Shopping in PV

Well, this might be a short post as an explanation of shopping in PV is fairly simple - almost everything you need is available here. I suppose what you need and what you want are two entirely different things and it's takes a bit of time to figure out some of the shopping sources to fill your cupboards with the "need" category. Jelly beans and chocolate bars are available in most places but Cyndi yells at me when I put them in the basket...

There are many big box stores here to choose from and they are good at keeping prices competitive. Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, Soriana, Sam's Club, Mega, Ley Market, and others are our usual first choices for groceries, pharmaceuticals, house hold items and packaged bulk buy (mostly Costco) and being retired it helps to have a bit more time to shop around until you find the right source for each item.

Costco in Puerto Vallarta is just like walking into any Costco in Vancouver – same look, same layout, same shelving, same lights, a lot of the same stuff, except they have HUGE fans in the ceiling to move air around. They also have an entire section of the store for liquor sales which makes it very convenient to get all of our shopping done in one place. However, all of the products have funny names on them and the prices tags look really expensive until you do the conversion from Pesos to Canadian Dollars and then you realize you are getting a great deal. We have found the price of most things are about 1/2 of what we would spend in Vancouver, and in some cases (like beer and bottles of alcohol) are even cheaper. Example – 24 pack of 330ml Corona beer is $245.00 pesos and that converts to $19.50 Canadian. The same 24 pack of Corona is $46.00 in BC. Rum is also a good deal here. Bacardi Anejo – 1 litre size – is $221.00 Pesos or $17.65 Canadian. In Canada the same stuff in a 750ml bottle costs $23.99, and I'm not going to do the math...

We generally take the bus to and from our shopping destination - Cyndi decides where we are going each trip. It costs $7.50 pesos one way per person, or $30.00 pesos for the round trip for both of us = $2.39 Canadian. If the bags get too heavy we take a cab home rather than the bus as the dreaded hill (the last block before we are home) is a bit much if you have heavy stuff. The cab ride is $100.00 pesos or 8 bucks... we do that maybe once a week, and that's definitely much cheaper than buying a car and paying for gas and insurance.

From our apartment, the Ley Market is a 20 minute walk one way, and Mega is about 35 minutes. We do that regularly and then take the bus home. The other locations are on our hit list for the walk but we are working up to that – one hour one-way in the heat will likely have to wait until January or February.

On every street corner there is a very convenient OXXO store - just like a 7-Eleven. OXXO stores are great for picking up pop, milk, bread and other stuff that you run out of at the last minute. They can be found everywhere, along with the multitude of Farmacias (drug stores), massage parlours, tourist traps and restaurants. OMG the restaurants here have great food.... another post.... restaurant prices are generally about 1/2 to 3/4 of what you would pay in Vancouver, but of course the price range depends on where and what you buy (cheap eats to very very expensive).

Lans Department Store and Coppel Department Store are large multi-service stores similar to walking into a Sears store. Lots of furniture, electronics, clothing, shoes, etc., and everything else you would need for your home. There are also furniture manufacturers in PV that will make you almost anything you want as a custom item and they typically cost less than shopping in stores where the products are made elsewhere and imported.

There is a local farmer's market on the east side of old town (Romantica) where fresh produce, meats and other goodies are available. Prices are much more reasonable here and the vendors go out of their way to help you with selections. It is close to Patty's apartment and she is very good at helping us navigate the market so we buy the stuff we need.

PV has many small shops and restaurants where families are working hard to make a business successful. We try to frequent them when we can to help them along their way. We have found many gems hidden in unlikely places and have been pleasantly surprised at the great service we get.

There are lots of "flea-markets" in the city and we try to stay away from them if we can. They are definitely targeting the tourists with their great souvenir stuff and some of it would great on our walls and shelves. We can't fill our place with anything as yet as we are still in the nomad mode with our house hunting.

Some exotic foods are not readily available here like Frank's Red Hot (I put that shit on everything) Sauce, and Libby's Deep Browned Beans – can't find any here, but we have learned to work around that or go to the small import store and pay big bucks ($15 for the Franks) to get what we want. There are some specialty shops like Los Mercado that caters to the folks that only will buy items from USA, and those people are likely not poor pensioners like we are.... It does take a while to learn where to get things and we are slowly getting there.

I have started making my own fresh salsa using Jenny's recipe as the base and then adding my own nuances. It's great to eat fresh with tortilla / nacho chips – awesome stuff. I also cook down (a reduction) the salsa and add spices / hot pepper to it, and then let it cool and refrigerate it – great on just about anything. :-)

Buying clothing is simple – cotton. If you wear anything else you will die on the sidewalk 15 minutes after you leave the house. Cotton shorts, light t-shirts, tank tops, flip-flops....done. We did bring some good walking shoes with us from Canada and use them when we head out for our 5 km to 10 km walks in the early morning when we feel up to it. It's great to feel like you are losing weight with the long walks but then we quite often stray into a beach bar and have a cool one (or three/four) and that sort of off-sets the vigor of the outing. The bathroom scale seems to be stuck in one spot each time I get on it - must be the humidity....