April Cycles Central America: Juayua and La Feria Gastronomica

We came to Juayua specifically for the food fair and even slowed down our travels so we could be here on the right days. We had high hopes of finding an insane variety of foods and had really hoped to try iguana or other strange things we had heard might be here, like armadillo. I thought it would just be a labrynth of food vendors and that we wouldn't even know where to begin. We were sadly disappointed. The food was set up mainly in the one square block radius surrounding the park and there were probably 20 vendors at most. They were mostly all selling the same or similar plates of food, argentinian style ribs seemed to be popular. We had a few good snacks. Panes (which we didn't need to go to the food fair to get, as every lady on every corner sells them) are basically a grilled sandwich, similar to a Mexican torta, and I can compare it to tasting like a taco bell soft taco, it contains lettuce, avocado and seasoned ground beef. We'd been seeing these sandwiches around but weren't sure what they were and were afraid to try them as they looked like hotdogs because of the bread shape! We also tried Riguas at the fair and they were really good sweet corn cakes, something I'd like to learn to make at home! We didn't eat much else at the fair, we ate a ton of baked goods at this pasteleria (bakery) we found and ate all our dinners at the comedor (local homemade food). A typical dinner here contains bread or tortillas, eggs, refried beans, spicy sausage (longaniza), sour cream, fresh cheese, plantains and sometimes avocado. We were amused by the different price of the meal each day, $2.90 the first day, $2.30 the second and $3.10 today! We will be leaving here feeling quite stuffed as we have way over eaten during our stay.

We have been buying fruits and vegetables at the street markets and have been making avocado and queso fresco sandwiches for breakfast, this way we get some nutrition in our diet. I love the local markets for fruits, so far we haven't gotten one bad piece everything is always perfectly ripe. Today we couldn't resist and bought 3 monster carrots! One of them is as big as my forearm!

This morning we hiked to some waterfalls (chorros de las caleras) just outside town. It was planned that these falls would be used to generate electricity, so they are connected by man made tunnels. We got to go in one which was neat but also a bit creepy, as it got pitch black inside. Don't think anything ever came of the electrical project. In the afternoon we took a bus to the neighboring town of Apaneca and did 2 hikes, Laguna de las Ninfas and Laguna Cerro Verde. Neither lagoon was anything worth seeing, but the hikes were nice. We had really pretty views of the mountains, of Juayua, Apaneca and even Ahuachapan. Coffee farms surrounded us most of the way, and we even saw one farm that is a grower for Starbucks. The coffee farms are a pretty sight to see on the hillsides, as they are arranged in a perfect waffle pattern. The waffle outline you see from afar are the large trees used to shade the coffee plants. We did a bit of walking around Apaneca after our hikes, wasn't much to do, but a lot of the buildings were painted with lovely brightly colored murals.

We've now been in Jauyua 3 days and our time here is up. We leave early tomorrow morning on a bus headed to Santa Ana. From Santa Ana we will bike the rest of the way to Lago de Coatapeque. The reason for the bus is that there is quite a bit of elevation gain on the way to Santa Ana, and the hills have been really hard on my knees We we will wish for it to still be fairly cool out when we start biking. A storm appears to be rolling in so perhaps we'll get some rain to keep us cool.