This distinctive bridge was the perfect landmark to find Mercado Republica. I could even spot it from the windows of the bus.
There it is. I was hoping to find some of the groovy hooded sweaters I'd seen on sale on the streets of Pachuca. I'd passed them by before, thinking of luggage space, but the cold nights of Hidalgo had me reconsider. Leon is just a tad too metropolitan for such rustic items but Francisco told there was a chance I'd find them here if anywhere.
I found my sweaters later that day but not here. This was all about leather goods and raw sheets of leather.
After the strange woman incident, the isolated street of Pachuca encounter and the hotel invasion attempt at Tolantongo, I wasn't in complete airhead tourist mode. Some might call it paranoid. I prefer calling it situational awareness. As a foreigner with a cowboy hat on his head, I tend to stick out and possibly attract the wrong sort of attention.
The Mercado area was just far enough from the historical center to reduce pedestrian traffic and the old narrow streets were an uncertain labyrinth of one-ways. I chose my route by following the few cars that passed. Obviously they were going somewhere. It worked just fine and soon I was on the main multi-lane traffic route.
I passed a long line of happy street men receiving styro containers of food. The food actually looked pretty good. I kept to well travelled streets.
This sticker is on almost every trash can at the center square. The loose translation is that there is nothing worth eating in there. But that's a matter of opinion, isn't it? Near where I sat with my peanut butter sandwiches, a man had resurrected two unfinished bottles of pop: one orange, one brown. Warm and flat but sugary and sweet. He seemed pretty happy with the score and offered to share with a man at a shoe sign stand.
Across from me, another man slowly nibbled at some kind of vegetable, taking dainty pecks. By the time I'd finished my sandwiches, he still hadn't made much progress. I saw then he'd been working away on a big onion. Yeah, that was going to take a while.
I kept wandering down different streets I'd missed my first time around. Whenever the affluent touristy boutique atmosphere faded, I'd turn back the way I'd come. Eventually I stumbled across the other market I'd been told about and warned against. It was just outside the tourist zone and very low end. No cool rustic sweaters there, mostly just cheap goods from China. It's easy to lose your sense of direction in these old markets and I didn't stay long. My situational awareness was in high gear that day.
My situational awareness/paranoia hadn't alerted me to any hazards until I spotted a huge angry looking guy ahead of me I decided I definitely wanted to avoid. He swaggered slowly along the sidewalk, maybe a bit drunk, scowling everywhere he turned, looking every bit a man in the mood to physically vent some grievances as soon as he found the right target. As mentioned before, I sometimes stand out in a crowd a bit too much.
So, I slowed my steps down but he was walking even slower as people instinctively stepped off the sidewalk curb and stayed out of his way. He paused at a shop for a minute. The store clerk carefully avoided eye contact. I was getting closer than I wanted the whole time. Eventually, we were going to meet up, like it or not. Just before the upcoming crowded street corner crossing, I nonchalantly jaywalked through a lull in traffic to the other side of the street and disappeared back the direction I had come behind a parked city bus.
Just in case he had already picked me out of the crowd and had paused at the shop deliberately to allow the gap to close, I kept walking. At the next corner, there was the Museo de las Identidades Leonesas. Why not? I don't picture guys like this one ever walking into museums. Risk aversion to the max.
Quite a place.
There was a whole room on the history of slavery in Leon
Not every exhibit was so gloomy but there was one section featuring a lot of jail scenarios and the word 'carcel' kept popping up often enough for me to pull out the translator. Sometimes one key word is all you need to fill in the gaps. For sure. Previous to its life as a museum, this place had been a jail.
This was one of the original cells. Nothing but darkness in there once that door was shut. Grim place. I suppose this might have been the hole.
When you peek inside, you can see a black and white film loop of a prisoner lying in the fetal position at the back.
I didn't get lost once that day.
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