The Pana Town Fair

Later that evening we headed up to check out the fair. "You want to risk the ferris wheel?" I asked, knowing what we were in for after my visit to the Sololá fair the year before. But, he'd apparently forgotten my story and we jumped on, slowly spinning as they loaded and unloaded people. We were stuck at the top for awhile, no takers coming to fill the empty seats. We hung there, swaying in the breeze, admiring the town from above, a view I'd never seen before. We tried to spot where my house would be, and looked down on the band playing live music on the stage in front of the church.

As we got back down to the bottom Cristian was ready to get off, thinking we'd done a complete rotation and the ride was over. "Oh no, it's just getting started!" I informed him as the ride finally lurched to life. We spun up into the clouds, circling vertiginously, the lightweight car swinging as it turned. Every time we reached the edge of the wheel, about to drop back down again, the seat tipped and we'd be looking down, nothing but what looked like a straight drop down before us. After a few rounds of that, it ponderously started spinning backwards, picking up speed as it went until we were being hurtled into the unknown behind us. Feeling grateful we'd decided NOT to eat before hand as it came to a stop we stumbled off, happy to be back on solid ground, but smiling from the adrenaline rush.

I'd missed it the year before, off in Finland visiting Cristian, but this year, same dates, he was visiting me. A week beforehand traffic started getting funny as vendors set up their stalls all along the roads near the church. The night before the official town holiday (the day of the patron saint of the town, in this case St. Francis), there were fireworks all evening long, and they didn't stop as we got ready for bed. At 3 o'clock in the morning I woke to hear the church bell tolling. Non-stop. For 45 minutes. I could hear a brass band playing, music floating down from the plaza. Fireworks continued to go off, and when we woke up in the morning they were still going on. Suddenly it made sense to me why Guatemalan's get the day of their town fair off. After being up setting off fireworks, playing music, and tolling church bells literally all night they'd need a day off!

The fair crept further into town, street by street, until there were vendors set up along the street I walk to work on. Some days, the child in me just can't resist, and walking back from work one day, I just couldn't resist the cotton candy. I stopped to see if they sold smaller sizes, but the vendor just shook his head no. Take it or leave it. I decided that at 60 cents it was worth it, even if Cristian and I together didn't need that much sugar, and home I went to share the biggest cotton candy ever with Cristian (it was too much even for both of us).