Sunday is market day in Ixtapan. The center of town transforms from narrow streets lined by small shops to narrow streets made even narrower by the presence of vendors’ displays. People from the town and surrounding areas crowd into the market to do their weekly food shopping. Some sellers hawk their wares by walking through the crowded aisles and calling out what they are selling. Most people are toting shopping bags or dragging wheeled carts for their purchases, which makes the aisles even more crowded. It is controlled chaos of the best possible sort.
In my opinion, visiting a local market is a wonderful way to experience a culture. In Ixtapan that means seeing representatives of every part of the population, from the youngest newborns to the most senior great-grandmas and grandpas, making their way through the streets. Children help at their parents’ stalls or cling to their parents’ hands, so they don’t get separated.
There is gorgeous produce of every description, every possible cooking utensil, clothing, shoes, hats, automotive supplies, machetes, flowers, spices, candy, plants, toys, and lots more.
I go there to take in the scene, not to shop. But this time Sue and I couldn’t resist buying hand painted hats. We were the only gringos at the market (honestly we didn’t see a single other non-Mexican person) and the hats really made us stand out. We didn’t care, nor did anyone else. People were unfailingly friendly.
There are stands selling snacks and drinks. Vendors fry tortillas, fill them with veggies, meat, and salsa, and sell them as fast as they can prepare them. You can also buy fried nopales (cactus) with salsa, freshly baked bread, horchata (a beverage made from nuts, water, and sugar, sometimes with flavorings like cinnamon or lemon zest) and fruit drinks, crispy chicharron (pork rinds), bags of nuts and dozens of other snack foods.
When we left the market, the streets were still humming with life—children chasing each other between the stalls, vendors calling out their wares, and shoppers balancing bags of produce as if they’d stocked up for a month. Watching the ebb and flow of daily life here felt like the perfect counterpoint to the spectacle of Metepec’s fiesta and Toluca’s dazzling botanical garden. In Ixtapan’s market, it was the rhythm of ordinary Sunday shopping that made the day remarkable.