A sprawling Latin American market, where you can buy antiques, handicrafts, fossils, clothes and crystals. Everything in fact at the cheapest prices in the city.
You can have a retrato painted (a picture of a life event that you want a to dedicate to a particular saint). Frida Kahlo collected them. You can see shrines to the Santa Muerte, a pre-Columbian god disguised as a catholic saint dressed as the grim reaper. Sundays are best.
Take a micro bus on Avenue Reforma in the historic centre or Zona Rosa and ask to be put off at the Tianuis (street market) del Tepito
Take care in this area, it's notoriously dangerous.
If you really have to enter Tepito, I'd advise it to be in a group of no less than about 200. My girlfriend at the time (a Mexican) has been robbed there several times, my flatmate was violently assaulted. I got mugged while on a bus passing through the area. I'd be very careful.Send your feedback or queries to been.there@guardian.co.uk
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