down in the trenches....kind of.

ok. so. i found out that what i had assumed to be true - that the area of town i was in yesterday - is, indeed, a zone you don't really want to be hanging out in. especially as a gringo. i told a few people where i had been and their eyes got as big as saucers. so...suffice to say i'm not going to press my luck - but am very happy to have been there and seen that - as it were. i'm not one to be easily scared away - i've been to the worst parts of detroit, south chicago, south of market after dark, etc - but i try not to be stupid either.
but today my hunt for the mexican shopping bags continued going from mercado to mercado...along the way i rediscovered the mercado called mercado de la merced - where i had my first real meal here in oaxaca with wendy and alex and had another great breakfast - entomatadas con huevos y jugo de naranja - awesome stuff and exactly what i wanted. then the quest continued. i decided to walk back to the part of town i was in yesterday, despite my best efforts to exercise caution and be more pragmatic, and along the way i looked in food stores and small markets to see if they had what i was looking for - which really are bags the stores give out when you buy a certain amount of goods, like they do at bosa in vancouver but it's more fun to have a bag from a market here than bosa..(nothing against bosa of course...love them.) - and saw nothing...
until...
i looked across the street at one intersection, very close to crazytown, and there were a bunch of bags hanging outside much like the ones i was looking for...and long story short - not that that's possible now - the woman who runs the store (more of a little factory ) actually makes a lot of the bags for the markets and had samples of all the bags in the store. big, small, huge, etc...tons of bags. some with store names that she had done work for, some blank, multi colored bags, etc...and all around 3 dollars a bag. while i was there i watched her working on a few bags. i suspect she has people making the bags for her - either in the back or elsewhere but when i asked her if she made the bags for the markets she said she did - good enough for me. they're very well constructed bags and look great too. i'm happy to have found them...i may go back and get more.
i'm home now after a very long walk after the bag store and need to relax-o....

have fun

garncarlos.

xo

bag action from today.




good breakfast action.

near my place.