You are reading "Cien años de soledad", a wonderful novel written by Gabriel García Márquez. The novel narrates the story of several generations of the family "Buendía".
In this fragment, it is said that many years after the moment which is being described, Aureliano Buendía, about to be executed by firearm will think about his childhood, when his father accompanied him to see the ice for the first time. Macondo, the village where they live, is settled in a hot region, and people there have never seen the snow or the ice. Furthermore, they live a simple life, and don't even now that fridges exist. Every year, a gypsy called Melquíades comes to the villages with "extraordinary" things that he brings from his journeys all the world around. That time, Melquíades had brought a piece of ICE (carbonic ice, in fact; otherwise it would have melted very quickly), and the whole village had run to Melquiades tent to see that "wonder". Further on in your book, you will find this chapter.