What a week!

I can't believe it's been 5 days since I've written here. We've been pretty busy working in the garden, trying to find ways to increase our productivity. My parents sent me an awesome tomato plant guide, which I've been reading and implementing all the suggestions. We'll see how we fair. Our tomato plants are growing really well, but we only have a few tomatoes growing... this book says to get rid of all (well, almost all) the leaves. I started my pruning overhaul two days ago and already we're seeing results! Love it when something works.

Speaking of working, our friend, Tony, the mushroom grower in La Cima (just 10 km or so from us) sells his mushrooms, smoked trout (our trout smoked by Roberto who sells to Tony) and other produce at a new market down near San Isidro de General (about 100 km from us). He invited us to join him and see what the market was like. We met up in La Trinidad (5 km, right on the Pan-Am highway) at 5:30 am. As we followed Tony up the mountain, his truck broke down. We ended up towing him all the way back to the mechanics in El Empalme (20 kms from where we were when his truck broke down). We were travelling approximately 20 km/hr. It took us a while, but we eventually made it. We unpacked Tony's truck and loaded as much as we could into our SUV.

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We got quite a bit into the back, we were all surprised at how much. I sat in the back... pretty cosy.

The market opens at 8 am every Tuesday. We got there at about 10:30 am.

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Kevin had the task of weighing the fruits and vegetables, bagging them and setting them out (while people were waiting). Everyone was very pleasant... no one was rude. Mostly they were relieved Tony showed up, I think.

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This market has only been open since February, but it appears Tony has made quite a name for himself. It was an absolute frenzy when we got there. So much so, I didn't have time to take a picture to document it. It took me a while to get into the swing of things to feel productive. I had no idea what anything cost, so when people asked, I kept having to apologize, telling them I didn't know. Tony then gave me a list with all the prices... which helped immensely! I finally felt useful.

This is Tony when things had calmed down.

The day started out pretty stressful (especially for Tony), but in the end it was a great day... it's good to be able to help friends out.

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