We got off the bus on the south end of the main part of town and leisurely walked seven blocks to San Franciso Church (site of the tomb of Hermano Pedro, the first Central American canonized as a saint, 2002). We're planning on attending Mass there tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. While there, we made use of the "sanitorios" (bathrooms) on the grounds for Q2 (about 25 cents) each. The charge is for the "papel higiénico" (toilet paper) and an impressively clean facility.
We then walked towards the center of town, visited La Unión Washing Area (a public laundry area at the end of a small park), the Church of San Pedro Apóstol, and the Cathedral. We tried to go to the second floor of the Ayuntamiento (city hall), but it wasn't open on Saturday. We then strolled down Calle de Arco (Street of the Arch), which is named after the yellow painted Arch of Santa Catalina that crosses it. The arch was used by cloistered nuns to cross the street, when the convent of Santa Catalina was on the site. There's a hotel there now. We visited the Nim Po't craft and textile cooperative, an adjacent bookstore and then visited La Merced Church, which is painted bright yellow.
Since it was about lunch time, we headed over to the mercado to go back to the same comedor for the comida tipica (business lunch), which set us back Q20 ($2.40) each, but included a 600 ml bottle of Coke Light (Diet Coke). Following lunch, we headed to the produce area of the mercado and purchased more fruit and vegetables. After a quick trip to the Bodegana for some additional items, we headed over to the street where we pick up the chicken bus that will take us home. This time the chicken bus was almost empty. There were only three adults or two adults and two children on each seat. We got off next to our cemetery and walked the short distance to our apartment. The rest of the day will be spent blogging, doing on-line research for my computer repair project at Melotto School and studying Spanish.
