Along the trail, there are many tiendas, convenience stores if you will. Run by one woman each, they sell things like potato chips, ice-pops, orange juice, gum, coca-cola, water, yucca, platanos, empanadas, and corn.
This particular location is a 3-in-1 deal. In the very back is the woman's house where she lives, likely with husband and a number of children. To the right is a restaurant she runs, and in the front under the covering is the tienda, where she is currently serving an elderly gentleman and his dog an afternoon snack as they make their way up to the church.
Two indiginous women were kind enough to let me take this photo of them in the doorway of their house. As I was framing the scene, the woman on the left shyly slipped behind the wall and out of the camera's lens, while the one you can see well took a couple steps backwards, taking her face out of the sun. It was as if they wanted their anonymity to be preserved. El perro at the bottom was a photographer's dream model, calm and unaffected by the bright lights of fame.
This is not to misconstrue these women as rude. Conversely, they were quite amiable, and had wonderful laughs and smiles.
We asked a nearby girl of about 14 years in age to take our picture with this horse. As soon as we got ready, the horse backed toward us and threw two quick kicks at us, then turned and charged us about 5 feet. Again, not a good model. I was determined to get this pic, so I scurried Marcela back closer to the horse, and told the girl to take the picture. She warned us that the horse was going to try to kick us again. I knew that, and her telling me that instead of just taking the picture wasn't helping the cause any.
The horse started to edge closer again. Marcela was screaming and pulling away. I was there holding my ground, for some reason determined to get this picture, as if I'd never seen a horse before. We scooted left, the horse scooted with us, and the girl with the camera and our fate was backing away the whole time. Finally she errantly snapped the pic, the horse half-kicked again, and we got out of there.
We lost the head, but we got the picture. Mission accomplished. Hearts pumping rapidly.
