La Búfalo Tianguis

La Búfalo Tianguis is a Sunday-only street market, one of the most famous in the City. It’s also a rare soft spot between giant urban-planning oversights. In a brutally auto-centric valley along the old Rio Becerra, residents have been setting up shop for decades. Despite a giant garbage processing plant, exclusive big-box shopping, and a largely unforgiving urban highway, people stop and shop for food, clothes, and more.

That’s where the style begins.

The emphasis here is most acutely on Las Pacas, the ubiquitous piles of barely sorted clothing. At drop-dead prices, they’re a major draw and local vintage-clothing boutique owners count themselves among the regular shoppers. Sharp Álvaro Obregón-ions have a keen sense for sportswear. Not-so-cheap sneakers seem to dominate and there are some rare finds amongst the latest and most colorful.

The market stretches down the slopes from west to east. Food ends up concentrated on the upper, western end, closer to the elevated highway that’s here called Alta Tension. The lower, eastern end of the market spills out beneath the Periferico proper, here with the painted columns that line this stretch of the Cuernavaca Railroad Bikeway. It’s all part of the package that makes this one of the Alt-Travel Highlights, at least in this part of the City.

Hours: Sundays only, (roughly) 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.