When Saturday arrived we were off to Pastores. It was going to be pick up the boots, see the rodeo and maybe if there was time at trip to the "Viveria", the plant places outside of Antigua. Here you can buy plants, big plants, for about 5 dollars. Well within my price range.
No traffic, means we are in Pastores pretty early. Everyone tries on their boots and they fit fine. As I am chatting with the guy in the bootstore I see a simple pair of mid-calf boots. Nothing too fancy, just a normal boot. Naturally I ask the price. Three hundred ten quetzales, he tells me, about 40 dollars. Well for 40 bucks I am willing to buy myself a pair of boots, especially since my real motorcycle boots are Vermont. We discuss the size, the color, the fact that I want "plastico" soles not leather an so forth. Well Diane thinks, that for 40 dollars she too can have another pair of boots, this time in red. They discuss customizing and stitching and the like and we cut a deal. I tell him we will be back in about 3 weeks to pick them up.
It is still early, so we decide to have lunch. After all, the rodeo isn't until 2PM. We go into one of the little local restaurants and order our lunches. Diane and I have fresh made lemonade to accompany our meal. All of the food is good, though both Carl and I had to go outside as the ventilation from the plancha, the grill, was inadequate and the restaurant, hell the street, was filling with smoke. After a while they shut the door to the tiny kitchen and this allowed the smoke to build in only one room, fortunately not ours. We finished lunch and looked at the time, we still had an hour until the rodeo started. So we decided to go out and explore one of the roads that Carl and Joeline had not been on.
We ended up in a town called San Antonio Aqua Calleintes. With all of the volcanoes surrounding us it was not surprise that a town was named after hot springs. However, when I asked where the hot springs were, they told me they disappeared in the early 70's. The town itself was a real find. It was in the old Spanish style with a central square and many old colonial Spanish buildings. And for some reason, it had an artesania market... good news for Diane and Joeline. The first shop we went into had some interesting/different things. Different towns in Guatemala have different specialties and they even have certain patterns that are specific to the town itself. Joeline was in heaven, she really loves to shop and spend money, but has no concept about bargaining. We went down the street into another, much larger market. I attempted to bargain with an old woman on a belt, but she would not come down to my price. She showed me the Guatemalan sign for being cheap. Being cheap, I was not offended and thanked her for the compliment. We both had a good laugh, but she still wouldn't come down to my price. So in good Middle Eastern style I walked away... and she let me.
We went back to the original place and bargained with the woman over some very nice quilts that she had made. She wanted a 1000Q for two, I offered her 600Q. Now all of this is taking place in Spanish. She told me I had a duro corrazon, a hard heart. I thanked her. She told me that it took her "x"amount of time for her to make the quilt. I told her that I shouldn't have to pay for the fact that she was a slow worker. She also showed us the sign for being cheap and I again thanked her. All good natured and all in good fun. Eventually Carl and Joeline bought one of the quilts for 400Q, he thought he got a good price. I told the woman I would return in a few weeks and she would sell me the other quilt at my price. She told me it would cost 800Q by then. We had a good laugh and we were ready to go to the rodeo.
Of course all of that travel and shopping cost us time and we did not get to the rodeo until a bit after 3. We paid our 25Q, about 3 dollars, for admission to the rodeo. Of course the rain has been falling on and off all day so the rodeo ring is a slimey mud pit filled with bull feces. I guess all the more fun for the cowboys to fall into. Of course with it being after 3, we are wondering when the 2 PM rodeo is going to actually start. So I ask the bartender. En cinco minutos, in five minutes. Well five minutes Guatemalan time is not the same as five minutes in the US and at around 3:40 they start to round up the bulls to put them in the shoot.
While this is going on I am watching the cowboys tie his spurs to his boots. (Photo left). In the US, cowboys now use flak jackets, helmets and pads. Whatever happened to the real cowboys? Apparently they came to Guatemala, because most of them used no protection at all. Meanwhile they are still trying to get the bulls into the shoot. Of course they want to do this without getting themselves muddy. In the course of 20 minutes they get one bull into the shoot, by "lassoing" its horns and pulling it in. They had hoped the herd would follow. It didn't. More time passes and finally one of the cowpokes enters the ring with a cattle prod. He simply shows the cattle prod to the bulls and they quickly decide that the shoot is a better option. Of course they had the cattle prod all along and never bothered to show it to the bulls. At no time did they actually have to use the cattle prod, simply holding it up was ample.Okay, the bulls were loaded into the shoot and we are ready to roll. Or not. First we have to have the intros. Interestingly enough there are 12 riders and 9 bulls, I guess some get to go twice. The longest intro, in Spanish of course, ends up going to the guy who is rodeo clown. He is the man in the picture on the right in the white hat and white/red shirt. Not exactly a good rodeo clown get up, and he did not even have a barrel. But that is okay, as the barrel would have sunk into the mud.
