Mérida historico centre: Lucas de Gálvez market – the large mauve square next to the Post Office

The museums ticked off my list, the late afternoon/evening was freed up to explore more of the city. I had noticed on a tourist map of Mérida there were city markets somewhere on the south side of the green zócalo. I thought these might be worthwhile checking out. As I walked down Calle 56 towards the markets (named Mercado Lucas de Gálvez), I noticed how the streets were getting dirtier, the shops more basic and down-market and there were more pedestrians competing for space on the footpaths, and the people I passed tended to be not dressed in their best clobber to put it mildly! This was definitely not the big end of town, as we understand this term.

TripAdvisor pinpoints the address of Lucas de Gálvez market as being the corner of 56T Street and 67 Street, but when you are there its hard to, a) work out where it precisely starts, and b) gauge how big it actually is. I had in fact walked into the precinct of the markets without being aware I was in it! The markets seem to have spilled out of the original building or buildings into stalls lining the adjoining streets. I entered the markets building proper near where there were several stalls on a corner selling cheap clone versions of well-known American backpacks for paltry amounts, as little as MXN50 (less than AUD4)!

That well-known international fashion label “Tonny Halfmaker”!

Market Carnicería: Butchers’ fresh!

Multi-markets, Carnicerías, pescaderías, etc
Inside the markets it was a huge area and way too many vendor stalls to ever get your head around❈. There was row after row of narrow alleys stretching the length of the building, the whole place was pretty gritty and grimy (much like a market!) The market was divided into several separate sections including clothing and shoes, bags, fruit and veg, meat and fish, food seasonings, pots and baskets, records, etc. I didn’t fancy the look of the raw meat hanging up all day and the fish lying round, wasn’t sure about the refrigeration situation or the hygiene…if I had to cook in Mérida especially in summer, I’d think twice about getting my supplies of carne, pollo, jamon and pescado from this outlet. Outside in Calle 56T there were lines of street stalls flogging the standard souvenir stuff, and on the other side of the road the markets seemed to continue in another building✦…I noticed in this part that one whole aisle comprised mainly hairdressers’ shops. So many of the leather goods, merchandise and materials of any sort were “knock-offs”, transparently unlicensed Third World clones of famous First World brand name products.

The markets were of course abuzz with people coming and going every which way, these were locals mainly it seemed. I didn’t spot many overseas tourists while I was there, just swarming bunches of Meridians with that characteristic Mexican build, squat and solid forms busily stocking up on the weekly groceries, or perhaps there to find a special gift, some trinkets, or more practically, invest in a new pair of budget-priced shoes or a new pair of ‘threads’.

Lucas de Gálvez (continued!)

Feeling a bit peckish I scouted out the most reasonably clean looking of the markets’ food outlets and settled on a small snack to eat (some battered, fried zucchini croquette-shaped morsel) and a soda. After wolfing the food down I enjoyably wasted the best part of an hour roaming up and down every single aisle in the enormous market. I concluded that I had ‘done’ Mercado Lucas de Gálvez…all there was to see of the city’s famous central markets I has seen – or so I thought! Spotting an open doorway on the northern side of the building I exited through it into a narrow lane. To my surprise, I discovered another market building separated by the narrow lane-way, this one bustling with every bit as much commercial activity as the first!

Mercado especialidades: religioso y joyería
I ventured inside to find…more of the same merchandise, but also something a little different too. It was missing the comestibles, the meats, the fruits and vegetables and such of the first building, but it had a whole sub-section on items of religiosity, objects of (need I specify it?…Catholic) veneration and worship, some of it quite garish and kitschy stuff. Fortifying my atheistic senses against such a holy and pious assault on their sensibilities, I promptly quickstepped my way past its tempting arrays of ecclesiastical delights and necessities to explore what other merchandise the market had to offer. Away from the section catering for the fashionably devotional, a lot of the market seemed to be given over to yet more cloned items of clothing and accessories.

Joyerías galore!

I noticed that this section of the markets had more jewellery shops (joyerías) than the first building, each alley had at least one or two jewellers in it, displaying signs proclaiming their silver and gold carat wares…Joyería Lorena Oro, Oro y Plata, Joyería Anael, and so on.

My appetite for mega-markets well and truly satisfied, I stumbled out of the northern end of Lucas de Gálvez into the cooler night air. I made for Calle 60 which would take me back in the direction of my hotel. Halfway down Calle 60, not far from the Catedral Mayor I found a nice little corner restaurant, lively but not too crowded. The food was good quality if a little more expensive than the more modestly appointed eateries in ‘Marketland’. I tried a different type of tortilla dish, accompanied by the obligatory cerveza. A succulent postre put the finishing touches to the meal. An unexpected bonus about eight as I was tucking into my comida was the appearance of a three-piece musical group. As they had set up within touching distance of my table, I couldn’t miss hearing any of the standard Latino numbers that the female singer with an opera diva’s physique performed (including The Girl from Ipanema and a retinue of well-worn Mexican classics).

PostScript: Mérida street grid, confusion by numbers – Calle Sensenta y Seis where are you?
The original town planners of modern Mérida probably thought they were doing the sensible thing, arranging the city streets in numerical order to make it easy to navigate around and avoid getting lost in a sprawling metropolitan centre₪. It certainly makes sense…on paper. But when I tried to chart my way back to our hotel in Calle 66 after dinner, I discovered there was a gap between the theory and the practice! Setting off in a northerly direction my intention was turn at each intersection I came to and then head west until I reached Calle 66…simple! The flaw in the plan as it turned out was that the numbered streets didn’t run consistently, I’d find myself say passing Calle 54 and expecting to be at Calle 56 at the next cross-street but finding I was at Calle 58…Calle 56 with mathematical illogic had just disappeared! So I ended up in this increasingly frustrating “merry-go-round” situation going from street A to street B back to A again¤ (it also didn’t help that a lot of the street were quite dark and not all the corners had street signs!)

I had the presence of mind to bring the hotel’s business card with me but this proved of very limited value because the card, incredulously, had neither its address nor a street map pinpointing its location printed on it! I stopped a young local guy in the street and asked for assistance. The politely spoken Mexican boy didn’t know the hotel but kindly offered to ring the hotel for me so they could give me directions (my phone plan didn’t function in Mexico). But just to add insult to injury, the staff at the hotel were not answering the phone, even though he redialed the numbers several times! After another half-an-hour’s wandering around, through trial-and-error I eventually lucked-in and stumbled upon Calle 66 and the hotel, overcome by a feeling of both being relieved and pissed-off!

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❈ although I did later read that Lucas de Gálvez covered an area of 156,000 square feet and over 2,000 vendors operated at the markets
✦ on second thoughts it occurred to me later that this was conceivably an altogether separate market to Lucas de Gálvez on the other side of 56T
₪ the streets running east to west are named by odd numbers, starting at uno, tres, cinco, siete and so on…the streets running north to south are numbered by even numbers, dos, cuatro, seis, ocho, etc
¤ this asymmetrical formation replicates itself all over the supposed simplified grid pattern of the city! For instance, it starts off as it should sequentially, Calle 19 next to Calle 17 next to Calle 15, then instead of Calle 13 being next in sequence, we inexplicably have Calle 63E! (numbers and letters adds an extra layer of bewildering complexity to the task of finding your way round!) Calle 127 is initially on the west of Calle 129 and then it ends and restarts on the east of it! Calle 28, without changing its direction, suddenly becomes Calle 49, and so on. Now maybe all this criss-crossing, number-jumping imbroglio is perfectly fathomable to your average, local Méridian, but to state the bleeding obvious it was ultra-confusing for someone spending only 48 hours in the city!