The oldest market here in Arequipa is 'Mercado San Camillo', part of the old centre of town and always plenty of stuff happening. It's here that you can find stalls with just a few of the hundreds of varieties of potato:
That might look exotic enough, until you find the guy who sells the big fat grubs:
The sign board assures the shopper that these things are just the ticket for fixing elbow, knee, and back pain. Also good for arthritis and migraines, it says.
We haven't seen these for sale at the market before, so they must be a seasonal thing. The vendor had plenty of interested customers.
All this is strange enough for the average Australian. But things get even stranger when you come across the stall that sells -- among other things -- dried llama foetuses. We are told that these are for burying beneath the threshold of your new house, to make sure that it and the occupants are blessed. (Maybe it's not that strange, though; European cultures have been putting gold coins under thresholds for centuries. And I can remember seeing Aussies throwing in coins as the concrete slab was being poured for their house, too.)
There were even a couple of much larger baby llamas, dried out and supplied with glass eyes:
I wonder what Peruvians would find strange and weird if they were to visit the Victoria Markets in Melbourne, or Canningvale Markets in Perth?
