We made another trip to San Francisco in May. Other than a brief doctor check-up and a bit of socializing, most of our time was spent shopping for goodies to bring back with us, plus several hours spent to plow through about four months of (mostly) junk mail!
If you think of shopping as a “challenge,” you’d love Mexico. It’s not unusual to spend the better part of a day traveling around to find a single item; of course we have plenty of time on our hands (and rarely have a rental car). While in Puerto Vallarta this spring, we had several bus rides, considerable walking, and used up most of a day just to visit about five different shops to locate a particular computer cable. We walked to four different hardware stores in Santa Rosalia recently to find a plastic rake. (See Battle Cormorant post for the “why.”)
If you’re the type who isn’t interested in shopping at all and don’t buy anything beyond the basics in life, Mexico would keep you perfectly happy except that you would likely spend more time “hunting” than you would at home. Many popular products and brand names that we’re accustomed to in the U.S. are also available in Mexico. Beauty and cleaning products for example, are available in great variety. Mexicanos seem to eat very well (maybe a little over-carbohydrated but so are Americans), dress well, and play well.
Other things that we need and/or desire aboard Voyager – as somewhat spoiled gringos coming from the shopping heaven that is San Francisco – are simply not available here. If you’re one who knows exactly what you want, knows exactly where to go to get it, and prefers a quick in-and-out at the right store, you might be frustrated with Mexico. Not having a fixed address here, any online purchases have to be shipped home (or to a friend in S.F.) to be picked up next time we are back, or occasionally we can sweet talk a fellow cruiser into bringing things down for us. It’s those singular items that we can’t find down here, that help make our trips to S.F. worthwhile.
The larger cities are great with Home Depots, Office Depots, and large groceries that also have a reasonable variety of general merchandise. What we probably miss the most is West Marine (most boat parts suppliers here are definitely a mixed bag and on average quite a bit more expensive than U.S.), Target, Trader Joes and Bed, Bath, & Beyond (all of which would do really well down here). WalMart and Sam’s Club are here in populous areas, but they are not our favorite places to go.
Fortunately we love Mexican food, and enjoy plenty of it. One food category that we find sorely neglected here, near and dear to our hearts, are deli meats (this is cuisine marine after all). Being either Italian or around Italian can sure give you a taste for great dry salami, mortadella, cappicola, etc. Predominant in Mexico is sliced ham (all of which seems to be the boiled variety), baloney, and occasionally some bland, watery turkey. Sandwiches are (obviously) not so popular for lunches here like the ubiquitous taco (which we enjoy plenty of). Sometimes we’ll see some small packages of imported prosciutto or Serrano ham, but at exorbitant prices and not those items are not our favorites anyways. Once in a while we luck out and a major chain grocery (or Costco – the only two that we have been near to so far were in the large cities of Puerto Vallarta and Cabo) will stock some “imported” AND reasonably priced goodies like Columbus (S.F. brand) deli meats, but this is the exception.
If you’re not thinking of going cruising, not into shopping, or not nosey about Voyager’s quirky consumer habits, you can stop reading here. Linked here is a list of some of the items we brought back with us in May (about 300 pounds total, five checked bags, and four carry-ons).