The Comedor Martita in Todos Santos - 10.31.06

From our hotel balcony we watch the ferris wheels as the sun slowly burns off the morning fog. Our plan is to walk past the jail and descend to the plaza to explore the market and carnival booths that have gathered at the feet of the ferris wheel. But before we start exploring, we stop in at the Comedor Martita for a bit of breakfast.


The door opens into the kitchen, where three women are minding the stove and chatting and cutting up dead chickens. They look up from their work just long enough to nod towards another doorway in the back of the kitchen. We step through to find a grim balcony where a few tables have been set up. We settle into a corner table by the railing.

The balcony overlooks the valley and the town. Immediately below us is a small plot of corn. Around the plot, concrete houses are huddled. From their roofs small spikes of rebar stand at attention, ready to serve as the foundation for the next level of the house when it is time to build again.


Dawn has fully arrived and the clouds are high, just skimming the mountaintops, and so the sky is bright. At times, the sun even breaks through to stew the valley into a sweaty fever.

Still the balcony remains dark, nestlike. The morning light is blocked by drying clothes hanging from the rafters. The balcony is made of dark, hefty planks, and the warm weight of the wood brings a comforting sense of stability.

*****

Seven chicks and a hen skitter about on the balcony floor, searching for scraps. The hen leads them out of the balcony, hopping over a small concrete ledge. The brood slowly files out of the room behind her. All of them except one, the scrawniest, who can’t make the jump no matter how desperately she flaps her nearly featherless wings. She chirps forlornly a few times before returning to search for food under the other tables. There she leaves her pale liquid droppings.

*****

Breakfast arrives: fried chicken, scrambled eggs, black beans, tortillas. The chicken is good, and the eggs are amazing, smoky and rich. We eat in silence while watching the valley, the scrawny chick, and the two cooks who have come out to the balcony to peel vegetables for lunch. They watch us from the corner of their eyes and gossip about us in Mam.