Cartagena Fruit Salad

The black matrons who sell fruit in Cartagena are typically called Negras Palenqueras.  Palenqueras perhaps because they come from Palenques, the free-towns where the black slaves seeked safe haven after escaping from their masters.   This one tried (and succeeded) to charge us two (or three) times what a fruit salad would cost and smiled for this picture only once because hey, it's about 5 dollars per picture and I had already taken three.

This was probably the fifth picture, so she wasn't smiling anymore. I guess in her mind I was at least $15 dollars in debt.



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