Surprise visitors!

We woke up yesterday morning and checked our computers to find that Dave and Bonnie who we had met in Acapulco, are also currently staying in San Cristobal! There was a message asking if we wanted to get together, and we did!

After breakfast, we wandered up the hill to get a view before meeting with Dave and Bonnie at 10:30am.

Nice day in San Cristobal.

There's a church at the top of the hill.

The interior has been recently restored.

And the ceiling was done with an interesting wood design.

And then it was back down to the central plaza to meet with Bonnie and Dave. They have plans on driving their VW van into Guatemala shortly  and so we talked about that and other travel conversation.

Having a coffee with Dave and Bonnie.

We agreed to meet for dinner at 5:30pm at a roast chicken place. In the meantime, Ruth and I wanted to wander around some more and go back to the market. We had been in San Cristobal with Sherman in February of '09 and we knew that the San Cristobal market is one of the most interesting that we've been to in Mexico.

But first, we got sidetracked on the way over there. We walked through an artisan market and saw some nice looking Mexican style sweaters.

Ruth is thinking our grandson Cameron would look good in one of these sweaters.

So we're trying to decide on a size. The lady says the sweaters are 80 pesos each ($6.50) which I think is a pretty good deal. But they only have size 2 and size 4 for little ones. Cameron will be two years old in April, but we won't see him until late September. The size 4 would be far to big for him, so we chose the size two. While we're doing all this deciding, the lady keeps lowering her price. First to 60 pesos, and then to 50 pesos. We never once asked for a better price! We ended up giving her 50 pesos ($4.10) and she happily bagged our purchase. Stuff like this is soooo cheap here.

Ruth, showing off Cameron's new sweater!

Next, we stopped at a church that has a very intricately decorated interior.

Lots of wood carvings in this church.

Pretty detailed stuff!

Finally, we made it to the market. Won't bother showing you all the fruits and veggies...but of course there are tons of it, and dirt cheap. Anybody who thinks there is a food shortage in the world has never been to Mexico and Guatemala. We can't figure out how they can grow this much food! 

Hot spices anyone?

How about some chicken?? I asked if I could take the photo, and the guy said yes, but only of the chicken as they turned their heads. Many of the locals believe that getting your picture taken steals part of your soul!

Dried fish.

We went and met Bonnie and Dave at the roast chicken place for dinner at 5:30pm. But the sit down area closes at 5:00pm! They only have take out available from 5:00pm to 7:00pm when they close. We're not allowed visitors back at the hostel, but Bonnie and Dave are at a campground on the outskirts of town so we decide to go over there with our takeout chicken. There, we meet their friends Diana and Steve from Holland and we had a nice evening with a few drinks, some roast chicken, and some laughs!

Dave, Bonnie, Diana, Steve, Ruth.

Change of plans today. We were going to try and drive all the way to Oaxaca City today, but the apartment we have booked can't take us until Friday anyhow. So we're going to drive to a huge sinkhole in the ground where thousands of green parrots live! Apparently they have camping available, plus some cabanas, so we'll figure something out. Plus, it breaks up the drive a bit so we won't have so long of a day tomorrow!