Friday, January 13, 2006

Pupusas! They were even better than promised. On our way out, we lucked into running into the Canadians coming back from the pupuseria, so we got directions from them (“keep going past the bank, turn right where the lady is cooking something and look for the Christmas lights”).

The pupuseria was just grubby enough to feel down-home and authentic, but not grubby enough to make us unwilling to eat there. There was a dining area and three women in the open kitchen behind the counter making pupusa after pupusa and throwing them onto the griddle. We ordered a variety of types and they were all yummy and hot. I ordered three but should only have ordered two, though I was happy to cram down the extra one. The beet salad was heavily vinagered and was delicious. All in all, it was a highly successful venture, and cost us about $2.50 U.S., including sodas.

We were also able to finally be fairly certain of something that we thought might have been just a coincidence: women get straws with their soda and men do not. It’s all very unscientific and the variables are endless, but that’s the conclusion we’re going with at this point; In the matter of straws, women: yes, men: no.

Anyway, it looks like we’re going to be eating a lot of pupusas.

As per our usual, we put off the visit to the ruins til tomorrow in favor of just hanging around chilling and watching life walk by. We feel a bit better today, now that the incident with the girls is behind us and no one else has wished us bad luck. Literally not one other person has tried to sell us something or ask for money from us. The spell is broken, we’ll be moving on, but we’re enjoying our time here.

There’s a lot to see, just sitting in the square. The dress style is interesting. Men wear either a pale straw cowboy hat with a button-down shirt, jeans and cowboy boots or workshoes, or a baseball cap with a t-shirt or polo shirt, and jeans. The guys in cowboy hats are pretty cool. There is something about a man who looks like he’s ready to lasso something at any given moment.

The young ladies, again contrary to all the Lonely Planet’s warnings on dress sensitivity, seem to do their clothes shopping at the hoocheria. There’s a lot of flesh to be seen bulging from between the sequins and the sheer mesh, and a lot of strappy stillettos being planted between the cobblestones of the streets. The older ladies favor baggy, flower-printed two-piece skirt suits and more sensible shoes.

In our room this afternoon, we were treated to another conversation between the Indian Canadians and Sharon, the American woman from Brazil. It focused mainly on Differences Between Here and Home.

Sharon likes Latin America because here if she goes somewhere and sees a friend of hers at the front of the line she can just go up there and not have to wait, whereas at home she’d have to stand in line. Not to mention that here you can cross the street wherever you want and at home you’ll get a $200 jaywalking ticket.

Jaywalking ticket? Really? Yes, I know they exist, but do we really refrain from crossing in the middle of the street for fear of getting a ticket? Then the Canadians spent some time bad-mouthing India, which they both left as teenagers. The conversation was interminable, but we did not learn any new and helpful eating tidbits.

Later, on our way back to the pupuseria, we ran into the Canadians waiting for their shuttle to Antigua and we all shook hands twice and wished each other good journeys. Michael had to cut them off before we had a third round of hand shaking. They are super nice, but they’ll talk your ear off.

 

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Yummy pupusas with cabbage and red beet salad. We didn't even think to take a photo until after we started devouring.

Hoocheria.