Bazaar Sabado, horses and lychees

Such memories! Tonio almost always takes me to "Bazaar Sabado," a colorful market selling artesanias only on Saturdays, in the San Angel neighborhood in southern Mexico City. I requested that we go again, and we packed up the kids and snacks and headed off. On the way, we had a minor deviation when we were stopped by the police. "Hoy no circulas." Today I was not supposed to be driving the minivan with extranjero license plates within the city limits. Because Mexico City is trying to reduce smog and traffic, they have instituted a set of confusing rules about when certain cars are allowed and not allowed to "circulate" through the city. Because my plates end in a "2," I am not supposed to drive on Thursdays (every ending number is assigned a different day). But in addition (this part I didn't know) I cannot drive on the last Saturday of the month AND cannot drive daily between 5am and 11am. Um... I wish I would have known that 2 weeks ago when I started to drive them to camp every morning!? If our car were only 1 year newer, we would be excused from the limitations and would be able to drive every day. After some discussions we paid a "fine" that we agreed on of $65 and went home to change cars. Whew. I am SO happy this didn't happen on any of the mornings I was driving alone! Thank you Mario for being the driver and negotiator (along with Norma!)
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Here we are in Bazaar Sabado, in what used to be an hacienda, and is now a courtyard and restaurant surrounded by tiny little shops with beautiful Mexican crafts, antiques, ceramics, etc. If you click on the picture to make it larger you can see the fountain behind us is actually made of fruit and flowers. Over Mario's shoulder are the mariachis playing to the reataurant patrons dining on an amazing buffet: nopales, chilaquiles, fruit, eggs, quesadillas, etc.

You order your quesadillas, and these women take some fresh masa, make a fresh tortilla on one comal, and then making fresh quesadillas with your choice of filling on the other comal: black mushrooms, oaxaca cheese, potatoes, chorizo, zucchini flowers, etc.

After breakfast we headed to the market outside to buy Tonio's some birthday presents. I even got a couple of Christmas presents!!! ssshhh.

Here are some scenes from the market as we were walking back to the car. I missed so many photo ops while caring for 3 squirrely kids in a busy market..

Look at this amazing quilt hanging from the window! We didn't have time to check out the store:

Walking back to the car

Three tired kids slept all the way home.

Once we got home I waited in the car and let them sleep a little longer. I snapped some pictures of their street. The yellow house is Tonio's (parent's) house!

While I was waiting in the car for the kids to wake up, some random horses rode by. I asked Norma what they were for, and she said they carry and sell dirt (potting soil) up and down the mountain for people to plant with:

Once the kids woke up, we went to quick get fresh tortillas from the tortilleria down the street. On the way we passed some guys selling rambutans (pretty much lychees) and mameys from a wheelbarrow. I LOVE mameys (pronounced mah-may). Oh my gosh, fresh mamey juice is the best ever!!!! You can sometimes find it in the frozen section of Hispanic grovery stores (look for Goya frozen mamey pulp), but obviously fresh is the best!!! Blend it with milk and sugar and you have the best drink ever. Then the rambutans (which in Spanish are called lichi but they are a little different than lychees because they have spikey hairs and a bigger seed) looked so good we bought some too.