Taking it easy

The trick to not completely sweating to death here seems to be to wait until the late afternoon to do anything outdoors. My approach has been to emerge from the hotel only for breakfast and lunch and then wait until dinner to do any extensive amount of walking. I don't know how anybody lives in this kind of climate, and the funny thing is I think this weather is still pretty mild compared to other times of the year. The crazy thing is some of the locals dress in a way that would suggest it's actually cool here - long pants, long-sleeve shirts, sweaters even! Some women in particular attempt to cover up completely, having nothing to do with the weather but rather in an effort to keep their skin as shielded from the sun as possible. I saw a girl on a motorbike the other day with a helmet, face mask, gloves, full-length clothing, and sandals with socks. She was serious! Apparently lighter skin is highly prized here. In fact, it's nearly impossible to buy any kind of skin cream that doesn't have a whitening agent in it, which is pretty funny considering most of us Westerners come to places like this specifically for the sun.