The Feria de Mataderos is the real deal.
There are other basic Sunday markets in the Buenos Aires neighborhoods of Recoleta, La Boca, and San Telmo where you can get cool jewelry, handcrafts, paintings and caricatures, etc. But the Feria de Mataderos is a real experience and worth the 45-minute bus trip from the center. Colectivo 55 and 92 take you the closest – definitely invest the few pesos it costs to buy a Guia T bus guide to help you out, and ask someone at a kiosk for help/directions. Also see link to taking a public bus below.
Feria de Mataderos
Mataderos are slaughterhouses, so the fair takes its name from the neighborhood’s history of slaughterhouses of the area in which it’s held.
Here, you can sample delicious and cheap Argentinean specialties like empanadas, locro, and tamales, and drink the Argentine addiction: mate. You can buy unique, hand-made earrings of silver and seeds of local South American fruit (which unfortunately I don’t remember the name of) or necklaces crocheted from copper wire. You can buy clothes, fresh bread, bottles of wine, mate gourds, souvenirs, jams…the list goes on and on. The prices are cheap and you can always bargain them down even more.
Bread seller
On top of all the bargaining, you can enjoy and join in on traditional dances and watch a gaucho game called Carerra de Sortija (“The Race of the Ring”, during which the gauchos race on their horses towards a small ring hanging from a bar and attempt to slip a pencil through it).
The tiniest gaucho during the Carerra de Sortija
There is also a different live music performance at every fair – when I visited, the performer was a local female singer-songwriter type à la Jewel. Later she was replaced by more traditional music to accompany the dancing.
All in all, you can get a really nice sampling of traditional Argentine culture without needing to travel out to the Pampas, and you will definitely go home with some nice gifts for your friends, family…and yourself.
Feria de Mataderos
Av. Lisandro de la Torre y Av. de los Corrales
(Mercado Nacional de Hacienda)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Email: feriademataderos_mc@buenosaires.gov.ar
Website: http://www.feriademataderos.com.ar
Related links:
Feria de Mataderos | BuenosTours
How to Use a Public Bus in Buenos Aires
View Atlas Parasite in a larger map
That’s it! You convinced us.
We can’t wait to go there and see the gauchos and all the other interesting things, and taste their empanadas and tamales. The bread looks delicious.