Sal Rei Shopping

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Mercado Municipal is a modern two storey market building in Sal Rei.

It is located on the edge of Largo Santa Isabel, Sal Rei's main square, just inland from the beach. We made a brief visit to the market building during a tour of Sal Rei in May 2011.

The ground floor of the market is devoted to food, and in particular fruit and vegetables. You will find trays and boxes piled high with oranges, apples, bananas, pears, potatoes, carrots, cabbages and such like. There are also bags of nuts and corn for sale, the latter being a key ingredient in Cape Verde's national dish, Cachupa Rica, a stew of corn, beans, vegetables and fish or meat.

The inside of the market building is open plan, so our guide took us up to the first floor where we could get the best view of the fruit and veg market below.

Unlike the ground floor, the upper floor is divided into small individual shops, although all of them were selling a similar variety of souvenirs, crafts and artwork. You can find a fairly extensive selection of rugs, jewellery, wooden ornaments, Cape Verde t-shirts and scarves, wooden masks, paintings and colourful pictures created from sand.