Mercado Lucas de Galvez

UBELONG Team Leaders Leo and Martina strongly encouraged me to visit the big market that's located near the hostel and I thought, hey why not?! After walking for about twenty minutes, Hemi (my roommate) and I arrived at a local square with tons of little tiendas lining the streets. I was about to give up on finding this elusive supermarket when we finally saw the glorious sign indicating that we had arrived at Mercado Lucas de Galvez! I was so excited to see what was past the entrance since I was expecting to see a super-sized supermarket like the Soriana Supermarkets (or the Stop & Shop and Trader Joe's stores we see in America haha).

The first thing we encountered were little shops selling local Yucatecan food, toys, and other miscellaneous goods. Upon further exploration, we started to see vendors selling vegetables and fruit. I was super excited because I had an intense discussion at the food bank about the local fruit and whether it'd be possible to try them before I left Mérida. Luckily, I found vendors who sold mamey and piñuelas and jumped at the opportunity to buy some (only 10 pesos for a cup full of piñuelas and 10 pesos for a whole mamey!).

Piñuelas in their cup portions

Mamey cut to show its freshness

All of the vendors sold a variety of goods and as tempting as it was to buy a little bit of everything, living off of 600 pesos for the next couple of days forced me to restrain myself :( I did stop by a stand that sold different spices for cooking, such as relleno negro, achiote, and condiments for escabeche. My experience in this market reminded me of when I visited Taiwan and Shanghai and went to their night markets, where the "halls" of vendors seemed to never end and there was plenty of food to try!

It was quite an adventure walking through this labyrinth of a supermarket because there was no organization at all in this place; I wish I took better pictures in this place but unfortunately I didn't capture any great shots to show here! Just imagine a flea market, indoors, selling anything from household goods, spices, vegetables and fruit, to fresh pork rinds, aquarium fish, to geese, chicks, bunnies and even puppies! It did break my heart when I encountered this animal section of the market because it was the last thing I expected to see there :( I hope all of these little critters will be sold to good homes and not for food >< We explored the market for about two hours before we returned to the hostel to rest our tired feet haha.

I thought time was going to go by so slowly here in Mérida since the lifestyle is a lot more lax in comparison to in NYC, but I am returning home this weekend!! I'm excited to be going home but it's sad to say goodbye to the great people I had the chance to work with at the food bank, along with Martina and Leo :'( Tonight we'll be having a little farewell dinner with some of the staff from the food bank to celebrate my time here and wish me a safe trip home, so excited! :)