Adventures in shopping for fruit: Best done at dawn, at the CADEG (a sort of wholesale market).

Fruit picking techniques: Melons, knocking. Pineapples, sniffing. Oranges, squeezing. Mangos, looking.

Best smells: mangos! What a perfume! It filled the car on the way back.

Oddball specialties: just beer and salt cod; just pumpkins; just watermelons

Fun details: varieties of veggies that look almost like north american ones, except a little different, such as the yellow and green bell peppers, or the pale green zucchinis.

Best people watching: the very elderly shopkeepers and their elderly cats; the shoulder-carrying skills of the shop assistants (or, in the photo below, the convent’s driver)