Nuestro viaje al Mercado Vega

Carneceria. The sell EVERY part of the cow.

EVERY PART of the cow! Or of the bird, or of the...

Legumes and grains.

So far, I´ve not met a South American

who cooks (or eats!) beans.

Pickles and sauces. Behind the glass,

a partially-cooked, barley-type grain.

Some of these carrot or beet stacks were 4 and 5 feet tall!

At one point, talking with Daniel about some unusually small eggs,

I speculated that they were from avionitos.

Daniel laughed out loud.

"No," he said." Even small airplanes don´t lay eggs.

"At least, not in South America!"

(An avion is an airplane, avionito, a small one. Aves are birds!)

This photo hardly does the squash justice.

It was an even brighter yellow up-close and in person.

Contemplating our next purchase.

Not for sale!

A resident of El Mercado Vega,

this gatita gris lives very near the fish market.

This is some of the fruit we bought

(contents of the white bags included).

And that´s just the fruit!

Today, I accompanied Daniel and Elena on their weekly shopping excursion to El Mercado Vega. Similar to other open-aired markets I´ve seen the States and in Mexico, El Vega was MANY times larger and more broad in scope than any I have ever seen. It is open daily and, if one is both patient and clever, you can probably find just about anything.

We took a good many excursions into the market and back to the van, rather like a safari that moved increasingly further into the wilderness with each sucessive trip. And upon our return to the van (a mini-van sized school bus, one of two the Gonzoles own and drive during the school year), we quickly unloaded our booty.

Of great interest to me was the organization of the trip. This is a weekly occurrance, and they are accustomed to purchasing food sufficient to feed 10 people per meal, two or three times a day for a while week. That´s a LOT of food! Plus, the van has no refrigeration, it was a hot, SUNNY day, and it was a fair distance from the parking space (for which we paid, because it is secure) and the inner-sanctum of the market. In short, you want to purchase firmer things early in each trip, putting the more fragile things atop the previous purchases. And not only the bag in the cart, which Elaina or I pulled, but there were also several bags which Daniel carried. In short, these two are market machines, knowing exactly what to do, when, where, and how. It was amazing. And FUN! I hope I get to go shopping with them again before I leave!

One last thing -- in El Vega, I rather stuck out as a tourist. Several times on our sorties into the depths of the market we would hear a young boy cry out, "Gringo! Gringo!" with a huge grin on his face. I usually returned a smile and a thumbs-up gesture, saying "Sí! Gringo! Sí!"

¿Y Porque no?

-- Bill