The Tristán Narvaja feria (street market) stretches from Montevideo’s Centro throughout the Cordón neighborhood. At the feria’s limits, there are improvised stands with very few things to offer and sometimes venders sell their articles on the ground.

La feria is a kind of open air shopping mall. But there are no bathrooms, no ramps for handicapped and the no food court (walking food vendors sometimes do not instill confidence). Pickpockets love the Tristán Narvaja feria too and careless individuals will find missing personal items upon their return. Despite all this, Tristán Narvaja is a legendary place to pick up almost anything you can think of... cheaply.

“Get your pit bulls, Labradors, German Shepards” shouts a vender at the entrance to the feria while pointing at old cardboard boxes full of puppies shivering from the cold. The visitor faces the first crossroad of the labyrinth as the Tristán Narvaja separates into several different lanes. The main lane begins with fruit and vegetable stands and abruptly changes into stands that sell female underwear and sportswear. The rest of the lanes alternate into stands selling LP records, books, iron lamps and leather goods and whatever else.

Going down Tristán Narvaja, the street that gives the feria its name, uncertainty increases. Do I stay on this street or do I turn onto a cross street? Do I go to bookshops, antiques stores or should stop to boil some water for my mate and then decide which path to take on this exciting and chaotic road?

Tourists visiting the feria are easily recognizable, not only because of the language, the accent or their cameras, but also because the time they take to walk and how they stop at all the small things. This is different from the locals who just look for sportswear cheaper than in conventional stores, or a book that is not sold anymore but can be bought for UYP 10 if you know where to look for it.

Tristán and the people working there have changed over time. Not only are there newer products, but also new types of salespersons. As internet democratizes information, those who once did not know they could be selling an antique for only UYP 200, today know about E-bay. Nowadays, salespersons sometimes prohibit people from taking pictures of their articles, fearing their products might be negotiated at a better price.

However, a pan for paella that usually costs UYP 2,000 at a conventional store can be bought for UYP 400 at a stand in the feria. A nice couch, if you know where to look for it, can be bought hundreds of pesos cheaper than anywhere else, except maybe for other ferias in Piedras Blancas neighborhood (which is famous for stolen goods). Lower prices can be obtained if the buyer has the gift of the gab.

Mate gourds, drums, cars, well-preserved antique furniture, dryers, dogs, tools, cameras, laundry machines, pots, beds, comic books, jars from the 1700s, parrots and everything else imagined can be bought every Sunday from the early morning to almost 4:00pm, when vendors start loading their trucks.

On Monday, the streets that held Sunday’s feria will be entirely different. Plenty of city buses in a hurry loaded with sleepy people going to work crisscross the lanes that hours ago had been filled with chickens, LP records and hamsters.