Trip to the Market

We had scheduled a van for this morning to take us downtown to the market (Souk) to poke around and shop a bit. Word got around and we had a full bus as we headed downtown. We made one stop to drop off one of our friends as he was meeting others for lunch elsewhere. We departed at Green Square at the entrance to the old Medina. As you can see, the streets are backed with shoppers looking for this or that. The way things are arranged is quite different from what we are used to in the malls in America.

In America, the mall owner protects his tenants from some competition by only allowing so many shoe stores, a certain mix of women's clothes shops, etc. Here, all of the merchants selling the same type of goods group together so all of the gold jewelry merchants are along one long row, each with their own kiosk, all of the spice vendors are in the same area, all of the shoe vendors in another area and so on. The only thing that I found that I needed was pepper corns, 1/3 kilo for 2 LD. I never found the pepper mill. I had to make another run this evening to the local home /kitchen furnishing store in the neighborhood to purchase a couple of canisters and a pepper mill.

After wandering the streets shopping we had worked up an appetite. And what way to finish off a shopping trip than mexican food (Libyan style) atop a nice restaurant overlooking the Marcus Arelius Arch.

What you see above are the beef tacos. They were out of enchiladas so we all opted for tacos. The tortillas are a corn based Libyan bread but worked quite well. The seasonings were good and the hot sauce isn't mexican restaurant style but it is hot.

All in all, it was quite a nice outing for a Saturday but alas, back to work in the morning.