Kantuta

I just got back from a favorite spot in Oruro, "Mercado Campesino Kantuta" or loving called simply Kantuta.  It is a favorite spot, because well, it is essentially the biggest garage sale in the world.  You can find just about anything there, all imported (or smuggled) from the U.S.A.  From deviled-egg plates, L.L. Bean fleeces, pleather plants, softball gloves, your Mom's 1987 christmas sweater, the coffee mug from your college, etc.  And not only that, but ladies and their skirts wrapped around frying pans of grease-smuggled rellenos, chicharron de llama, pique, patas, and then the mountains of fruit in season or the steadily rising-in-price bulk goods of noodles, rice, and flour.  It is arguably the hottest place in Oruro, a concrete open lot of babies toys and shoes too-big for Orureños.  It is simply reliable.  I know where to get my favorite quinoa-llama-potato dish, or the pile most likely to have a patagonia fleece, but then there are always surprises just like at any garage sale...like when I found my carhart pants.  I browse the dusty rows, shielding my eyes from the sun, and think how far these items have traveled and how they arrived at such happy hands in the middle of the Altiplano, Bolivia. One man's trash is another man's treasure.