Today, I woke up sick. Surprise surprise. I can’t ignore it anymore, my throat is sore, I feel achy and tired, my nose is running nonstop, I’m sick. UGH. I messaged in the hostel group chat a couple days ago to see if anyone wanted to go on my little day trip with me, but nobody said anything and I didn’t feel like doing two hours of bussing by myself to get there so instead I decided to hang back and do a market tour that Claudia was organizing instead.
But first, shakshuka breakfaaaast yum! And we got yogurt again this morning which was a big win.
I spent breakfast chatting with some new people, three nurses from New York who just got here for a long weekend (Mark, Wesley and Ryan). It’s still crazy to me that so many Americans can just come here for a little long weekend trip! I convinced them to come on the market tour because we needed a minimum of 6 people I think and we needed them at that point.
I just went and laid in bed until the start of the tour at 11, then I went to meet everyone on the terrace. The nurses and I were also joined by Max from Australia (he’s in my dorm he’s great), Katharina from Germany (very quiet, but we like her name), and John from Toronto.
It was a big, busy tour!! We started off by taking a bus east to a different area of the city for a few coins. The ride was around 15 minutes, then we hopped off and walked around the Sonora Market. This is also known as the black magic and witchcraft market. At first, I wasn’t taking many pictures because Claudia told us to be careful with our phones, she actually told me that one time a girl got her phone stolen out of her hand on this exact tour.
So the first video you’re going to see is of my bathroom experience (you’re welcome). Claudia stopped and asked if anyone needed to go to the bathroom, a couple guys were going so I decided to go too, not realizing how challenging of a task it would be.
First of all, I had my purse and I was wearing a jumpsuit. Which means: purse has to come off (and sit on the ground of course for lack of hooks), then my entire top has to come off and hang down around my legs because it’s attached to my bottoms. I was also wearing a sweater around my waist and I don’t even REMEMBER where that went. As you can see, there was plenty of space in the stall so this was really easy to achieve without dangling anything in the cloudy toilet water.
Other important things to notice about the video:
- I’m holding toilet paper in my hand because they give you a wad of it on your way into the stall, and you don’t get any more.
- There’s no toilet seat, I had to squat with my jumpsuit dangling around my legs (probably on the ground)
- The garbage can is for toilet paper because you don’t flush it here in Mexico, the pipes can’t handle it. It all goes in the garbage can, which takes some getting used to but it’s not as bad as you’re thinking.
- There’s no water in the tank, that’s because after I was done, an attendant walked right in and poured water into the bowl to flush.
- Throughout this whole ordeal, I was being serenaded by the lovely radio telenovela that was playing over the speakers.
To top it all off, this experience cost me somewhere between 5-7 pesos, I can’t remember. To be fair, there was a tap with water and some soap to wash my hands, and the attendant was making fun of me (I’m pretty sure) until he realized I somewhat understood him (his accent was difficult) and he said “oh! I thought you were a gringa!” to which I just smiled and continued washing my hands. I’m sure the group was waiting for me for a long time but whatever we’ve learned our lesson, peeing at the market is a desperation move ONLY.
Okay enough about that, moving on tooooooo the actual markets. So we walked around the Sonora Market for a while, through the natural medicine area (lots of herbs and various powders), on to the voodoo area (scary masks and hanging stuffed hawks and dried snakes and bits of rabbits and other birds and other things I’m sure), and finally into the live animal area. This one was a bit unsettling to walk through, it obviously stank and was quite loud, lots of people yelling too, and there were all kinds of things in there. Dogs, cats, goats, sheep, birds, chickens, turtles, lizards… This is the only part Claudia didn’t even take pictures because “the people get crazy here”. She told us the normal household animals were to be sold as pets, and many others like the goats and chickens were to be sacrificed. She said she knew it was quite shocking to see, that it wasn’t pretty, but that it was also the most authentic side of Mexico we’d see. Although it was a little hard to be in there, it was interesting to walk through.
After the Sonora market, we headed out to the street for some snacks. The first vendor we hit up was making kind of like taco salad, but with completely different veggies and toppings so I guess the only similarity is the bag of doritos. Ours was very limey, with lettuce and carrot and some peanuts and other unidentifiable crunchy and spicy things, quite good! Man he had some weird looking ingredients on that cart though.
