Point South Mexico - Real Estate and Lifestyle Magazine

The colourful images and the experiences of shopping in los tianguis of Ajijic Mx,  (open air markets) will be some of the most vivid memories of your Mexican adventure. The weekly Ajijic Mx tianguis flit in and out of our daily life and conversations and the items we purchase at the markets fill in the spaces of our lives—and our vases, refrigerators and pantries.

Tianguis have been the favoured form of shopping since 1500 B.C. when Olmec farmers started trading excess corn for baskets woven by neighbouring tribes. For the next 1,000 years the Olmec culture and chiefdoms into Guatemala and El Salvador were trading jade, obsidian, magnetite, pottery and shells. Mexican trade made giant strides when the Maya joined the markets around 450 B.C. Open-air merchants bartered for jaguar skins, beautiful bird feathers, dyes, incense, medicinal herbs and a wealth of foods: avocado, papaya, cactus fruit, pineapple, guava, chile, cassava, sweet potatoes, and yucca, along with the nutritious “three sisters of life,” corn, beans and squash.

When Hernán Cortés first strode through marketplaces in the Aztec capital city, he estimated that 30,000 people met every day to exchange goods in open air spaces that were larger than the markets in Rome and Constantinople. The suburban Tlatelolco market was organized by inspectors who monitored transactions and regulated prices which were paid with cacao beans, woven cloaks and quills filled with gold dust. Cortés and his men spotted beautifully crafted gold and silver jewelry, fine vases, and hatchets with copper-tin alloy blades among the stalls selling beans, fruits, vegetables, herbs, honey, candy, pottery, wood, and chickens, turkeys, rabbits, deer, ducks and dogs.

Guadalajara’s modern Mercado Libertad, with three stories and thousands of square metres of enclosed space, is the largest indoor market in the Western Hemisphere. Like most of Mexico’s permanent markets, it was built on the site of an ancient (1000 A.D.) indigenous open air market.

Tianguis once referred only to centers of trade of hand made and hand raised goods. Today Mexican open air markets of all descriptions are called tianguis. All types of goods and services are offered in outdoor locations at Lake Chapala and in Guadalajara, including:

Between 3,500 and 4,000 merchants display crafts--handmade pottery, glass and wood in the Tonalá Thursday and Sunday Tianguis Artesanal.

El Baratillo could almost be called a swap meet . Open on Sundays, the huge market with stalls filled with…everything…is on Calle Juan R. Zavala in Guadalajara.

Each Sunday Guadalajara residents gather in open fields to buy and sell cars, parts, and accessories in Tianguis del Automovil.

• Skeletons, sugar skulls and morbid-looking toys fill the Day of the Dead tianguis in Parque Morelos in the central area of Guadalajara.
• Beads, macramé, tie-dyed clothing, incense and other hippie paraphernalia are sold on weekends in the Tianguis de Plaza Juárez in downtown Guadalajara.
• Both Guadalajara and Tonalá host large Tianguis Navideños (Christmas markets) where decorations, nativity scenes, gifts and wrapping supplies are sold in the weeks preceding the holiday.
• Another favourite Sunday market in Guadalajara is the Tianguis El Trocadero, which displays cultural, religious and antique items on Avenida México.