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Markets and shopping
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The big advantage of
shopping
in the capital is that you can get goods from all over the country and, if you are flying out of here, you don't have to lug them around the country. For
crafts
and traditional goods don't miss the markets and artesanAa shops we've listed, though they will usually be more expensive than at source.
One fascinating (and occasionally frustrating) facet of shopping in the capital is the practice of devoting a whole street to one particular trade, something found to some extent throughout the city. There are whole streets where you can buy nothing but stationery, other blocks packed exclusively with shoe shops, and still other areas packed with musical instruments. Unless you happen to find the right street you can walk all day without ever seeing a guitar. It's probably the most concrete hangover of Aztec life - their well-regulated markets were divided up according to the nature of the goods on sale, and the practice was continued by colonial planners. Every area of the city has its own market selling food and essentials, and many others set up stalls for just one day a week along a suburban street. Less formal street stalls spring up all over the city and can be just a sheet on the pavement with some New Age devotee selling cheap jewellery, to a relatively sophisticated stand selling anything from pens and watches to computer hard drives and fake designer clothing and bags. The Centro Historico and Zona Rosa are good hunting grounds, though the concentration of stalls in these areas is influenced by occasional crackdowns on this illegal but widely accepted trading. At more sensitive times you'll notice vendors alert to the presence of the authorities, and occasionally catch them packing up and sprinting off. For anything you really need - clothes and so on - a good starting point is El Palacio de Hierro at 20 de Noviembre 3, just south of the ZA?calo, one of several big department stores in the area. It is also worth trying one of the many branches of Sanborn's , which sell books, maps and quantities of tacky souvenirs, and every branch has a sizeable pharmacy. If you've a taste for designer clothing , quality jewellery or genuine Mexican antiques , the Zona Rosa has traditionally been the place to go. There are still classy shops there, but in the last few years many have moved out to Polanco. If you been in Mexico for a while you'll be desperate for English-language books and magazines. Sadly the capital isn't much better than the rest of the country. Time and Newsweek are available all over the place, but for anything else you'll have to seek out the places we've listed, none of which have a huge range. For art and architecture books, most of the major art galleries have good selections.
Haggling
for a bargain is no longer the thrilling (or daunting) prospect it once was in Mexico City. The nation's increasing prosperity and sophistication means that most things are fixed price. As a tourist (and especially if your Spanish is poor) you can expect people to try to bump up the price occasionally and it pays to remain alert, but on the whole what you see is what you pay. If times are quiet some hotels (particularly large business hotels) might drop the prices if you ask, but hostels and budget hotels seldom drop prices. The best hope for reductions is with crafts and artesanAa goods, but even here fixed prices are becoming more common. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Mexico,
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