We walked down an adjacent street and stopped to see a lady selling fried plantains. I’ve had terrible experiences with plantain in the past, but I actually loved these. I think the thing is, I hate them when they’re trying to be savoury because they’re too sweet for that, but if we just accept that they’re supposed to be dessert, I love them. These had strawberry jam and sweet cream on them and they were great.
After the plantain lady, we went across the street to walk around the Mercado de la Merced, where most of the locals get their groceries. This was much less intense than the Sonora market, but still PACKED. Claudia is a tiny person she was squeezing through the crowds SO FAST and we were just trying our very best not to lose her completely.
We walked past ALL kinds of things. Cut flowers, clothing, souvenirs, produce produce and MORE produce. There were piles and piles of fruits, veggies, dried chilis, powdered spices, mole pastes, butcher shops with rows upon rows of chicken and duck, and sweets stalls SWARMING with wasps.
We got to try a bunch of stuff, a type of fruit called Mamey, which has orange flesh and Claudia described as a sweet avocado (I didn’t like it but we only had it frozen, not fresh), guava jam, strawberry jam, and tamarind.
Notice the techno blasting in the background of this video, they really play the most random music here (and almost none of it is latin).
At the candy stall, Claudia stopped and bought us some more things to try. One was just basically like sucre à crème, some type of burnt sugar brick, and the others were balls of tamarind candy. Two were coated with chili powders and the other was rolled in sugar. It all tasted fine but I couldn’t eat more than a couple bites of any of it, it’s all just chunks of sugar.
We then stopped in a little storage area to play arcade games, some kind of Mexican pinball none of us ever managed to understand.
We also stopped at a quesadilla place for lunch, where their specialties were pumpkin flower (super popular here) and huitlacoche (a gross-looking grey fungus that grows on cobs of corn) so obviously I got huitlacoche. I also got to try the pumpkin flower from someone else and both were really good! The huitlacoche just tastes a bit like mushrooms, and the blue corn tortillas are my favourite they’re soooooo good!
After lunch, we went on the hunt for buuuuuugs to try. Claudia got us a whole plate of them. First we tried guzanos (worms that are harvested from agave plants), these were crispy, thank god, but they tasted pretty bad. We then had chicatanas, which are ants that can only be harvested on a single day out of the year. These were also crispy but a little less awful, they tasted like dirt. Finally we had chapulines, which are a type of grasshopper. They’re actually a different species altogether but English doesn’t have a different word for them, these were by far the best, crispy and acidic but tasted the least like dirt. The shape was the most scary though. All in all, not too bad. Sometimes they roast the bugs but these were all fried.
The rest of the plate was seafood. We had some tiny little boiled shrimps, which were awful. They definitely belonged in a stock pot and not in my mouth. Then there were three different types of sardines, one cooked tamal-style in a banana or corn leaf (awful), and two fried and crispy (amazing). One was just plain and one was coated in paprika and they were both super good.
We left the market after the bug tasting and headed through the city center. Maman and I had already walked through it with Niina on Day 2 but it was still cool.
Inside the cathedral, Claudia showed me that the entire nave is tilting to one side because Mexico City is sinking like half a meter per year! So the whole thing is on an angle (it’s hard to see in the photo below but everything is tilted right slightly).
We then went to the most popular bakery for locals (according to Claudia) which is called Pastelería Ideal. It was so cool. Their bakeries are kind of a free for all here, you walk in and grab a huge pan with tongs, then you walk around through a room full of trays and trays of baked goods, grab what you want and they package it all up for you at the till. It’s efficient but I’m sure stuff dries out faster that way too.
Claudia picked out some stuff for us to try (all of it was pretty bad honestly) and she got it all put together in a bag, handed it to us and said okay I leave you here bye! And then she was gone.
We all stood around kinda wondering what to do next so we decided to go to a cafe and try all the baked goods. The best one was the concha (sweet bread with crackle topping), there was also just a piece of sweet bread with sweet whipped butter on it, some kind of corn muffin (chunks of corn inside not like corn bread), and a couple other mediocre items. I had a mango smoothie at the cafe which actually was also mediocre.
The nurses were going to rent bikes and cycle around the park (and possibly go to a tequila place I’m not sure) but I was WIPED OUT from the 4 hour tour so I walked back to the hostel with Max. I took all the advil and other meds I could possibly manage and had a nap in my bunk. I had my leftover pizza for supper and did not leave my bunk again for the rest of the evening.
I was really hoping just to sleep off the sick (spoiler alert, I did not). See you in the next one!