then made our way back to the sugarcane processing plant for our special tour. We had to don protective gear just to go inside, including a helmet, hairnet, earplugs, and cotton facemask. As hard as all of that made it to communicate, I still got the basic idea that the sugarcane is ground up, the juice is extracted, and then it makes its way through various hoppers getting more and more purified along the way. At the last stage some Vitamin A and some other additives make the sugar white. Then it's dumped into bags and shipped overseas. The whole thing was fascinating, and I loved the sweet smell that clung to everything that for some reason reminded me of fresh summer corn.

After our tour we drove to another relatives house, as he has several fruit trees in his yard. My friend's mother wanted a specific kind of fruit that she particularly liked, and we hoped someone could climb the tree and pick some for us. We had to knock quite a bit before he answered, as he is deaf, but once inside we marveled at the mature trees and his family of mongrels. Unfortunately the fruit had already been picked for the season, but he gave us some of his stash. We also took some shots of the volcano plainly visible from his cul-de-sac.

Lunch back at my friend's aunt's house was hen stew with green beans, potatoes, and hen eggs, plantains in mole sauce, and the fruit we had scoured in the morning. The little chicks we had gotten made a racket as we ate. We grabbed a quick nap after lunch and then rode over to a new development to see how work was proceeding. Apparently several family members had purchased plots, and a new airport in the area was promising to make the investment worth it.

We then jumped onto a local highway to find a coconut stall. The one we stopped up was manned by a twelve-year-old girl with quick wits and a knack for hacking the pith off the coconut. She quickly made us each a coconut with straw to drink the milk. We enjoyed our treat as we surveyed the sky for its intent to rain. My friend's aunt gathered all the coconut meat together and promised us coconut ice cream later in the week.

We then drove back to Guatemala City and had dinner at the house we had first arrived at. We again had beans and tortillas, but I also got to try a fava bean and beef dish that had been served earlier in the day. I gratefully dropped off to sleep after my exhausting day.