Shopping in Catarina

On the road to Catarina we saw ox and horse cars piled with hay. Goats munching grass along the way. The volcano was green and misty on the top. The air cooled about 5 degrees as we climbed up the mountain. I saw a guy stop suddenly on his motorbike in his driveway and his two kids fell off, but his wife managed to hang on.


We were looking for plants, so we headed up to the Viveros Gallina, an ecological nursery and pulled into an oasis. We spent about an hour looking at plants and discussing their care and placement with the nursery lady. We came to one area where there were 4 inch long red and yellow grasshoppers chomping on the plants. She caught each one and threw it on the ground and then stomped on it. The car was full with 30 dollars worth of plants and it smelled heavenly. It was about a dollar a plant. Howler monkeys were in the trees throwing mangoes at us. As we were leaving I took a couple of pictures of grandma and the statue of the Archangel St. Michael she was decorating with flowers.


Driving out we passed a family making bamboo market baskets. We asked a lot of questions and bought 3 baskets for 7 dollars. They are about a yard in diameter.










Next stop over to San Juan del Oriente for some more planters. The woman I bought from last time wasn't there and I was getting a little huffy that the big planters that had cost 5 dollars last time were 6 today. Then I did a reality check and stopped myself. The car was stuffed to the gills and we could hardly fit the plant stands in. We were very thankful for the heavy rain when we got home so the neighbors didn't see all the things we were unloading. I was sorry Angel wasn't driving so that he would help us unload. I am officially getting spoiled.

As I am writing this, there was a big clunk and I am afraid to look on the ground to see if a bat flew into the ceiling fan.