Sunday, February 13, 2011

Fish Market

The Saturday morning before last, I did something new! Instead of stumbling home at 5 am, I was up and about and ready to hit the market! Honestly, it was a revelation for me: I had not been up at the crack of dawn in Angola yet, and to experience the clear air, serenity of the ocean, no noise, no heat, no blazing sun! Was amazing!


My boyfriend's dad goes to the fish market once a month to fill the freezers with fish! Excellent! We get our gear ready and head out- by boat!


It was a half an hour ride, we only saw a couple of other boats, and they were heading to the same direction; fishermen with a boat full of fish!


The beach was already quite crowded. And the smell was picking up although the fresh sea-breeze did it's best. We were greeted by a couple of guys, talking in a speed that I obviously could not keep up with, then an arrangement was made with one, and he took our cooling bags and disappeared. We started walking through all the sellers and the variety of fish and sea snakes and cuttlefish and frutti di mare was colourful buffet! We went to only certain sellers, I guess like anywhere one must establish good relationships to know who has the good stuff. So we buy fish! Loads of it! And out of nowhere the guys from the beach kept popping out and taking all our purchases. And finally when we are done, we start moving away from the crowds and there I see the guy: he was cleaning all the fish!


This was quite the pleasant surprise- throughout the buying I kept thinking: "shit, this will take us all day to clean all of this lot!"


And here's a photo of our fish-gutter as he is skinning and cleaning our cuttlefish! You know, I love squid, octopus and cuttlefish but never ever did I actually see one cleaned. I mean to get rid of the inkbags, the "spine" and rubbery skin!


And we were back before the rest of the house was even up! I must admit, Angola at 5 am was a treat. To get something done, one really needs to get up and beat the sun to it!