Chichicastinango

This is our Tour Guide, Ryan, getting his shoes shined on the steps of the Cathedral. Jared had major flash backs to his mission seeing this. He said they payed the little local boys 35 cents a day to shine their shoes, apparently they did a pretty good job too.
Chichicasinango is the largest Tourist Market in all of Guatemala. They have EVERYTHING you could ever think of when it comes to tourist crap. But some of it's actually pretty good quality stuff, actually most of it is.

I bought my sister, Marlene, some very fine Jade jewelry set in Sterling Silver. She did such an EXCELLENT job looking after our kids I just had to say thank you. Wish we could have brought her more.

Masks, Masks, Masks. We didn't end up actually buying a mask, because Jared already has a few left over from his mission. So I thought I'd just take some pictures.

I thought these paintings were kind of neat. Though I probably wouldn't have done such a lovely landscape with such freakishly bright colors. But hey, when in Guatemala, use as many colors as possible. I think it's a theme here.

Speaking of color. This is the Guatemalan version of Dillards. Skirts, belts and blouses. And it doesn't really have to match either, just as long as you like the color that's what you buy.

Candles everywhere. Electricity is rather expensive and I think the cities actually turn off the power at a certain time every night. So, since it get's dark around 6 you have to have light somehow. Personally I'd just buy that crazy, huge, 4 foot long candle. That thing would last you the whole year I bet.

Plantains (platinos) anyone? Yum, Yum, Yum!! I prefer them boiled. The fried ones are not very good. We did get some that they'd made like potato chips. Now those were good!

We ate so many tortillas, but I still don't think I got enough. I loved watching them make them. They've obviously been doing this for a while.

Just a pretty tree. Flowers everywhere. Flowers and fruit, it was wonderful!

We passed this waterfall on our way. It was so hot and sticky this day I wished we could have stopped and swam in it, it looks so inviting.

So when we got to Chichicastinango we stopped for a potty break at a VERY nice place. We still had to pay to use this toilet but it was MUCH better than the one on Burnt Mountain. There's even a marimba playing in the background. I took this little video for my Sicily.