Finally in a sober state of mind, I wake up in DF, Mexico. My bus won't be departing from this geographic location until 5:30 in the afternoon. With only a short stop over and no real destination in mind, I hang a left toward some street food. No health codes, no problem. I grab a delicious torta cubana with ham and pine apple and continue on.
Unfortunately with mere hours between me and the next leg of my journey, I don't get to see all that this culturally diverse land has to offer. However, just as the spanish came here in search of fortune and gold, one doesn't have to look far to find treasure in Mayan territory. My hunting grounds? El mercado. The giant market place of this city. In a seemingly endless maze of tents and stalls, everything is for sale.
Taking pictures with my soon to be "misplaced" camera, butchers proubly display the heads of decapitaed farm animals. These are a people who know exactly where their food comes from. By contrast, we in the states rarely see the source of our mass produced, antibiotic injected meat products. If no one had let me in on the secret, I would have told you that chickens pop out of an egg prewrapped with a price tag. The butcher, with a grin, chops up a pig head in front of me and I can't help but start to feel hungry again.
Moving deeper into the mercado labyrinth a plethora of flavors hide like nuggets of aztec gold. Freshly squeezed juice and coconut milk wets my whistle, and you can become more intimately acquainted with your recently slaughtered swine amigo. Cameras that are hotter than the caliente salsa can be bought on the cheap. For the truly bold, stop a few booths over for a more permanent souvenir. You heard right; flea market tattoos. That might be a bit much, even for me.
Regretting the shortness of my stay, I make my way back to the bus station, keeping a mental note to retur to this corner of the globe.
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