There is Tuesday market high in the city, higher than we've been, and we took a cab up there yesterday to check it out. We had asked several people over the last few weeks about the market, and most would grunt less than detailed responses. Even Ray from Sol Y Luna, who would like to talk to us about anything, including his affinity for just staying in the homes of the people he meets when he's traveling, simply mentioned a street name when we asked where it was and did not elaborate. It was the only thing on which he didn't elaborate so we weren't totally sure what to expect, but it was great. It was a Mexican market for Mexicans and again, despite what our book said, the last word I would use to describe it is Disneyish.
It was four square blocks of tents and booths, similar in many ways to those we saw at the festival in Atotonilco, but many more useful items were for sale. There were hardware tents and machetes and antiques and new clothing and used clothing, fruits and vegetables and beef and poultry. There were puppies for sale and a wide range of birds and turtles and bunnies. There were shoes and belts and hats and toiletries. There was on the ground a tarp covered entirely in zippers and snaps. There were used remote controls and cell phones and new televisions and makeshift restaurants and juice stands and tables completely filled with confections and/or potato chips and pork rinds. There were several tents filled with thousands of CDs and/or DVDs that from the outside appeared legit but were propped open to stand and you could see they were all bootlegged and burned.
The smells were sumptuous and Chris had his first bagged drink while we were there. The juice stands serve juice in baggies with straws poking out through the knot, and he had pineapple juice that was so sweet my teeth ached as it passed them. The other choices were beet and carrot and mango, but we only tasted the one. The stalls were swamped with people and we didn't get there until afternoon so I can't imagine how dense it must be in the morning.
We shopped for produce and came home with lovely avocados, tomatoes, peppers, limes and onions that transformed themselves into guacamole later in the day and pineapple, cantaloupe and mangoes that we had with breakfast this morning. Of course, there's fresh fruit at the Jewel on Narraganset, but we got everything we needed at the market for two dollars, and it was excellent.
I have recently found the drink that makes me most happy is a chelada: the juice of two limes, one beer, three cubes of ice and some salt. I'm not sure why my whole life I've been cutting a tiny sliver of lime and popping it past the lip of a beer bottle when I could have been drinking these. Foolish. We stopped for supplies so that when Susan got in from the airport we would be able to sit down to the homemade guac and cheladas and settled in for her arrival. She was right on time and we let her catch her breath for a spell at our place before we went to her hotel to check in, after which we walked. We went to the Principal Jardin and she was able to see the outside and in of the Parroquia and another church that was actually closing up as we were visiting, which was surprisingly neat. There was a single man who was responsible for turning off each set of lights, beginning at the altar and then continuing back to the door and we moved right along with each extinguished sconce and chandelier. We wandered around so Sue could get a sense of the town and then went to a late dinner at Hecho en Mexico (where the main character in Murder, Mystery & Mayhem in San Miguel was always meeting the police lieutenant who solicited his help) and we all enjoyed our meals. We walked Susan back to her hotel and made plans to pick her up this morning at 9 a.m.
Today, we had breakfast in and then went to Biblioteca Publica for coffee and planned our day. We returned to some of the churches, including San Francisco, that had been closed last night and also walked through the permanent market in town so that Susan could take in the sights and smells and sounds of it all. We talked ad nauseum about the difference between tripe and menudo and other things I don't prefer to buy at the market and then followed the lanes of the food and flower market to the rear where the artisans have their stalls. While Chris and I have walked through there many times, we have reserved shopping because we know Susan enjoys it and so we saw things with new eyes as we traversed the stalls and booths with her. There are some styles of painting here that we may have to bring home examples of to commemorate this trip.
We had not yet visited the Allende Museum--housed in his actual residence--and did today. It was a perfect combination of historic documents and artifacts on the first floor and the second floor was preserved such that visitors can see how Allende purposed the rooms in his home and had such finely crafted pieces of furniture that I wanted to live there.
We had tacos for lunch at an outdoor restaurant that blessedly had a tarpaulin roof, because it rained with terrific force while we were there and while we waited the storm out, there are no gutters here so my socks were pretty well soaked by the time we got home. We spent some time at home figuring out the schedule of the film festival and reading travel and leisure books before heading out again when blue returned to the sky.
The birds in Benito Juarez Park are among the neatest sights we've seen here and even if Susan didn't have a proclivity for looking up, it was important that she see them. We went higher than I had been in the park before and there were dozens of egrets up in the very tall trees but the hill is so steep that we were able to negotiate a position relatively close to them. They are majestic and captivating. The sun was setting over the mountains behind them and it was so beautiful that even the pungent odor of bird poop didn't drive us away for some time. I hope Susan thought it was neat; I think she did.
We walked up and down streets and in and out of shops until it was time for dinner and had Mexican food in our neighborhood. There was a lot of laughter and, when we were done, we walked Susan back to her hotel. Tomorrow, we're taking a daytrip to Dolores Hildago, where none of us has been, and Atotonilco so that Susan can see the Santuario there with all of its murals. Hidalgo is historically significant to the Mexican fight for Independence and I look forward to learning more. And we're being picked up early, so...
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