Shopping in the Market

Each Saturday, I head to the "mercado de antiquillo"  to shop for fruits and vegetables.  What a treat to shop there!  The produce is so good and fresh, and I have made some friends there.  Here, they have little stands set up (similar to a farmers market) and you buy potatoes from one person, fruit from another, and vegetables from another.  They also sell meat, eggs and cheese there, but I buy all of that at the real grocery store.  Adela is the lady I buy vegetables from, and she always greets me with smile!  They all are so friendly and know who we are now, and are very helpful and patient as I am learning spanish.  It is custom here when you buy from them they give you a small gift.  Adela gives me fresh herbs every week - basil, mint and/or cilantro.  The fruit lady gives me extra bananas.  At the grocery store last weekend, I bought sausage and hot dogs from one vendor, so they made me a sausage sandwich!  I didn't eat it there - I think one of the kids ate it when I got home.  Here is a picture of everything I bought last week at the market for $18!!!  (mandarins, bananas, pineapple, apples, kiwi, peaches,tomatoes, avocado, lemons, peppers, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, peas and a cucumber)

Marcus went on a tour of the larger market in San Camillo (near downtown Arequipa) as part of his conversation class last week.  We don't make it a habit of shopping there - it isn't in safe part of the city.

We wouldn't buy our meat here - but Marcus did say he saw people bringing the meat in fresh.  As in the entire animal... there are some really gross pictures of parts of all sorts of animals, but I will spare you the details!