Market photos from Nicaragua

I like markets. I've photoblogged the great market of Damascus and the Chilmark fleamarket on Martha's Vineyard in the past. Here are a few pictures from Managua's Mercado Roberto Huembes.


The narrow corridors and stalls of the crafts (artesania) section of the market carry every sort of local trinket you could want.


Little girls' dresses hang on the walls...


...some prettily embroidered.


Colorful hammocks hang above.


Folkloric figures dance on tables.


A leather frog clutches a bottle of Flor de Cana, the ubiquitous Nicaraguan rum, while Cuban cigars wait behind.


For the tourist so inclined, there are lefty t-shirts.


Close up, Latin America's contemporary progressive presidential pantheon, clockwise from top left: Evo Morales, Bolivia; Fidel Castro, Cuba; Hugo Chavez, Venezuela; Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua.


Not everyone is taken with those icons -- rough translation of this t-shirt: "I don't give a shit about corruption, unemployment, utilities getting cut off, and lying politics. Long fuckin' live Nicaragua."


Once through the craft section, the shopper comes to the parts of the market more important to locals. This fellow sells CDs from around the world -- don't ask me if they are knock-offs.


Nicaraguans love these "horrible, hard, round cheese-flavored cookies, some with a dab of jelly" according to my knowledgeable friend. I didn't taste one. Would you, given that description?

At this point, I acted like a responsible tourist and didn't leave the group to stray into the vegetable market, the real heart of the place. The following three pictures come from the market in the town of San Carlos, most of the way across the country nearly to Costa Rica.






We bought a full bag of those tangerines for our group. They were as good as they looked.