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                             Mercado Merced

 

 

 

            Mercado Merced, the largest, busiest, most crowded and most complete market place I've ever seen.  It smells of fresh flowers and spices, fried meats and sausage, grinding steel and car tires - all mixed in with the somewhat frequent road-kill, out-house and rotting food smells.  Most of the folks were friendly and inviting and were glad to have me take their picture, some were reluctant but didn't seem to know why.  The Mercado Merced made me want to live in Mexico City just so that I could shop there for my daily vittles and cook all the interesting foods, spices and sauces.

            The Mercado Merced day in Mexico City was great and I certainly would recommend it, but keep your camera and wallet close - I didn't have any problems but it's definitely a place to be careful.

Click on the photo for a free birdie.

 

 

 

 

Mercado Merced, absolutely huge, you can get anything you want for a good price and smell the whole range - from olfactory enjoyment to stench.

This nice man was selling birdies but he gave me this one for free! [upper left of picture].

I think I like pooh-bear better than birdie boy.

Now you can stop wondering where all those tortillas come from.

A typical eatery at the market.

Happy fish folks; kind of a mini-Pike Place Market.

With the amount of action and people crammed into this market it's hard to tell if this car has been there for 6 months or just a couple of days.

Spices, grains, nuts and Mole - very popular in Puebla.

Busy guy, melons are popular today.

Just chicken.

It's a very very crowded market, this is one of many hundreds of crowded intersections.

Pick which one's real and win a prize!

Shoes and posers.

Got time?

The market zoning was unique - here we have baby nativity jesus in all sizes and underwear in all sizes.

Just an old guy selling socks. Maybe it's some sort of prison release program.

Bulk dulce.

The sweet potatoes were very popular with the bees today. The whole block was full of stands just like this, and lots of bees.

Grease. The different meats are around the edge of the pot and the grease drips into the middle where it is collected, and also helps coook the meat.

Popular sweet snack, I never really liked fried platanos.

Another popular eatery. I had a chorizo and cheese taco here, pretty good.

Big palm leaves. I don't know what they were used for but it's all this guy does.

A very organized stand.

Cup of corn with spices and salsa, very popular. This guy was yelling to others that the gringo was taking his picture and he was going to be famous!

I avoid stands like this one, where they grab the raw slab of meet, then grab the cooked stuff, same hands, and make a taco.

Typical busy corner in the market area.

Peppers, all shapes and sizes.

Solvent sniffer and rooster. It was a surreal sort of scene. Two of the people sitting nearby said that the rooster belonged to the solvent sniffer.

Pit bull and kids, near the solvent sniffer.

Luxury apartments at one of the market entrances.

A very popular marketing technique - hire young pretty girls to market your stuff. Kind of like the pharma industry in the US!

Want adds in the newspaper here would make HR in the US flip! They specifically ask for girls 18-25, with certain pant sizes, etc, and a photo.

They were skipping along, singing and holding hands - this would've been much better as a video.