Not a great deal to report this week, but I thought I'd share some pictures I took at the Saturday morning street market, which is called a feria here (accent on the "e").  It opens at 8:00 am and runs until sometime in the early afternoon.  It covers an area about 3 blocks wide and 6 blocks deep.  The first "street" is almost entirely vegetables.  Across the north end are more vegetables and some specialty shops (socks, hair things, bags [purses but also the plastic shopping bags people carry here], and the place we buy all our nuts.)  The next street is all fruit.  There is a "meat" street that I avoid if possible.  There also are souvenir booths and cleaning supply booths and stationery supplies and toys all mixed in amongst the others as well as several egg booths.  It's easy to spend an hour here and not realize it's been that long.  The market is thronged every Saturday.  The prices are much better than in a supermarket.  Here are some pictures.

This is the entrance to the feria - that is, the entrance we always use.  You can come into it from any of the streets on either end.  Can you see that the booth on the right, nearest the camera, is selling parakeets?  Another one out of sight on the left has aprons and curtains.  I forgot to mention that on the left as we enter here, there is a whole block of flower stalls.  They are gorgeous.  There isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to the way things are laid out, though.

This booth is selling pre-shredded vegetables -- carrots, cabbage, lettuce, etc.  I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole, but obviously the locals don't feel that way.

These are potatoes - a dozen different kinds.  I hope you can see the little skinny yellow ones and the little black-ish blue ones.  I haven't tried them yet, but Linda Johnson says the yellow ones are good when you bake them.  I don't know how you'd put anything on them (like butter) when they are so small.

This is a good view of one of the wheelbarrows that young boys ply up and down the street to carry shopping bags and purchased goods for the customers.  Notice the open flat of eggs and the big blue plastic shopping bags.  Each time you buy something, the vendor puts it in a little plastic bag and then you put it in your BIG bag.  If you're going to buy a lot, you really need one of the wheelbarrow boys to follow you around the market.  The man in the wheelchair behind the wheelbarrow is a beggar.  There are a quite a few of them at the feria, so we try to remember to take extra coins for them. That's my friend Linda Johnson with her back to the camera.

 

 

This is just another view of the street and the people and a wheelbarrow boy with his back to you.

 

This is the "nut booth" that we patronize.  Their nuts are fresh and they seem to be very clean.  We buy peanuts, brazil nuts, and almonds.  Occasionally they have pecans and walnuts, also cashews (which have a strangely chocolate taste!)  The man in the black T-shirt is our mission president, Lee Crayk, and the blonde with her back to you is his wife Connie.  The man in the funny hat (of which Farron needs one) is our friend and fellow temple missionary, Bill Johnson.

This is just to give you a long view of the feria - it really does over quite a large area.

This has nothing to do with the feria but was taken when we visited the Patiño mansion a couple of weeks ago.  I don't know what that plant is behind us, but we took the picture there because of the huge leaves.  Can it be an "elephant ear plant"?   These are our friends the Johnsons again.  They are from a little town (about 2400 people) north of Spokane, Washington and this is their third mission too.  They served at the MTC in Lima, Peru with President and Sister Crayk, so President Crayk called them and asked them to volunteer for a temple mission here because he needed help.  They responded immediately and unselfishly.  They are wonderful people!

We had a wonderful Conference Weekend, watching all the sessions in English at the President's house.  We felt lifted and strengthened by the talks, the music, and the Spirit.  With the blessings of Conference in our hearts, we wish everyone a beautiful, safe, healthy and fulfilling week to come.