Shadowmoss's Big Adventure

Ok, so it wasn't exactly a big adventure. I called Carlos the taxi driver to come get me Sunday afternoon. He was confused by where I wanted to go. Finally he asked what I needed. I showed him my camera, and he took me to the park. I told him to pick me up at that spot when I called him. My ride home assured, I stepped up and took the first picture:

You may need to click on it to see that it is an open area with a fountain in the middle with benches under the surrounding trees.

I then turned around and took the picture of the dominant feature in the square around the park. It is an old Cathedral (duh) from maybe the 1500's? A guide came up to me immediately as I was obviously a tourist with money. After my 'no hablo Espanol' he switched to good English. I didn't have but about 12 lemps (lempuras) on me, which is less than $1, so I wasn't in a position to pay to go up in the tower. Next time.

I walked to one corner and was trying to take a picture showing the difference between the newer-looking municipal building (the new paint is the reason it looks newer) and the older looking building next to it. Then I noticed the wiring. How would you like to work on those electric lines?





The rest are just my attempt to take 'artsy' photos. Ok, I'm working on it...



Most of the pictures are of the Cathedral since it was the most photogenic. Just inside the door of the church was this mosaic.



I took some closeups of the side panels since I like mosaics. It looks like pieces of stained glass were used. I wonder how they broke them to get the uniform size.



I'm working on spacing the picture around so they can be seen.



I sat on a bench under the trees for awhile. It was quite pleasant. They had music playing, recorded instrumental pop stuff that was what I grew up listening to. The quality of sound was really good, clear but not intrusive.













I didn't have money to buy any of the ice cream that was being sold by wandering vendors. Later I wondered if it would have made me sick. I haven't yet gotten sick from anything here, and last night I drank ice from the restaurant.




A family came by with 3 kids. The father and kids joined me on the bench. I felt my lack of Spanish as I couldn't even be friendly other than kind of smile.

I did feel conspicuous as pretty much the only female who was there alone. One guy seemed to be sort of following me, which is why I suddenly decided to check out the interior of the church.

I wanted to take pictures of the people, but that seemed disrespectful. Also, there was a guy there with stuffed donkeys on rockers with sombreros who seemed to be taking pictures for money. I didn't want to intrude on his business.

I also would have liked to have had a better camera to take shots of the buildings. However, I don't like being as conspicuous as I already am. With a larger camera I would really stick out as a female tourist who was alone. Next time I'll have a map and go walking a bit more around the town. Maybe...

Carlos picked me up when I called him, and in the process of taking another passenger home ended up showing me more of the town.

I am next door to Pollo Campero and got a meal when I got back to the motel. It was good. No one there spoke English, but we managed to communicate with gestures to the menu and such what I wanted. The cash register takes dollars, and I was given my change in lemps, so I now have about $15 worth if I decide to venture out today. The 2 pieces of chicken, roll, fries and medium size Coke were $5.25 in dollars.

This is going to be a slow process. I am ok with that. I hope you are, too.