If you hadn’t looked at the calendar when you woke up this morning, you would have no idea it was Christmas day here in Nazca, Peru.

To celebrate the holiday, the big thing here in town is a multi-day street market with all kinds of clothes, food and toys being sold at ridiculously cheap prices.

For such a small town, the Nazca Christmas market was really quite impressive. Hundreds of vendors set up small booths lining a number of the city’s main streets and covered their booths with a wacky quilt-work of tarps, bedsheets and textiles in an attempt to block out the 90+ degree heat. Walking from one booth to the next, I would frequently have to bend over or nearly get down on my hands and knees and crawl through the low flying tapestries up above. In the end, this made for one memorable Christmas day.

Here are some of the photos I took of the Nazca Christmas market and the people I found strolling through the maze of merchandise on Christmas Day.

I bought a pair of sunglasses from this guy. I paid 10 SOL ($3.57 USD),

On Christmas Eve, when the clock struck 12, there was a massive fireworks show. All across the city fireworks were going off. It was so loud… and so much fun!

After taking this guy’s photo, I showed him the photo on the camera’s LCD screen… and then he took my camera and went around and showed all his friends the image. He was so proud that a “gringo” had taken his photo.