Another Fun Day Wandering in Leon Without Getting Lost

This distinctive bridge was the perfect landmark to find Mercado Republica.  I could even spot it from the windows of the bus. 

There it is.  I was hoping to find some of the groovy hooded sweaters I'd seen on sale on the streets of Pachuca.  I'd passed them by before, thinking of luggage space, but the cold nights of Hidalgo had me reconsider.  Leon is just a tad too metropolitan for such rustic items but Francisco told there was a chance I'd find them here if anywhere.

I found my sweaters later that day but not here.  This was all about leather goods and raw sheets of leather.

After the strange woman incident, the isolated street of Pachuca encounter and the hotel invasion attempt at Tolantongo, I wasn't in complete airhead tourist mode.  Some might call it paranoid. I prefer calling it situational awareness.  As a foreigner with a cowboy hat on his head, I tend to stick out and possibly attract the wrong sort of attention.

The Mercado area was just far enough from the historical center to reduce pedestrian traffic and the old narrow streets were an uncertain labyrinth of one-ways.  I chose my route by following the few cars that passed.  Obviously they were going somewhere.  It worked just fine and soon I was on the main multi-lane traffic route.

I passed a long line of happy street men receiving styro containers of food.  The food actually looked pretty good.  I kept to well travelled streets.

This sticker is on almost every trash can at the center square.  The loose translation is that there is nothing worth eating in there.  But that's a matter of opinion, isn't it?  Near where I sat with my peanut butter sandwiches, a man had resurrected two unfinished bottles of pop: one orange, one brown.  Warm and flat but sugary and sweet.  He seemed pretty happy with the score and offered to share with a man at a shoe sign stand. 

Across from me, another man slowly nibbled at some kind of vegetable, taking dainty pecks.  By the time I'd finished my sandwiches, he still hadn't made much progress.  I saw then he'd been working away on a big onion.  Yeah, that was going to take a while.       

I kept wandering down different streets I'd missed my first time around.  Whenever the affluent touristy boutique atmosphere faded, I'd turn back the way I'd come.  Eventually I stumbled across the other market I'd been told about and warned against.  It was just outside the tourist zone and very low end.  No cool rustic sweaters there, mostly just cheap goods from China.  It's easy to lose your sense of direction in these old markets and I didn't stay long.  My situational awareness was in high gear that day.

  

My situational awareness/paranoia hadn't alerted me to any hazards until I spotted a huge angry looking guy ahead of me I decided I definitely wanted to avoid.  He swaggered slowly along the sidewalk, maybe a bit drunk, scowling everywhere he turned, looking every bit a man in the mood to physically vent some grievances as soon as he found the right target.  As mentioned before, I sometimes stand out in a crowd a bit too much.   

So, I slowed my steps down but he was walking even slower as people instinctively stepped off the sidewalk curb and stayed out of his way.  He paused at a shop for a minute.  The store clerk carefully avoided eye contact.  I was getting closer than I wanted the whole time.  Eventually, we were going to meet up, like it or not.  Just before the upcoming crowded street corner crossing, I nonchalantly jaywalked through a lull in traffic to the other side of the street and disappeared back the direction I had come behind a parked city bus. 

Just in case he had already picked me out of the crowd and had paused at the shop deliberately to allow the gap to close, I kept walking.  At the next corner, there was the Museo de las Identidades Leonesas.  Why not? I don't picture guys like this one ever walking into museums.  Risk aversion to the max.

 

Quite a place.

There was a whole room on the history of slavery in Leon

Not every exhibit was so gloomy but there was one section featuring a lot of jail scenarios and the word 'carcel' kept popping up often enough for me to pull out the translator.  Sometimes one key word is all you need to fill in the gaps.  For sure.  Previous to its life as a museum, this place had been a jail.

This was one of the original cells.  Nothing but darkness in there once that door was shut.  Grim place.  I suppose this might have been the hole. 

When you peek inside, you can see a black and white film loop of a prisoner lying in the fetal position at the back.   

I didn't get lost once that day.

Market of Terror II: Escape From Chichitenango

The rain came down hard. We were both soaked before taking a sheltered table in the courtyard of the one beautiful hotel in town where they had hot coffee and yummy food and we could watch the rain pouring on to the lush garden courtyard. I was cold but happy. A marimba band started playing from an upper balcony. A much nicer place to be.



