Every Tuesday in the andean town Silvia, the local market fill up with indigenous Guambiano people coming from the surrounding villages to sell, buy or trade goods of all natures. On this occasion, spending a whole morning scouting around the streets bustling with vendors is a unique opportunity to discover a new cultural aspect of Colombia. Additionally, from a photography perspective, this is also a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring back some beautiful shots of this community tucked away in the mountains.
The market is mostly inside a huge building and is divided different sections such as clothing, fruit & vegetables, house items, shoes and cereals.
How to get to Silvia
The easiest way to get to Silvia is taking a bus from the Terminal de Transportes of Popayan.
Currently the companies running buses to/from the town are Cooperativa de Motoristas del Cauca (every half hour | 6.15am-7pm, Saturday only at 8am, Sunday only at 5pm), Cooperativa de Taxis Belacazar (every day | 6am,7am,10am and 3pm) and Sotracauca (every day | 12pm).
The fare price to Silvia is 7000COP and it takes 1h15min.
When is the best time to go?
Obviously, the best day to visit Silvia is on Tuesdays because of the much bigger presence of the Guambiano people and the atmosphere around the local market. If you planning to visit on other days, just be aware that it might not be as overwhelming.
In terms of time, make sure to be there during early morning (8-9am max) so you can enjoy the market at its busiest time. When we went there, we took the bus at 7.00am and by the time we arrived in Silvia at 8.15am we had an awesome couple of hours wandering around, before the real atmosphere of the market started fading away around midday.
Some people consider sleeping in Silvia the day before and then waking up early for the market but on our opinion, leaving the same morning from Popayan is the perfect strategy.
The taboo of photography
During our time at the market, we always had our cameras taking photos at everything and everybody. The excitement was true! Their beautiful outfit with black hats, blue ponchos on the shoulders and colourful scarves it was pure beauty!
Unfortunately, as time went on we realised that generally the Guambiano people don’t like to be photographed, even when asked in person. True that some people did not care at all we were photographing them even though we were just a couple of meters away but the whole matter regarding being photographed is a “no-go”. A man hiding being a streetlight, a woman turning the other way and a couple giving a fierce look: doesn’t sound like photos are something they enjoy!
Surprisingly, nobody ever asked us money for taking them a photo, it was either black or white, nothing like we’ve seen in India with monks waiting for the tourist to take photos of them.
So please, if you plan in taking pictures make sure to politely ask first or at least be far enough for your subject not to notice the disturbance. What you could do to make both parties happy though, is take advantage of the low market prices to buy some groceries and at the same time ask your seller if you can take a photo of them: they will rarely say no! Win-win situation!
In the end, spending half day around the local market of Silvia it was a great experience that we would recommend to everybody. So far in Colombia, this place was probably one of the few places where we came in contact the most with people belonging to the traditional Colombia, something hard to find these days! If you happen to be in Popayan a couple of days before, it is definitely worth spending extra days in the city just to be able to attend this Tuesday market! You won’t regret it!
Check our following clip about the market!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvf2NXY9Co4[/embedyt]
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