Video: Witches’ Market, La Paz, Bolivia


Bolivia is an exciting adventure travel destination offering challenging mountain treks, interesting dishes like roast guinea pig and mysterious ancient ruins.

One of the most popular, and certainly the strangest, attraction is the Witches’ Market in the capital La Paz. Here you can find mummified llama fetuses, aphrodisiacs and herbal remedies. Many of the spells are based on the ancient traditions of the Aymara people. You can also get your fortune told or get cured by one of the many yatiri, or witch doctors. There’s Catholic paraphernalia too. In many regions of South America traditional beliefs merged with the Catholicism brought by the Spanish to create a hybrid tradition.

Check out this video where an intrepid traveler braves the Witches’ Market and learns all about how to gain love and money, especially money. This is part one of three, so make sure to see the rest!

Photo of the Day: Pomegranates in Jerusalem


Sometimes, the most hidden corners of a city are its most interesting. Take this sliver of Jerusalem‘s Muslim Quarter, where a small pomegranate stand, a chair, a door, a mirror, some electrical wires, and graffiti compose one of the most visually striking images in the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. Plus, this Photo of the Day was taken with an iPhone! Flickr user Better Nothing Than Almost proves that when the subject, lighting, and composition are right, the rest doesn’t really matter. Well, maybe some photo-ready iPhoneography apps help too.

Does your photo belong here? Upload your favorite travel shots, whether pro or Instagram, to the Gadling Group Pool and your image could be selected as our Photo of the Day.

Photo of the day – Lunchtime in Vietnam

If it weren’t for the modern water bottles on the tables, this photo could have been taken in any year. Flickr user American Jon captured a beautiful lunchtime scene at the Bac Ha Sunday market in Vietnam, with great color from the traditional costumes and perfect lighting. Bac Ha is known for the many ethnic minorities who are found only in the region, serving up unusual food like thang co, a blood porridge made with horse meat, as well as moonshine.

Want to see your timeless travel photos on Gadling? Add them to the Flickr pool and be sure we can download them for a future Photo of the Day.

Photo of the day – Don’t look a gift buffalo in the mouth


Shopping at a local market can be a highlight of any trip. You might find antiques in Paris, produce and food in Ethiopia, or just tube socks and funnel cake in America. Today’s Photo of the Day was taken by

Flickr user American Jon at the

Bac Ha Market in Vietnam, known for colorful hill tribes, livestock of all kinds (some good advice on transporting your new chicken can be found here), and moonshine. Just don’t have too much of the local swill – you want to stay sharp when bartering for your buffalo like the gentleman above.

Have any good market photos to add to the Gadling Flickr pool? Make sure we can download them so we can use one for a future

Photo of the Day.

A visit to an African market


One of Africa’s best attractions are its markets. Full of vibrant life and color, an African market always makes for a fascinating visit.

Harar has one big and several smaller markets. There used to be one at each of its five gates, but some have dwindled to barely half a dozen women selling tomatoes and potatoes. The only big gate markets now are at Assum Gate, where there’s a busy market for qat, Africa’s favorite narcotic leaf, and at Asmaddin Gate, which has a huge market–Harar’s biggest and some say the second biggest in Ethiopia, with only Addis Ababa’s famous Merkato being bigger. Merkato is unfair competition since it’s the biggest African market of all!

The markets are dominated by the Oromo, a different ethnic group than the Hararis. The Hararis live in town and the Oromo farm the surrounding countryside. Most sell fresh produce and you’ll see piles of fresh vegetables as well as sacks of grain. People also sell manufactured goods, mostly cheap Chinese imports such as shoes, blankets, radios, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

The Oromo have a strict segregation of the sexes at the market. Only women sell food, while men will often sell manufactured items. Men never sell qat. In his Eating the Flowers of Paradise, Kevin Rushby tells a story of an Oromo man whose wife had died. Needing money, he went to the market with a bundle of qat. He was laughed out of town and even years later he was known as “the man who tried to sell qat.” Nobody could explain to me why this division of labor exists; it’s just the way it is.

%Gallery-119721%The markets start at daybreak and Oromo from the more distant villages set off from home well before dawn, sometimes carrying their produce for miles. The women balance amazingly heavy loads on their heads, keeping their backs perfectly straight and walking in neat lines along Harar’s narrow alleyways.

Prices for food are pretty much set, although you can always haggle a little bit. For manufactured goods expect a long struggle as you and the vendor clash over the price. It’s not a frantic as Arab markets but it’s still an amusing battle of wits.

Inside the walls of the old city are a few major streets lined with shops and one open-air market called Gidir Magala. It used to be the largest in town but now it’s only a few dozen covered stalls selling produce. Next to it is a firewood market and a meat market. Oromo women lead donkeys loaded with wood from this market to deliver to private homes. Women who can’t afford a donkey carry giant bundles of wood on their head. There’s also a huge blue water tank where people fill twenty-liter yellow plastic jugs. With Harar’s water shortage, porters are busy carting piles of these jugs on wheelbarrows to people’s houses.

Women also sit by the sides of the major streets and squares selling food. One cooks up delicious samosas. Several more sit behind piles of peanuts, selling packets of them for one birr (six cents) each. Others sell bananas. You don’t have to go far to find a snack.

Besides the markets, there are wandering vendors selling everything from posters to perfume. It’s a hard life, walking around all day trying to sell things people generally don’t want. These folks don’t make many sales but they manage to contribute a little to the family income. One guy who is a common sight in the Old City carrying the same three bottles of perfume should get an award for persistence. Every day for the past couple of weeks I’ve asked him if he’s made a sale, and every day he shakes his head sadly. Yesterday, though, he strode up to me, looking a foot taller, and announced that he had sold a bottle.

One item that does sell well are lottery tickets. I guess I’m not eligible to win because the lottery guys are the only street vendors who don’t try to sell to me. Everyone else keeps trying, even the perfume seller After a month in town, the shoeshine boys in front of my favorite café are still trying to shine my Gore-Tex hiking boots.

I hate shopping at home, but shopping is never dull in Africa!

Don’t miss the rest of my Ethiopia travel series: Harar, Ethiopia: Two months in Africa’s City of Saints.

Coming up next: Harla: Ethiopia’s lost civilization!