March 6
On the way to the embarcadero for today’s outing I passed this major bucket brigade and then two more! I think what happened was, like the money, items come here only every once-in-a-while and they must have just got their delivery of cement. They are doing everything by hand. They built a kind of containing box in the street to mix the cement and bags of rocks with big flat shovels, then they’d pass the mixture in buckets up the line to where they were pouring, and then see the guy in the red shirt, he’s collecting the buckets and passing them down on a rope.
I’m off now to one of the big local markets on the other side of the lake in Sololá. I met a young man, Felix from San Pedro, while waiting for the boat and we travelled together all the way. It was very fun to chat in Spanish. We were a threesome – me, Felix, and my dictionário.