La Mercado y mucho mas

I can't even begin to tell you what a day I had - one of the best times of my life. I've been walking the city for 6 hours. I'll try to remember some of the things I saw. First, walking through the Mercado Centro was amazing. Its like a flea market in the street with booth after booth set-up and people selling merchandise. The direction I entered began with stamps and coins. My dad used to collect stamps and some coins and this reminded me of when I would go to the flea market in Tampa w him to The Lions Club booth he helped out with. Next was leather bags, wallets, & sunglasses. Now here is the strange thing. Since I've been here, all of two days I haven't seen many black folks, but at the mercado every single leather booth had a black male merchant (not one woman), and only the leather booths. next I headed toward the Port of Valencia but it proved to be much too long of a venture so I stopped at another market that is in the city park only on Sundays. There are bands and entertainers and people selling all kinds of things. I got a Shitzu (sp) massage for 20 min which helped my back tremedously. Next I purchased a variety of cured meats and cheeses. The Jamon Serronao de Borreno (sp) still had the hoof on and iot was the black hoof meaning it was a pig raised in the mountains and much more revered than the white hoofed pigs that are farm raised.