Market 23

Market twenty-three stands out for its low-slung, concrete corridors packed with rows of hand-painted wooden stalls. It opened in the nineteen seventies as the city of Cancún was built from scratch to serve the tourism industry, but this space was designed for the residents themselves. While the luxury hotels rose on the coast, shopkeepers here gathered to sell chilies, fresh fish, and medicinal herbs to their neighbors. It remains the place where the people of the city actually buy their groceries.