Mexico City's Sonora market is tucked away inside a maze of streets so mean that many appear as a blank space on the city map. The market is better known as "the witch's corner", where the desperate, the lonely and the loopy find home-made remedies for all known illnesses and even a few still to be catalogued by science.
The air outside smells like rotting cabbage while dozens of beggars show off horrific wounds that wealthy consciences claim are manufactured by skilled beauticians, then touched up daily to guarantee maximum financial returns.
In a country with no welfare system and 40 million poor, the state has decreed that anyone working more than one hour a week is officially employed, an act of bureaucratic genius that has kept unemployment figures at 8 per cent.
After a month of bad luck, in which cheques bounced, friends bounced and a hump appeared on my back I decided it was time to pay a visit to the Sonora market. It's a monstrous affair, a labyrinthine collection of passageways and overhanging stalls packed with candles, crosses, potions, oils and sacks of leaves and animal parts.
I was quickly trapped among a clatter of vicious salespeople, anxious to uncover a health problem even if you insist you're as fit as a fiddle.
A tiny woman with a long thick plait and Indian features thrust a three-foot wooden Jesus into my face. The saviour looked perplexed as blood oozed from hands, feet, chest and private parts, as if it had just dawned on him that Mexico planned both crucifixion and castration, a sign of difficult times.
The stalls are a blend of sensible herbal remedies for backaches and stress and less orthodox medical offerings such as "seven potencies perfume" and bird dung, to treat jealousy and unhealthy cravings. I saw what appeared to be a sackful of cat fingernails. "What are they?" I asked. "Cat fingernails," said the vendor.
Call it European prejudice but the sight of a phial with nothing written on the side except "Rattlesnake semen" is a hard sell, even when life holds little to get excited about.
At a superb stall boasting thyme, sage, aloe vera and a dozen more soothing oils, I asked the woman what sold best. She reached behind the counter and withdrew yet another blank bottle, which read "Energyn Sex Power". Inside, she said, was the Damian herb from California.
But the remedies are not exclusively defensive, as everyone knows that heavier artillery is required when a determined enemy appears above the parapet. "Abhorred by all," read the contents of one small package, which contained "legitimate divine providence dust" capable of turning an enemy into a social pariah.
The trick was to sneak up behind the detested person and spray them with the dust. The manufacturers warned the attack would only be successful in cases where the dust was "applied with much faith after a bath".
The vilest part of the market is the animal sales section, where poodles, ducks, geese, parrots and snakes are packed into tiny cages as sunken-eyed teenagers compete for prospective buyers.
As with all cheap sideshows, what's on view is only a prelude to what can be acquired at the right price, with a nod and a wink. Posing as a wealthy US tourist with a taste for the exotic, I was offered a rare and beautiful macaw bird for $100, with hints dropped that a howler monkey or even a lion could be procured, once I undertook handling and shipping costs.
I left a false telephone number and quickly made for the exit, back to daylight and fresh air. If nothing else the Sonora market puts a different perspective on life's pressing problems.
While Mexicans are renowned for their patience in the face of adversity (they have endured 70 years of one-party authoritarian rule) the true market of last resort is a haven of degeneracy called Tepito, a short distance from Sonora, which seems like Superquinn in comparison.
In Tepito, you can - depending on your level of moral decrepitude - pick up a hairdryer, an AK-47 or a teenage boy.
The government has drawn up plans to "retake" the market, involving a full-scale military assault, but fears a belligerent response should disgruntled stall-holders defend themselves with their own merchandise.
The first few streets of Tepito are dedicated to low-risk contraband goods such as Nike shoes, stereos and T-shirts, but once you get beyond the first stalls you find ruffians ready to deal with the truly immoral shopper.
The wretches who traffic in human misery carry mobile phones and pistols, have child lookouts and maintain stalls which lead into homes behind the market, making it virtually impossible to catch them in the act.
By the time I got back from the markets, the disturbing hump had disappeared and messages cluttered the answering machine, suggesting that divine providence dust had done its job and saving me an unpleasant trip to Tepito for another hairdryer.