Two for Tuesday (kinda)

More Spanish class this morning. We go from 9 am to 12 pm and it is working out much better with all of us going at the same time so that we have the afternoons free. Yesterday we went to Pastores which is about 10 minutes away by bus. Pastores is a small town that specializes in making boots. A custom made pair will run you between Q350 - 1000 depending on what exactly you want. The trip was primarily a scouting trip to see what styles and options were available. The predominant style is cowboy and some of the boots had rather long pointy toes. No, we didn't take any pictures so you get to see what the Antigua bus station looks like instead:

Pretty exciting, huh? Actually, it is pretty amazing that you can get on a bus here and travel all over this beautiful country. While comfort may not be the greatest selling point (particularly for anyone larger than a typical 8th grader in the US), it is much easier to actually get to places here with public transportation than it is back home. Monday was one of the main market days here in Antigua so there are more vendors and more people coming to shop which gives the regular market a more energetic feel. And this is what it looks like:

Of course, this is all in addition to fruits and vegetables but you have seen enough pictures of those for now, right? Ah, screw it, here is one more:

And what is market day without some entertainment? Okay, I couldn't figure out if these were clowns entertaining or presenting a morality lesson but plenty of people stopped to listen/watch:

This afternoon, we went to the park after class and two guys came through selling bread. But not just any kind of bread. This bread isn't really a pastry but they call it 'pan dulce' which we think means 'sweet bread' but I really didn't care what it tasted like because this is what it looked like:

We found it difficult to photograph and capture the true brilliance of this creation but it is alligator shaped bread with a big gaping mouth with big teeth. Too cool. I walked around town and visited a couple art galleries and saw some amazing art. I really like the work by Doniel Espinoza at  La Antigua Galeria de Arte. So, if anyone has an extra $x,xxx they don't know what to do with, you could buy me this painting (it looks much better in person - as does all the art mentioned - and would go great with another of his paintings so feel free to contact me for the name of the other one so you can get both):

I really like his watercolors also:

And the work of Chilean artist Pilar Rios:

Also went to El Carmen Galeria de Arte and was really taken in by the work of Marlov Barrios and Erwin Guillermo (again, feel free to contact me for gift giving suggestions for, well, me!).  It is not surprising that influences of the 36 year long Civil War are found in much of the art and I found it to be very powerful.

Here is more of what I saw while walking around:

 Here is the public laundry where folks can bring their laundry and do it by hand. It seems to be closed now because of construction work going on in the park in front of it but we have seen it in use on previous adventures.