We went to the famous market in Chichicastenango on Saturday. It's a few hours drive, up and out of the caldera the lake is in and down over another ridge. This is the front of the church with clouds of copal burning.

The market is mainly a series of street stalls filled with all kinds of weaving, embroidery, pottery, wood carvings and other artisania. Much larger than the one in Sololá, more variations of the same type of things and better prices usually. I spend a while comtemplating some antique wooden santos and paintings but never bought any.

We moved into the small aisles and started looking at fabrics and huipiles. Mainly I was looking for bedspreads, quilts and wall hangings. There is a lot to look at.

At some point we went upstairs in a small restaurant for lunch. It was great looking down over the street scene from the narrow balcony. There was a blind man with his wife singing hymns and a lot of hustle and bustle from vendors and shoppers.

As we were dawdling over the remains of our lunch, a shoeshine boy came and stood next to us staring. I'm pretty callous about street beggars having lived so long in San Francisco where you can't walk half a block without 5 people hitting you for money. I kind of waved him off thinking he wanted money. He just continued to stare at us. I took my camera out and snapped his picture which didn't seem to faze him either. Mimi is kinder than I am and perhaps she saw something I didn't because she suddenly offered him the remaining part of her hamburger. He took it eagerly and went a little ways away to eat it. When he came back we gave him the fries left on my plate and a bottle of soda and he ate those quickly too. Leaving, I realized that I would have completely missed that he was really just hungry and that the look on his face was not antagonistic. I've been thinking about that a lot since.

This is a girl that was selling trinkets in the street in Panajachel. Mimi also shared her dinner with her one night and they chatted in spanglish for a long time. Her name is Luz and she told Mimi that her mother lived in Chichicastenango and that she came to Pana on the bus alone with stuff to sell, she would stay for 3 or 4 days and then take the bus back home. We spotted her in Chichi and she took us to her mother's spot on the street, that's her mom in the background. She is one of 11 kids and she says she is 10 years old.

These are some of the huipiles sold all over Guatemala but in great quantities here in Chichicastenango. They are hand embroidered and signify the village the woman is from. The work on them is amazing and considering the time it takes to make them, the prices are almost embarrassing. That doesn't mean I don't barter! I usually offer about half of what they ask at first, sometimes less. We negotiate and I walk away if negotiations stall. If they come after me, I go back and decide.

Here's a close up picture of some of them. I actually bought only 3 during our whole time there. I bought 2 in Chichi and one in the small village of Santa Catarina on Lake Atitlan. I paid from $20 to $30 for them. Two of them are being sewn onto wood to hang on the walls in our condo here in Mexico, I'm bringing one of them home for our friend Country.