Market Day

Sometimes you catch yourself thinking like a tourist, and this is when you are best able to understand the locals´ mindset; crossing the bridge between two ways of thinking can be a comical affair.

The guidebook says that the Saturday Market in Riobamba, where I am, is worth checking out. Now, normally I have no interest in markets-- I´ve always been offered things to buy, whether I was looking for them or not-- but it´s easy to fall into the lull of the guidebook, and it was Saturday and I had no particular plans. So I asked a local, a man who owned a tour agency and interacted with gringos everyday, in which direction was the market.

He got very animated and immediately went to the street to flag a cab for me; ¨It´s just a few kilometers away, they don´t allow the animals downtown.¨ Animals? I was both confused and curious. My tourist assumption had been that ¨the Market¨was the crafts market; the usual assortment of handmade hats and sweaters, along with t-shirts, keychains and other junk from China. But in a place dominated by agriculture, even to a man living in the city, ¨the Market¨ meant the Saturday livestock market, where locals haggle over the worth of skinny farm animals.

Mainly cows, trucks and corrals and alleyways full of cows, but also sheep, pigs, goats, llamas, donkeys and horses are for sale. Vendors sell cotton candy and Chinese caramels; I definitely got that ¨only gringo in the crowd¨attention. But it is an interesting place, at least for a little while. The immensely swollen cow udders, showcasing potential; the daisychains of hog-tied sheep, convulsing in the morning heat; people emptying their pockets, and then waiting for the bus with a box of mangos and a pig. Animals are treated like animals here; I don´t think PETA´s influence has reached this far yet. It reminded me of the mesh sacks of guinea pigs (a delicacy) on the streets of Peru, biting each other and fighting for space in their last few hours.

Later in the day I would see the Ecuadorian delicacy-- entire roasted pigs-- on countless streetvendors´tables, the heads smiling at you as you walk past. Pig stew, pig skin, any cut of pork imaginable; an entire table of skinned pig heads, the black eyes contrasting against the freshly stripped flesh.

But of course more than just animals are for sale in the market. Apples, bananas, strawberries, blackberries, mangoes, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce; imagine a farmer´s market where everyone is still a farmer. And shoes-- I´ve seen more shoes for sale in this town than anywhere else in my life. There were entire market streets, lined on both sides, with nothing but shoes. And then there are countless shops devoted to shoes.

For me personally, market day is a chance to wander lazily, sampling the different ice creams and donuts and sweetbreads. Later I would discover the world of bootlegged products, where any cd, movie, or video game you´ve ever wanted is available for a dollar. And curiously, Ecuador, or at least Riobamba, seems to be a heavy metal mecca. I picked up some Iron Maiden patches, a shirt, some DVDs, and even a custom Manowar wallet. You would never find this stuff back home!

So in the end, the guidebook was right. Market Day is worth checking out; but sometimes it takes some cross-cultural confusion to make it worth your while.