All good things must come to an end and the rain eventually stopped. Back to the market. Carina hadn't seen enough. I didn't try to reason with her. There was only a bit more than an hour left before we had to catch the last bus out of town. I knew I could make it. The rain had driven off a lot of people and it wasn't as jammed as before.

I know Carina must have thought it was totally wimpy but she humored me when I insisted on taking a nice comfy shuttle bus for the return trip.

Those who know me best know what a hardass I can be when it comes to beggars. Back in Toronto, we all know perfectly well that no matter what they say, the money is always going for crack, crystal meth or booze. In places like these, I know parents send their children out looking as pitiful as possible to collect cash and if they do a real good job and turn into little cash machines, that's going to be their career and they'll never have a chance at going to school. Too much kindness from strangers can destroy their futures. But while we waited in the van with the door wide open, I was confronted with the plaintive voice of a small child futilely calling "Una quetzal." I caved.

Please don't judge me too harshly. You had to be there. It was miserable and cold up there. She must have been 7 years old. She had a little five year old brother beside her and a lumpy baby on her back. I knew it had been one long suffering day for the little waifs. No one was giving them anything. We all knew better. Anyone reading this would have done the same. I was leaving in a comfy van. They were staying.

Now, I'm not looking to make anyone cry but I got the sweetest "Gracias." for my pitiful useless offering. She walked away a few steps and then backed up so the little baby could tell me "Gracias." too. I wanted out of there so bad. Later, I saw her still at it, still not having any luck. The quetzal and a half I'd given her had already been spent on a little snack. The baby was taking care of it, pulling it up out of the little fold in the blanket she was wrapped in while the big sister kept trying gently to push it back out of sight until later. No, life isn't fair.

Meanwhile, across the street, an absolutely wretched old beggar woman with no legs wailed helplessly while tickytok cabs kept passing her by. I suppose none of them wanted the job of lifting her into the cab. Eventually a nice young man did. He had no easy job.

We finally made it out of there. It was so good to be back to Panajachel. Our driver stopped at some nice lookout points and we all got much better shots of the lake from high than I did through the dirty wet window of the chicken bus. And then it was dinner and happy hour at the rock 'n' roll bar. A nice end to an interesting day.

Market of Terror

It all started off promising enough. The sun was shining. Yay! Carina and I just stepped on to the main street of Panajachel and the chicken bus was right there waiting for us, raring to whisk us away to the fabulous wonders of the world's largest Mayan market. The road to Chichitenango was a climb up and away from the relative warmth of lake Atitlan. I managed to get our window up for a while but the driver's speedy hammering over potholes shook it down again.

I approached that market with deep dread. It didn't help that I'd read a few excerpts from Carina's guide book warning travellers away from the picturesque traditional graveyard and one other spot as vistors have been robbed by gunpoint too often to ignore and sometimes murdered. We were also warned to watch out for pickpockets. I was way ahead of them on that one.

I tried to keep my paranoia to himself. I was there, as a self-appointed escort, to enjoy the company of my new friend, not to whine and spoil the fun. In we went.


Not too bad at first but, after visiting the cathedral, it became just about impossible to move. I tried to keep within half an inch of Carina but somehow old women managed to push us apart and I thought "Here we go again." My claustrophobia was taking over. I had to remind myself I wasn't carrying anything I couldn't afford to lose. All of the important stuff was locked in a safe back in Panajachel. Still, I kept a sharp eye on everything and everyone, particularly Carina, her bag and the pushy old ladies.




The same kid who had been trying to sell me weed and whores in Panachel was there hawking post cards. He started getting nasty. "I'm sick and tired of these stingy fucking tourists, man."

"Yeah, well, I'm one of them." He and his buddy had flat out asked me for money when I refused their help the day before.

It was "How about something for us? We're broke."

I see him every day now and he's been getting progressively nasty, a creepy little hurdle I have to pass every time I walk the street. But more on him later.

There was such an air of desperation at the world's biggest Mayan market. I didn't belong. This was somebody else's hell. Pointless capitalism in the raw. Outside of the real section of the market, offering food and household goods, everyone competed for the attention of the tourists. No local would be there to buy their jewelry and art objects.

It was interesting alright. So many sights I will never forget, so many deformities, so much diseased skin, so much poverty. Nothing I would have dared to point my camera at. The rough looking dude in the cowboy hat wasn't winking. He only had one eye.

In the end, nothing bad happened. I have Carina to thank for an interesting day that I would never have enjoyed without meeting her. It was an adventure from start to finish. No regrets.