Mapping the Maze

to scale map of the main building of El Arenal, AKA Feria Libre

         El Arenal is a big smelly market.  It is about 390 feet deep and 390 feet wide.  It’s smelly because there’s a lot of dead fish and butchers doing stuff with meat. 

    It is usually packed with people and has: fruit, ice cream, pork, beef, chicken, juice, burgers, salchipapas, vegetables, herbs, clothes, toys, grain, shoes, kitchen stuff, hardware, yarn, pets, barbers, and a lot more that i’m not gonna go into.  

    There’s fruit stall after fruit stall, and rows and rows of potatoes, a whole aisle dedicated to herbs, oh and there’s a quarter of the building that has shoes in it, but only two buildings that have toys in them!!!!!  The ice cream is usually just in vendors but I’ve seen it in stores too sometimes, in the aisle of herbs they rub the herbs onto people to give them good luck, only then do they give the herbs to them.  

    The toys mostly consist of pretend Chinese knives, pretend anime characters, and finally remote controlled cars. 

    To find fruit, go to the extended open section of arenal which is huge (see map below) and you will find: avocados, tomatoes, pineapples, apples, carrots, mangoes, tangerines, oranges and a ton more that i’m not going into right now.  

    The kitchen stuff is in the building, salchipapas are in restaurants or in vendors.  The barbers are in about 13 aisles with 20 barbers per aisle.  The juice is usually in vendors but i’ve seen one restaurant that has: burgers, seco de pollo, lunches, and juices.  
    To map the whole thing out, we went to Arenal and paced all the sides, one step per pace, three feet per step.  The building is a square and is where all the actual shops are, all the vendors to the side mostly sell vegetables herbs and fruit.  There’s one my dad and mom really like that has all three.

informal outdoor exteded arenal market, drawing not to scale