Saquasili

For all the weaving
Sitting down for dinner
Tomatoes
Bananas
Leeks
Rope
Guinea Pigs

What a great place name, until that is that you try and prounounce it to get a bus there :-) but it is cool, I am now feeling like a local and am happy to jump on the bus without buying a ticket, just as it is leaving the bus station - okay, so it had Saquasili in big letters on the front of the bus, but I did feel more like a local. Why did I want to go to Saquasili? It was reportedly the biggest indegenious market in the whole of the Andes - and boy did it seem that way, with every man and his dog, sheep, cow, goat and pig, heading there. There were 5 huge squares, spread throughout the town, just teeming with people and things being bought and sold. Cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, rabbits, guinea pigs, fish, fruit, veg, grains, flowers, baskets, clothes, hats, shoes, pots and pans, even beds and furniture. It was mainly indegenious people, lots of small people, even I felt tall, all wearing their ponhos and hats that just seem to perch on their heads. The women carrying their children on their backs and in more that one instance carrying a whole sack of potatoes inthe same manner. I purchased a scarf and found out that the indegenious people in the Andes speak a different language to the indegenious people in the Amazon, not wholey surprising I suppose but I have now added another language to my repetoire of thanks yous - Pagarachoo in the Amazon and just Paga in the Andes. The lady I purchased the scarf from found it very funny but I think she was happy that I tried. Big groups of people would be sitting around shelling peas or removing corn off the cob, happily chattering away and selling their wears. Other groups would be sat at the many stalls selling weird and wonderful food or queuing up for a very strange looking tonic that I believe was able to cure many ailments. Far more interesting than going to the local supermarket.