It is Sunday. Taking the turista bus a second time, our first stop is the Tristan Street flea market. It is set up on a narrow street, tree lined, packed with vendors and customers on a sunny day in November.
As shoppers and browsers move through the flea market they scoop up books, tools, food, pets, cosmetics, clothes, spices, vegetables and fruits, meats and cheeses. There are Arabs selling nuts and dates and olives. There are Uruguayans selling produce and still other vendors talking, sitting in chairs,standing and moving in for the kill only when a sale seems imminent.
This market has purses, clothes, a table stacked with bras, tools and books, tourist stuff, laundry soap and toilet paper. It has antiques, homemade arts and crafts, women selling crocheted caps, original art, and even a table of hourglasses. At that table a young boy shows great interest in the ancient timepieces, a prescient knowledge that time moves from the top of the glass to the bottom and when sand isn’t left in the top your time is up.
Where time goes when it is used up would have been a warm up exercise for Albert Einstein.
I keep my hands in my pockets because I don’t want to buy and don’t want to carry purchases the rest of the day.
The Tristan Street market is a good weekend stocking stuffer but there are bigger gifts I still want to open on this tourist ride.
There is much more to see in Montevideo this Sunday than fleas.
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