A Flea Market Without a Name

The San Alejo Flea Market on Carrera Septima and 25th St. and the artsy Usaquen Flea Market attract locals and tourists looking for antiques, art, books and foods.

A traffic jam of push-carts. 

But Bogotá has lots of other flea markets, where you won't find any fine art or antiques. Instead, people hawk random stuff to make a peso, and customers look to save a peso. This one forms spontaeneously each Sunday on the sidewalk of a run-down stretch of Carrera 10, beside Tercer Milenio Park. Here, the selection run towards used toys and clothes, old equipment and bicycles - possibly stolen.

I bought a pair of shoes, Made in Vietnam, and some used batteries for my old cellphone. Perhaps they'll hold a charge. But if they don't I'll only have lost 1,000 pesos each.

Tercer Milenio Park itself was created on the site of El Cartucho, a neighborhood notorious for crime and vice which was bulldozed in 2004-5. So the flea market, in a way, provides a reminder of the old neighborhood.

Notice the little girls playing amongst the toys for sale. 

These two women asked me to take their picture and then turned shy. 

Where else can you find a computer monitor, jeans and cellphone parts all in the same place?

A sidewalk tree doubles as a display case.

A cart ready to carry stuff to storage. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours