mercado shopping – Zihuatanejo

OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED

My agenda for the day was to go to the Mercado and pick up some salt for a friend and some cheese for my neighbor, I took the long way there just for the opportunity to look around one more time. The Mercado is one of my favorite places, I never tire of seeing the beautiful arrays of fruits and vegetables, many of which I can’t even identify the trays of bakery items, piles of rice and other grains which again I can’t identify, booths with chickens complete with heads and feet and the meat market which today displayed a hogs head. These are sights that I will never see at home. Shopping at the

commissary at home will be so boring compared to this.

I needed to go to the bank, but the armed guards were there filling the ATM’s and the line was growing longer by the minute. Now at home our armored truck guards do carry side arms, but they don’t post 2 guards outside with M-16 rifles. I’ll go to the bank later in the day when the line is not so long. It will give me reason to wander around again and make sure I’ve missed nothing.

We watched a couple of movies I purchased here, Philomena and Nebraska. Philomena very good, Nebraska not so. They cost 2 for 20 pesos, so I won’t be bringing them back with us, but with prices like that I’ve learned it isn’t necessary to take up suitcase space bringing a stack of dvds from home.

We are going with friends and plan to meet more friends at the Catalina’s sunset bar this evening, they have lovely music on Wednesdays, appropriate for a sunset.

Our refrigerator is just about empty. Last night the Senor wanted fried chicken and since I don’t eat chicken, we did “take out” from 2 different places, he got his fried chicken and I got my chile relleno and we ate a last balcony meal, well we did have breakfast on the balcony this morning, but the rest of our meals will need to be eaten out. Signing off KO

Quest for Jimmy Dean Sausage and other shopping experiences

The Senor’s quest for sausage in patties rather than links has brought him to becoming a Sam’s club member. This would not be my choice of a place to shop. I love the Mercado, I like buying six or even 7 eggs or any number I want and getting them in a plastic sack. I like telling my cheese man I want a meter of cheese as he rolls it out. I enjoy picking up items in the little miscellaneas and conducting my transactions in Spanish. Of course we do a lot of our shopping at the Commercial, we can find every thing we need there, but I won’t get fruits or veggies there and the eggs at the Mercado are bigger and I think fresher.

We just needed a couple of items, fruit juice and a storage box to leave some items here with our landlord. The Senor decided it would be cheaper to buy our Sam’s club membership here and more convenient as our home Sam’s Club is over 30 miles away. We wandered through the whole store, it is amazing the array of items they have there, but guess what? No sausage patties! I told the Senor next year we will simply freeze some Jimmy Dean sausage at home and see if we make it through with it. Worth a try and cheaper than a Sam’s Club membership! We didn’t even find the right size storage box there and the juice you had to buy 4 ,so we left empty-handed and walked over to the Commercial.

Energetic 6 yr old racing to the taxi with our cart art Commercial

We found our storage box and a dozen other items we didn’t know we needed until we saw them. At home we shop in military commissaries and are used to tipping the baggers and carry out people, but it still blows my mind to have an eager 6 yr old grab your shopping cart, saying taxi,taxi and rushing out with your cart to load your groceries in the cab.We had a won a dinner at an Ixtapa restaurant and decided we would do an early movie, then dinner. We saw the latest Bruce Willis “Die Hard” movies which is full of impossible chase scenes and impossible situations. Caught a cab back to Zihuatanejo and stopped at the little balcony bar next to the stairway to our apartment. Kind of a dark hole in the wall type place, with a very friendly accommodating bar tender and with a view of the Galeana side of the street. We noticed some friends sitting on the bench below us and shortly went to join them.

While visiting with them my scruffy little street dog that I’ve become fond of showed up. I told him to wait and visit with my friends while I ran upstairs and got the meat scraps I’ve been saving for him. He dined well that night, with some chicken, ribs and steak. We walked into Zorro’s for a night-cap and Scruffy followed, but just to lay down and sleep off his great meal. He has developed a bit of a limp, the thought crossed my mind to take him to the vet, but I wouldn’t be around to give him antibiotics, or even know if I could find him every day so I decided to let nature take its course. I’m sure plenty of other people have noticed this sweet funny looking dog with a very gentle, happy disposition and save their dinner scraps for him. Signing off KO

A trip to the dentist Mex style

“The Senor” knew he needed a crown on a tooth so we made a dental apointment before arriving in Mexico with a highly recommended dentist. Actually a pair of dentists, they are twin sisters. The directions we were given were pretty vague, so we assumed it would be obvious. WRONG! The cab dropped us off per our directions and we wandered asking at every business for the location of the dentist. No one knew of them. We had allowed lots of time which was a good thing as we are wondering around a very Mexican neighborhood where no one speaks english trying to find the dentist. Finally I stopped at a paint supply store and not only did the clerk speak english, but she called the dentist office to get exact directions, then went out on the street and hailed a cab for us and gave him directions on where to take us and we arrived on time, barely. The visit cost about $70 us and “the Senor ” has to return next Monday for his crown. Total cost will be less than $300. While I waited for him I had the company of 3 different americans either waiting for a spouse or for their appointment. I had planned on reading my kindle, but the company was very enjoyable.

Our next stop was the Mercado for fruit, and meat. I will post a picture of a butcher slicing up a carcus in the open air market with a young girl somewhere between 12 & 14 apprenticed to what I assume is her father. Life is very different here. Most bag boys in the markets are 12- 14 and work for tips. And these are not after school jobs, they are full-time. After picking up enough groceries for a day or two we had lunch at one of the “fondas” at the Mercado, very mexican, very good, probably as close to “fast food” as you get in Mexico. I had a Chile Relleno and the “Senor” had Albonigas soup. No english is spoken here or is the menu translated for you. My knowledge of spanish while not good steadily improves. I can translate menus for “the Senor” as he chooses to limit his Spanish to “cervesa por favor”

So back to our apartment to put away groceries when we discover we didn’t buy olive oil or salad dressing. So I set off again to seek out the missing items, as I return I decide to treat myself to a margarita at a local outdoor establishment, when our Canadian neighbors and friends of theirs arrive and join me. Three margaritas later I return having given enough time for “the Senor” to have napped. So we dinned in having steak and salad.

It’s now 11pm, I’m sitting on our balcony drinking a glass of wine with just summer clothes on, listening to music drift up from 2 or 3 establishments thinking life just can’t get much better than this! Signing off KO

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