The Market
16 August 2017
Kim
By the time we completed our check-in process (it may have taken the better part of the day but the big smiles and friendly demeanor of everyone we met easily made up for it). Our last task for the day was to replenish our fuel tanks - the old fashioned way. Tom transported 7 jerry cans of diesel in the dinghy from shore, which we carefully siphoned through a filter into our tanks. After that, we were definitely ready to call it a day.
Up at the crack of dawn, we waited at the roadside watching locals emerge from their blankets inside their kiosks before opening for business, and met our driver who took us to the Market so we could top-up our supplies before heading off for Tank Gamuk mid-morning. He dropped us off and pointed us towards a square mile of makeshift stands partially sheltered by tarps to protect the fresh fish, fruit and vegetables from baking in the sun. I felt momentarily stupefied by the endless maze of products. Baskets of loose rice and tropical fruit, various spices and dried beans, everything from heaps of tiny dried sardines to 10 kilo pointy finned tuna laying out on display. We ducked beneath tarps as we dodged the sea of locals darting back and forth between tables, while families on scooters wove their way between us all. We picked up fruit and vegetables from various stands,struggling with currency conversion and how much we were paying for our bag of mangoes. As we exited the Market we had the pleasure of stepping around 3 dead rates, entrails exposed, smack in the middle of the path. Definitely not Kansas! Back on board, after washing down our supplies and dunking the stock of bananas in the sea to get rid of the cockroaches (yikes!), I hung up a couple of hammocks and made a mental note to study up on local currency and appropriate lingo to get my bearing before negotiating prices at the next market.