10.10.2013Market in Arequipa

We visited the market in Arequipa several times and loved to explore the variety of products they sell. Especially all the differences compared to markets in Germany fascinated us. This is why we don’t want to keep back the following pictures:-)
The market is divided into different sections and you can buy nearly everything.
From hats, …

to flowers, …

to fresh baked and delicious smelling bread.

And of course there is a big section with all kinds of fruits:

We already tried many different fruits, we didn’t even know before. For example the sweet “pepino dulce”:

We also had countless papayas we enjoyed as fruits or as juices:

One of our favorites is the very tasty “grenadilla”. The outer shell is very hard and has a soft padding on the inside to protect the seeds. These are surrounded by a gelatinous and transparent pulp and what you actually eat from the fruit. A Peruvian told us, that especially children and babies eat this fruit a lot, because it contains many vitamins.

We never tried these fruits on the picture below, but they are on our to-do list for the next market visit 🙂

And here some of the more common fruits you probably know as well:

Of course you can also find all different kinds of vegetables.

You can also buy a variety of herbs. The small crammed booths reminded us of little witch cottages but always smelled really good 🙂

There are so many variations of corn:

One of our favorite aisles was the one with the many booths offering all kinds of freshly prepared juices:

You can also find an incredible variety of potatoes (Peru has more than 3000 different sorts of them):

Yes, these are also potatoes. We learned that they are dehydrated and washed in a river stream (thats why they are white). When you cook them, they will get bigger and according to Guido they contain pure energy!

You can also buy different kinds of cheeses, some of them we have already tried on our Colca Canyon trek:

The dark one is covered with red salt to give it a special taste and preserve it. The salt crust is usually washed off before eating:

All different kinds of olives:

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

For all faint-hearted, that don’t like to see raw and bloody meat and dead animals: Stop here and do not continue reading the post. Just imagine how all the delicious fruits smell and how good they taste 🙂

For all toughies: First we continue with the fish-section:

Here you can buy different spice-mixes for seasoning the fish:

Those poor guys are dried frogs. Guido told us, that the Peruvians believe that eating frogs increases fertility. Women who want to get pregnant often prepare them in a soup:

Of course you can also get fresh chicken:

The chicken meat gets cut up directly at the market. This is why you can see separate parts of the animal:

Of course you can also buy other kinds of meat (pork, alpaca, beef,…):

And for everybody who likes innards, there is a big selection of all kinds of nicely sorted innards. This was the section with the most unpleasant smell in the entire market, but nevertheless interesting to see:

The tongue of a bull:

They seem to use everything from the heads…

to the hoofs:

We never considered using all these ingredients for cooking. And come to think of it, we’re not even sure where you can buy these ingredients in Germany if you would want to. They probably sell them “under the counter” since they never show up in a shop 🙂

For all the visitors of the market that got hungry, there are also a couple of counters selling food:

We hope you enjoyed this small insight into the Peruvian market. We really love the markets, as they appear to us as real-life museums.