Day 5 - The Mercado

This morning we visited the largest open air market in all of Africa. Maybe that's a bit misleading... After intending to shop at Africa's largest open air market we decided to just drive through. It was too intimidating.

The Mercado is basically a tighter and narrower Addis with - as Grandma would say - "more people than you can shake a stick at" buying and selling their wares (I never figured out why I'd want to shake a stick at one person let alone a lot of them.) It's so crowded that the homeless have to sleep in the median of the street (No lie! Cars and buses were passing within inches of this guy on each side. And he was one of several sleeping here.)

These pictures don't even come close to showing how crowded it was. We were told to avoid the Mercado on Wednedsays and Saturdays because that's when they get really busy!