Mercato Madness

Mercato, in central Addis Ababa, is reputed to be the largest market in Africa.  When you are driving through Mercato you feel like it has no end or beginning - it's just an endless stretch of ramshackle huts, shops, sheds and tents, housing every conceivable kind of product.  From donkeys to electrical wiring, (re)polished second hand saucepans, tools, heaters, beds, linen, chillies, kat (a mildly addictive plant leaf that the Ethiopians chew), cars, car parts, tailoring - you name it, it's there...

Some of the donkeys appear to have owners, like these two,
but we also saw plenty of others just trotting off apparently by themselves through the traffic and throngs of people...

I wasn't sure what these two were up to - maybe they had lost their donkeys?

You would not know from this picture  -  this is a chilli grinding shed.
The smell even from the relatively safe confines of the van was almost eye watering.
These shops sell whole large chillies or the powder.

Trying to make sense of the mountains of recycled vegetable oil containers (in yellow) as a visitor is hard but in this section of Mercato this is a living...