Saquisilli Market – 14 July, 2011

Posted: July 25th, 2011 ˑ Filled under: animals, Ecuador, food, markets, Quito ˑ Comments Closed

Dawn over the valley. We had to get up pretty early to make it to the animal market.

We made the 2 hour trek from Quito to the Saquisilli Market, which is a weekly (every Thursday) event where people from all around Saquisilli converge on the town to buy EVERYTHING. There are at least a dozen different markets and you can literally buy everything from a llama to a pair of shoes. We weren’t in the market for much, so we were there just to have a look around and it was pretty incredible. Here are some of the scenes from the various markets.

We started out at the livestock market. There, we saw everything from piglets to fully grown cows.

Didn’t bring any twine to tie up your new purchase? Well, they’ve got you covered there too, so don’t worry!

Lots of brightly colored twine

I think we all found it a little bit sad, because the animals are purchased and then loaded onto trucks like, well, livestock, but it was a little in-your-face for us cityfolk. We spent only a few minutes checking it out before heading back to the main part of town.

Human baby being carried on the right, goat baby being carried in the middle

While we were walking, we came across this family. In contrast to the way the animals were herded around in the market, we saw several women carrying their baby animal purchases like children. That made me feel a bit better about the whole thing.

After we walked back into the center of town we explored the various other markets. There was everything from cooking utensils to knock-off shoes and anything you can imagine inbetween, but, as usual, we were most drawn to the food markets. I find them the most interesting, as well as the most photogenic!

For more details on what we ate at the market, click here and for a full slideshow of our visit (with lots more nice photos), please visit my Flickr set by clicking here.