That's My Final Price!

PASTORES, Guatemala--Sometimes a girl just needs to shop. And as long as we're going to deal in stereotypes here, sometimes a girl needs to buy shoes.

Well, boots.

Last weekend my housemate and I broke free of any gringa-guilt and went shopping in two absolutely fab locales. The first was Pastores, a little town about 20 minutes by chicken bus from Antigua. The main street there is lined with dozens of boot shops.

Make that bootmakers. These boots don't come in by the crate load from China. Rather, men whose families have likely been making boots for generations craft them by hand. You can buy boots off the shelf or custom-made. (What the Brits call bespoke.) The photo at left shows my bootmaker, with a horma, that is, a shoe last, that he is going to use to make me a pair of black leather cowgirl boots with light blue accent stitching. Right now, I'm wearing another pair of his boots, in slouchy brown leather. Each pair will cost me less than $50, and he and I are both happy about it.

The next day, we headed to the town of Chichicastenango, the site of a near-legendary twice-weekly market. It's a few rather dull hours by tourist shuttle bus from Antigua, but so worth it.

After an initial near-compulsory but still fascinating visit to the church of Santo Tomas, where the locals practice a syncretic blend of Catholicism and ancient Mayan religion, we dove into the market. It's alley after alley of indigena craft booths selling fabric, jewelry, handicrafts and more fabric. Again, this stuff isn't from China. The thing about Guatemala is that unlike in the United States, local labor is cheaper than the overseas kind. And in the case of the people who make this country's stunning tela, or cloth, it's a lot more skilled.

Buying anything in Chichi requires 10 or 15 minutes of energetic and somewhat ritualistic bargaining, which is a wondrous test of your ability to think in Spanish numbers. After a few minutes, I get into this completely and am actually able to walk away--for real!!!--if a vendor won't come down enough in price. (My bargain-seeking Polish grandmother would have loved this.)

When we started the day, we had planned a bit of civilized shopping, then maybe a leisurely lunch. But my housemate and I eventually had to face reality. After a little more than three hours, we had to stop buying because our shuttle bus was about to leave. Oh, and because we could no longer carry any additional stuff.