47.
Huancayo, Peru
This town is recommended on the tourist maps for its unusual Sunday market.Huancayo, Peru
The hotel owner tries to short-change me—so does the restaurant man and the baker.
In the Famous Market, I catch a pickpocket’s hand in my pocket. He and the tough friends he is with don’t bat an eye when I pull his hand out of the pocket without my wallet. They keep following me looking for another chance—so I guess this is a tourist’s paradise in Peru.
Indian women stand barefoot in the freezing rain with rivers of mud flowing past them in the street. Men and women here wear dirty white, bottle-cap shaped hats of some hard looking material that looks like plaster.
They say this hat wearing custom is a holdover from the old Inca days when the every villager was compelled to wear a special costume specific to his or her town of origin, sort of like the driver’s license ID required today for US citizens.
Locals on street corners shout, “Gringo go home!” at me and one kid throws a rock at me but his aim is bad.
I am the only gringo around to hate so I get all the attention for my countrymen--and I don't even know why we are despised! But I suppose it is because we have money to come here to buy junk in their famous market and they don't have enough money to go to the states and buy junk in our famous market!
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2 comments:
You have so many blogs, it was a pleasure looking through each of them. I enjoy your crafts very much. Looking forward to more posts.
Angela
Thanks VERY much for your comment, Angela. I have three active blogs right now and one I do with a friend.
The one about crafts, tomasitoscreativeworkshop.blogspot.com, is about arty things I do as a volunteer with some handicapped older adults at a "care facility" and two neighbor children for their "home-school" art education.
We are doing most of our crafts using discarded and recycled materials--papier mache and things like that.
I really appreciate your comment!
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