Inside One of Colombia’s Wildest Food Markets
The Mercado de Bazurto may be a chef’s dream, but it takes street smarts to navigate.
It’s 6 AM in the land of coffee, and I am blinking the morning light out of my eyes as I clamber out of the car and make my way toward the Mercado de Bazurto in Cartagena, Colombia’s seaside city. Just steps away, fishermen are speaking in rapid-fire Spanish as they circle around plastic tarps piled high with locally caught seafood. Bright blue parrotfish, large tuna, and red snapper are all laid out for purchase as crowds of pelicans stand alongside barefooted locals.
Across the dirt road, fruit vendors are setting up shop, sitting among baskets of oranges and stacks of pineapples while bagging generous portions of strawberries. Butchers holding cleavers stand beside carcasses of recently slaughtered pigs while machete-wielding farmers whack coconuts nearby. The market seems to stretch on forever in every direction, offering everything from guavas to electronics. It has both the feel of an ongoing party and the aftermath of a riot, as though one wrong turn in the maze of Bazurto would prove detrimental. Like an assault on the senses, Mercado de Bazurto lives up to its reputation as a bustling, chaotic, and dirty-as-hell tourist-free marketplace of winding alleyways and stalls barren of camera-toting…
