Mercados

¡Salud!

Things have been going great in Guanajuato. Except for one thing, and this greatly upsets me: I only have one week left in Mexico.

Since this trip has been absolutely phenomenal, I want to show you a big part of Mexico and especially Guanajuato before I have to leave for Mexico city on March 1st; the mercados.

Mercados are basically markets. The kind in Guanajuato, however, are more like open-air markets. Following are a series of images, each with a description, to give you a sense of what the markets are like.

My host mother making some wooden boxes and crosses to sell at the market. She designs them herself.

Piles of ceramic mugs held together by string at a ceramics market in San Miguel de Allende.

Another view of the ceramics market in San Miguel de Allende

Another market in San Miguel de Allende, which sells artesanías, a word that means basically any kind of handmade arts such as wood, painting, ceramic, and stone works.

People glazing some ceramic works for the shop in the above photo.

Another ceramics shop in San Miguel.
There are quite a lot of these!

A market in San Miguel de Allende
where everything from books, to
movies, to food, to jewlery, ect.
is sold.

Another picture of the
market in the picture above.

This is Mercado Hidalgo, one of the primary markets in Guanajuato. Here is where I bought most of my souvenirs.

In the markets, one common thing that happens is regatear or bargaining. This is where someone offers an item at a certain price and you ask for it to be lower. You keep doing this until you get to an equilibrium price. For example:

-¿Cuánto cuesta? (How much does it cost?)

-Ochenta. (Eighty (pesos), equal to about 4 USD)

-Quiero comprarlo por cincuenta. (I want to buy it for fifty (pesos), equal to about 2.50 USD)

-No. ¿Seisenta está bien? (No. Is sixty (pesos) good? Equal to about 3 USD)

-Sí. (Yes) [Buys object]

However, you cannot regatear for everything. You can't do it for food, medicines, and the like. It is usually reserved for artesanías. It is also a good idea to not restrict yourself at the mercados, especially if you're a tourist from the United States. Two reasons are 1. It provides money for the people there. 2. Since twenty pesos is equivalent to about 1 USD, you can get a things there for very little money. Something that might cost twenty dollars in the US (400 pesos) could only be twelve dollars in Mexico (240 pesos). That could buy you almost ten boxes of dulces (candies), four large and one small calaveras (painted skulls), or twelve imanes (magnets).

There is also a lot of my favourite kind of food sold at the mercados, street food! Street food is great because it is really cultural and cheap as well. I discovered my new favourite sandwich through street food, guacamaya, which is a sandwich with fried pork skin, avocado, egg, and lime. It is simple to make, but absolutely delicious. However, it comes with a very spicy sauce, but you can ask for the sauce separate, unless you're feeling really brave.

So, the main lessons about mercados is that you should really just admire the artesanías, spend some (a lot of) money, try to regatear once, and buy some street food to snack on while you are doing all this.

Espero que tengas un lindo día, (I wish that you have a beautiful day)

Benjamín