Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Markets in Peru greet visitors with vivid colors, sounds and smells. (Photo: Isabel Guerra)

By Rodney L. Dodig

A great way to get a feeling for life in Peru is to visit a neighborhood market, a mercado. For those not from or living in Peru, this is a space or a building where vendors rent or purchase stalls to sell a wide range of services and goods, usually at a price that beats the larger supermarket. They are the equivalent of a convenience store and Farmer’s Market combined in the U.S., only offering much more.

Walking into one of these marvelous places assaults all the senses with a wide range of colors, tastes, smells, touch and sound. Vendors banter casually you walk through; they launch their pitches to have you look at their products. The sounds of chopping, cutting and machines performing their functions fills the mercado with a feeling of energy. The wild variety of colors from the fruit stand, the ribbon stall and the flower shop confuses the eye. It makes it hard to concentrate on a single visual input as your eyes are tempted from one stunning color to another. You are tempted to reach out to feel the silk of the ribbons or the fuzzy stuffed animals from the toy stall. Customers feel the fruit to determine its ripeness and bargain on the price. All around you things yearn for your touch.

Some vendors encourage you to sample their products. Small portions of a wide variety of food products are there to prove to the customer that theirs is superior to others. Raisins, nuts, slices of fruit and baked goods wait to be sampled. The small restaurants with set menus for five or six soles provide mouth watering scents to entice you to a table. The flowers from their stall and their sweet fragrance bring the feeling of summer and spring into your mind. The fresh fish send a hint of the ocean to your nostrils and make you long for a visit to the beach.

Videos from markets See videos from two of Lima's best markets: Mercado de Surquillo A classic neighborhood market, getting a makeover from Peru's gastronomy society. Bioferia in Miraflores Not a typical one, but a great Saturday market that lures foreigners with fresh produce and food.

Visiting a local mercado on a visit to Peru will help immerse you in the daily life of the residents. The vendors, always friendly, try their best to get past my poor Spanish and help me each time I go. There is always a warm smile and friendly greeting as I pass through the stalls. The amazing range of services can boggle the mind, everything from haircuts and makeovers to alterations on your clothes. There are even small clothing outlets, shoe stores and stalls that sell a wide range of products that seemingly have no relation to each other. If you take the time to stop in each place and look at the offerings thoroughly, you may find some amazing thing for yourself or a loved one.

These days I find myself going to the local mercado a lot more often and the supermarkets much less. You can see the appreciation each of the vendors has in their smiling faces each time you make a purchase. Whether the products are pennies more expensive or cheaper, the experience will bring you back.

Read more stories from Peru by Rodney Dodig. Click here to see his blog and read his fiction at Peru Writer's Group.

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1 Comments

# starsky says :
7 July, 2010 [ 01:07 ]

hi.
thank you it sounds good
can you please write on some markets
that i will know where to visit
thank you....

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