{"id":380,"date":"2010-09-17T18:45:58","date_gmt":"2010-09-18T00:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/?p=380"},"modified":"2010-09-20T14:02:32","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T20:02:32","slug":"si-hay-realmente-pollos-en-los-autobuses-de-pollos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/si-hay-realmente-pollos-en-los-autobuses-de-pollos\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u00ed, hay realmente pollos en los autobuses de pollos"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just absolutely love mercados de Mayas. <\/em>Today, the students and our teachers went to San Francisco de Alto, a textile market town about 15km from Xela. \u00a0Carlos didn\u00b4t feel well this a.m., but he still came. \u00a0What a trooper. \u00a0I haven\u00b4t been on a camioneta, <\/em>which us gringos generally call \u00a8chicken buses\u00a8, <\/em>since I got here. \u00a0I rode enough of them three years ago, although I forgot how surreal the experience can be. The bus was crammed with marketgoers and we were honestly the only tourists on the bus. \u00a0A Mayan woman in full traje<\/em> with a basket on her head sat on my lap because there was literally no room to stand, yet still people still managed to shove on anyway. \u00a0NYC subways have NOTHING on camionetas. <\/em>To add another level of bizarre to the experience, el piloto<\/em> was blaring pretty racy rap music in English, with lyrics that ranged from smacking asses to things a nice Mayan woman with a basket on her head would blush if she could understand one word.<\/p>\n

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Pobrecito pollito<\/p><\/div>\n

When we arrived, we instantly started navigating through the narrow streets overflowing with colorfully weaved huipiles<\/em> and cortes.<\/em> Such stunning, vibrant colors and it really felt like business was being conducted. \u00a0Three years ago I visited Chichicastenango, a famous market town in Guatemala, which although vibrant and interesting, does tend to cater to tourists more.<\/p>\n

I have tons of pictures of course, but this computer is giving me agita…was able to upload a few, but I think I\u00b4m going to try and put together a separate slideshow on Picasa of the market.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the market has separate specialty areas…and I couldn\u00b4t wait to go to the live animal market. \u00a0My first experience with animal trade was in Riobamba in Ecuador, where women in traditional dress would go through bags of guinea pigs, (a delicacy in Ecuador and Peru) pinching and inspecting them before throwing them in baskets they would balance on their heads. \u00a0It was getting more and more crowded by the minute as we climbed up to a flat roof where people from neighboring pueblos brought their animals for sale. \u00a0It was like being in the middle of some sort of post-apocalyptic reality. \u00a0This dusty plain of Mayans sitting with their livestock. \u00a0It was like Mad Max with piglets. And chickens. And ducks. And rams.\u00a0 Incr\u00e9ible y fascinante.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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El Mercado de los Animales<\/p><\/div>\n

I kinda wish I was alone, all the teachers were worried about me because I kept wandering off, but they kept rushing and we really weren\u00b4t interacting with any of the vendedors<\/em>, which is why I thought we brought our teachers. \u00a0At this point, Carlos must have done a runner, because we couldn\u00b4t find him anywhere. \u00a0He had the right idea, wish I did too, because after the animal market, we went through my other favorite part…the FOOD. \u00a0But we just sped through it…which is really a shame because there were so many amazing vegetables, dried chilies, weird herbs, fried chicken and chicharrones<\/em>. \u00a0I like saying chicharrones. \u00a0I\u00b4m just going to have to go to another market on my own.<\/p>\n

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Chiles<\/p><\/div>\n

Apparently we were in a rush to get back and all hopped on the back of a crammed camioneta. \u00a0 The entire morning was amazing, but the absolute best part of the trip was on the back of that crowded camioneta<\/em>, where I had the delightful experience of showing Juana and her brother, two stunning Mayan children around 6 and 8 years old, all my pictures of the market and asking them to teach me how to say what everything was in Spanish. \u00a0I would purposely mispronounce things just to get delighted giggles and corrections. \u00a0 Priceless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like saying chicharrones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-studying-spanish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}