The street, the markets, the hotel entrance

The streets here are filled with people. But they never look as aggressive or self absorbed as when you see crowded streets in NYC, here they look more casual and happy. The public city transportation is done by blue and white VW buses. As the roll into a bus stop a person literally stands with their whole body out of the window and yells where the bus is going to so people know what bus to get on (there are no numbers or route names on the busses). It is also not uncommon to see goats and donkeys along the streets.

The markets are typically a mix of tin shacks that will close almost flat at night while others are in actually physical structures. So far I have seen perhaps 50-80 shops none bigger than half the size of a classroom at Upham Elementary school. They have lots of different items.

When we pull into our hotel (or the Sheraton or Hilton) there are guards at the entrance. Cars that carry locals have to stop, everyone gets out and is patted down. Since I do not look local (not many white faced people around here) they just wave use through. A bit odd since in the US we tend to do the reverse. All of these hotels also have you walk through a metal detection like the ones at the airports. Again there are guards at the front doors to the hotels.