Botas Nuevas (New Boots)

Last week, the other houseguest and I explored a couple towns nearby. Jocotenango you can walk to. It has a grocery store, some dollar stores and some wood shops - they are primarily known for wooden fruit. We also spotted a piñata store on our walk through town. It made me laugh how many different kinds they had and the characters.

Then we took a bus from there to Pastores, which is known for leather goods, primarily boots. I haven't been shoe shopping for a while ;). The buses here are old school buses, some of which are painted with all sorts of designs. To get to Pastores it was between 25¢ and 50¢.

We went to lunch in Pastores. It's a very small town and not many places to choose from. The menu was fried chicken, hamburgers or pupusas. I went with a cheese pupusa. It was a tortilla stuffed with cheese that was melted inside. It was pretty good. Only a little over $1.

Some of the boot stores were quite impressive. This one in particular has lots of colors to choose from.

I settled on these (on the floor, front left) at a different store. I went with a pretty plain pair. These boots were actually a little too big (which also had me suspecting they were mens), so they measured me to make a custom pair. I'm pretty excited and a little nervous to pick them up.

In the front of the store the guys were working on different pieces of leather.

On my walk home, I was a little hungry (one pupusa wasn't supper filling and it was close to dinner time). There is a hot dog stand on my street and I walk by it everyday. The door to the house where I stay is just two minutes past here. I stopped and asked for a chevere. It was 8 quetzales for one or 9 quetzales for two. Unfortunately I wasn't that hungry and went with one (~$1.15). It's a very tall bun. They put the hot dog, the ketchup and mustard, then chopped something (I thought she said onion but it looked like cabbage maybe?), then ketchup, mustard and green spicy sauce on top again. It was okay. Definitely a mouthful!

Wednesday I went back to pick up my finished boots (botas). It took them only from Friday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon! And they were under $50. They fit great. And I love them :). They even burned my name on them - so no boot thieves! ;)