Gamarra or Gomorrah?

I was taken to a most fascinating part of Lima yesterday, called Gamarra. It's almost a city within a city, except that no-one lives there. It consists of at least 70 city blocks in which almost the sole business is the selling (mostly) and manufacture of clothing and other textiles. This is just one part of one street.


Here's a map of the zone:


There are some parts not marked on the map, so the 70 blocks I counted is probably an underestimate.

A typical "storefront" might look like this:


When you get inside, there's a maze of maybe a couple of hundred locales, small shops, usually staffed by a single person, many no bigger than a walk-in closet.


(These are actually a bit on the large side.)

Gamarra has the reputation for being a bit dodgy, but also as a place where you can find any kind of clothing that you want, at decent quality and at reasonable prices. Because of its size, it's a huge economic generator for the city of Lima.