56. Lana

The woman who owns the book store told me that I would find yarn at the market. She said to ask for: lana que hace sweter. I confirmed that with Yoda and practiced saying it over and over. All week, I'd been waiting for the day we'd hit the market, dreaming about the baskets and baskets of richly dyed, super soft alpaca and wool. I was prepared. Nothing was going to stop me from finding yarn. I've looked in every place we've been. I've seen beautiful hand made garmets. There has to be yarn in Central America. Even the Mr had agreed to spend as much time as necessary looking for yarn. Finally, it was Sunday, our last day in Antigua and we'd set aside the whole afternoon for the market. We found clothing (Aberkrombie, Kalvin Klein, Tomas Hilfiger), housewears, mini-grocery stores, toys, shoes and just a lot of crap.

What I wasn't prepared for was the market itself. It was just too much. Too many people cramped into tiny lanes. Too many stalls to visit. Too many smells. And way too close to the meat stalls - row after row of unrefrigerated hanging slabs of cow carcass. Mix in a whole lot of bleach and you've got instant upset stomach. I lasted all of about 15 minutes. In that time, I did get to use my phrase and was given directions to a couple of different stalls that were supposed to have lana que hace sweter. All they had was acrylic or embroidery floss. We left, went for a leisurely lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon reading, drinking beer and getting ready for the trip back to San Cristobal.

The Mr couldn't have been happier.