| By Mitch -
This place is down in Mexico. It has Costcos that look like regular US Costcos and Sam's Clubs. Everything is more expensive in Costco. Everywhere else it's cheap, like only 30 cents for a Coke out of a machine. By Cheryl -
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By Mitch -
This is one of the downtown shopping streets in Merida. |
| Above the shops are elaborate building facades, (probably apartments). |  |
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Shopping here was really fun. Both of the boys wanted to buy watches. They searched and searched for their "perfect" watch. Mitch ended up buying one for 450 pesos and Max's was 250, ($4.50 and $2.50 U.S.) |
| By Mitch - Here is the market. They got a
vegetable section, meat section, seasoning section and a shoe section.
By Cheryl - What a place! What a smell! People all over the place and we were the only tourists there. |
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By Mitch - Here is the vegetable section. There's
probably 100 of these tables selling the same stuff.
By Cheryl - Women set up small tables like this, or just put a cloth on the ground to display their wares. This market had the most beautiful, freshest produce I've ever seen. |
| By Mitch - Here is seasoning and noodle section.
By Cheryl - Baskets are full of seasonings, most of which I didn't recognize. |
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By Mitch - Here is the meat section. The chickens
are sold with no feathers. The head and guts are left. They do not
cut the chicken open.
By Cheryl - The white tiles near the floor are smeared with blood and the floor feels like you're walking on layers of hardened animal fat, but we loved it! There was a band playing loud music in one corner with a hat out for coins. People were singing and laughing and the weirdest animal parts I've ever seen were hanging out for sale. |
| There is no part of the animal left to waste. Everything is used. They even hung up the tails. |  |
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By Mitch - At the shoe section there are millions of
shoes. They are all the same.
By Cheryl - Well, they're all made out of the same stuff anyway. You see big sheets of tanned leather ready to be cut up into sandal pieces. |
| We watched this boy as he made shoes. He'd cut up an old tire with his knife and trim the piece to make a foot shape. Then he'd attach it to the bottom of a leather sandal and trim around the edges to make the sole. |  |
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By Mitch - At the shoe section, if you wanted your shoes
brown they would dip them in used car oil.
By Cheryl - I found a style of sandals I liked but they only had them in a light natural color. I told the girl that I liked the darker color better and she said "no problemo" -- |
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So she took the sandals that I'd picked out and dipped them into a 5 gallon bucket full of used motor oil. She told me to keep them out of the sun for an hour, (hmm, I wonder if they'd ignite?) Then she wrapped them up in newspaper. It was TOO funny. They look great, (and after airing out a couple of days), smell OK too. By Mitch - This is a picture of the shoes when they just pulled them out. |
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One of the fancier sections of the market is the gold and silver jewelry. |
| Geese, ducks and chickens for sale. |  |
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My Mitch -
We bought a lot of coins at a coin shop. I got a 1900 on the year coin. By Cheryl - The boys became very interested in old Mexican coins. They would rummage through boxes and boxes looking for ones with old dates. |
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