The Artisan Market (Magdalena)

While we walked around downtown today we came upon a huge artisan market. Of course we went inside andslooked around. We looked around for a while in there. It felt like we were wandering around in circles because whenever we turned another corner, we would see a shop that looked the same as the last one, selling the same items as the last one and the young woman selling the merchandise would always be dressed the same and look about the same age. I liked looking in the few stands whose vendors weren`t following us around, telling us all about how great the things that they were selling were (the same as the vendor before: blankets, sweaters, jackets and scarves made from alpaca; every kind of jewelry made from a special kind of rock; lots of different kinds of bags; lots of different T-shirts that said Ecuador, Galapagos, or other things; and a couple of Bob Marley and the Beatles merchandise). I asked one vendor how much a particular scarf costed. She responded, "four dollars......three dollars." She gave it to me so that I could feel how soft it was and then she said, "2 for five dollars." I didn`t buy that scarf even though she lowered the price fast and without bartering. I only bought one thing in the entire artisan market: an Ecuador soccer jersey.