Another great day of adventures! I decided to visit the Friday market in San Francisco el Alto, supposedly the largest in the country and not as touristy as the one in Chichi. The book made it sound like it would be tricky to find a bus there, but I had no trouble whatsoever and hopped aboard one that left a few minutes later. Good timing! Sometimes you wind up sitting and waiting a while until the bus fills up. I was so inspired by this triumph that I wrote a double-haiku in honor of chickenbuses. (OK, so it´s not completely thematically correct, but bear with me...)

Bumpy chickenbus
Four to a seat, minimum
Vendors come with snacks.

¡Dios nos bendiga!
Driver´s a mental patient
Vamos a morir.

::: gonnnnnnng :::

Right then, on to the day´s journeys! The market was indeed massive, and wound up a huge hill for more blocks than I could count. And it did seem to be geared more towards locals, with imported American clothing, cheap hair trinkets, plastic buckets, and cell phones on display for sale. I did manage to practice my haggling skills a bit for some traditional wares, and was rather pleased to be one of the few gringos around. At the very top of the hill was the animal market. What a show! All manner of pigs, cows, sheep, cats, dogs, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, goats, and god knows what else were on sale. Locals were haggling madly. The animals seemed a bit disenchanted by the whole affair.

Next stop, Momostenango, aka Momo or Momos for short. This required finding the correct bus and squishing into a seat with an entire Guatemalan family, hanging on for dear life as we rocked through the pine forests, and watching with amusement as the driver got into a fistfight with his ayudante. Never a dull moment.

When we got to Momo, there seemed to be some big gathering in the main square. Turned out to be a rally for Mario Estrada, the UCN candidate for president. (The one I thought looked like JR Ewing on his campaign posters, with a big cowboy hat and everything.) He schmoozed the crowd with ease, saying the usual "I´m one of you" and "Together we can make the world a better place" kinda things you hear politicians everywhere spouting off about. The crowd was enthusiastic and everyone from small children to elderlies waved banners and clapped loudly.

I headed off to find Los Riscos, mentioned in my guidebook as a set of bizarre sandstone pillars on the north edge of town. Well, they turned out to be more east than north, and after several wrong turns I just stopped and asked a random local for directions. To my surprise, he escorted me all the way there! (Which was great because I never would have found it on my own.) And he didn´t even ask for money or try to sell me anything! Way to restore my faith in humanity. Los Riscos were indeed a bizarre set of Grand Canyon-looking pillars, made of crumbly sand and just sorta plunked by the side of the road. Something interesting to see, especially when you have a new friend to chat with along the way.