Sitting on a walkway, people watching and being creeped on by beautiful men.

After a two hour drive to chichi with some awesome people on the craziest, curviest, steepest up and down road ever, surrounded by huge cliffs and rocks all around and no such thing as a "no passing zone", 

we made it to the largest market place, open only Sundays and Thursdays. 

This is the place where we reallly found out how much Central American boys love American girls. And also the place my heart absolutely melted because of this little boy:

"I don't want your pencils, but I want your Facebook."  

"Buy it for your boyfriend!" "...noo." "Buy it for your ex boyfriend!!" (great sales tactic.)

"The chickens have names! That ones Juan, that ones Pavlo."

"Awhh, comida?"

"Jaja, si! Comida!"

(Funniest conversation of the day)

We wandered through beautiful streets of colorful blankets and trinkets, every food item imaginable (including tons and tons of live chickens and raw meat.)

We stopped and watched a man shear a coconut and we bought one for 7q. 

We drank the juice and broke off pieces to eat it. So wonderful. Everywhere we went woman shoved clothes in our faces and children held up random items telling us "good price! Good price! Cost 80q." Then we say no and they'd say. "This is business, what price? Say a price. How much you pay? Good price!" I managed to get one lady to go down from 20 to 15q, when I stood to leave after she denied my offer. They almost always start their prices incredibly high and it's almost dumb not to barter with them. I feel kinda bad though because it's their way of life and were already literally only paying 2 or 3 dollars for most items.

Side note! Stopped for food and they had parrots! :) One tried to bite me...

I can't get over how incredibly beautiful all of the people are. The children have such huge, innocent brown eyes. The women have such a simple, quiet air and the boys...well, they're just beautiful.

(This is Aleks. One cooool Guatemalan! And while I'm posting that one here's one of the other Guatemalan friends:)

(Okay, that was another side note.  Back to the present.) 

Then Beth and I headed back to the parking garage (where we had to pay 3q for el bano) and on the way we decided to stop and just relax and people watch for a while. 

We sat eating some leaches we bought at a stand, 

laughing historically at the reactions of boys who passed by. 

We were just sitting there, and buses,  tuk-tuks, walkers, cars and trucks...the boys would wave, whistle, say things...no details needed, but if we said hi back, pretty sure their day was made.

A little later a tiny little boy came walking down the street carrying a black plastic bag. He wandered through the street, kicking a plastic bottle. Then he came over, and Beth said hola. He replied, then asked if we wanted to buy some of his bookmarks. We discussed them and some colorful magnet he had, talking in Spanish and learning the price. Beth bought a magnet, but then, the little guy didn't leave. So, we started talking to him. He climbed up next to Beth to avoid a bus on the narrow street, and tried to get us to buy one more. We insisted that we had no more money, and he hopped off our seat and seemed like he was about to leave, so I asked if I could get a Photo with him. He agreed and climbed up in between us, and stayed there for the next 30 minutes.

We asked his name and age and talked about our siblings and work and school and ohmanmyheartwasstolenbyaminiguatemalen. He kept asking us to buy more, but we insisted we had "no mas dinero" to which he replied, "si! Dinero en el banco!" And we laughed at how smart he was, and told him that our bank was at home and not in Guatemala. Such a precious soul. I gave him my granola bar and some dragon fruit. Then I spent some time teaching him to take pictures with my camera. I think we were just trying hard to get him to stay longer. Such a sweetie.

We had to leave, but he followed slowly behind, again talking to us in the parking garage and saying he needed money for school. Two girls (his Amigas) also came up - they were both named Lucille and were so polite! One asked our names, shook our hands and said welcome to chichicasteanago. Soo beautiful. We finally forced ourselves away from the precious kids and drove away. As we came around the block. Forever, the image will be engraved in my mind. We're driving away, and as we do I happen to glance up and see our little buddy, walking along, tightly clutching his crafts in one hand, and waving eagerly with the other. The look in his eyes staring straight into mine made my heart shatter, and I'm pretty sure I'm still crying inside. The admiration, love, awe, but sadness, all packed behind those little brown eyes of a boy who was worried about not having enough money for school.

So anyway, recovering my heart now...

It rained today, and everything smells fresh, and the sun came out, shining off the wet leaves. 

On the way home we saw a guy getting beat up on the side of the road and Bethy and I were really worried about him so we started thinking of every possible scenario trying to make ourselves feel better an we started out depressed saying he was getting mugged and then thought positive thinking he's getting what he deserved cause he stole the guys cow. Ahem. But then we started thinking about how different is at home, because if people saw that there they'd definitely call the police or help or do something. Here...they act like its normal.

Kids flyin kites everywhere. Day of the dead celebrations someone said

Back at the hostel that has become "home" we greeted our "brothers" (rooomies) then grabbed some food, booked a shuttle for tomorrow's adventures, and sat talking with the brothers for awhile. 

Then, some strangers, my roomies and I sat around, talking, joking, playing guitar and singing...this is what makesgoodbye  hard, but most of us are leaving tomorrow, which makes the goodbye a little easier. Always bitter sweet to say goodbye.