Two Tier Shopping – A World Of Barter

Over the past year Cyndi and I have had the pleasure of being surprised, shocked, puzzled and amused – and sometimes all at once – with the struggle of being a “gringo” from north of the border. I know expat residents will never achieve the tranquility and equality of being Mexican, particularly when it comes to spending and shopping. Mexican nationals on vacation walk the Malecon along side us and it seems to us that they are not often asked to come in for tequila, take a tour, use a taxi, enjoy happy hour, go fishing, or buy jewelry and souvenirs. We saunter along and they start calling to us from a distance. We try not to be obvious about our tourist appearance, but they seem to be able see right through whatever we wear. I suppose my maple leaf tattoo is not the most helpful of items when we try to walk in stealth mode in tank tops.

Do we have dollar signs tattooed on our foreheads? We think not, but they might think otherwise. When you arrive here at the airport it almost seems there is an automatic / non-optional enrollment in the Expat Immersion Program. We learn to accept paying for daily staples, souvenirs and services in a two-tier system, Gringo prices vs Mexican. I suppose it's easiest just to accept the inevitable due our cultural failure for being non-Mexican. We have found out that some restaurants have separate menus with different pricing - one for north of the border folks and one for nationals.

We like to explore the small shops to help out “the little guy” when we can. They are generally struggling with the big box stores taking over the bulk of the market. One day we were both doing some shopping for cotton clothing as our Canadian stuff seemed to be a mix of various heat-inducing fabrics which just add another layer of perspiration to our already soaked skin. A vendor asked us what we were looking for when we walked into their store. Their immediate pounce should have alerted our spidey senses but we were already tired from the day and their display had caught our eye. They started showing us some items and when we agreed they were nice they wanted to put them into bags for us. We had to slow them down a bit and ask for the price (¿Cuanto cuesta?), as there were none shown. I was looking at some cargo shorts made of thin cotton and was told they were $450 pesos. I was taken aback and said that was too much. I had just purchased dress shorts (Dockers) for $250 pesos and still had them in a bag with us. I showed them to the sales lady and she said, Okay how about $400 pesos. I said no again so she said $300 pesos. At the same time Cyndi was looking at a thin cotton tank top and the other sales lady told her it was $400 pesos. Cyndi immediately asked her to hang it back on the wall as it was too expensive and the sales lady then dropped the price to $50 pesos as she was also watching what was happening with my shorts. We didn't buy anything. This taught us to get to know prices of things first from the stores that have price tags displayed.

More recently, my favourite flip-flops were getting pretty thin as they take a pounding from my six foot frame and get many miles on them every day without an oil change, tuneup, or retreads. It was time to go shopping. Cyndi and I just happened to walk past a small shop that had everything from top notch leather to cheap plastic that make your feet blister and bleed (avoid these). I have learned that thick spongy soles and heavy canvas type straps work best for soothing my footsteps and I spotted a pair of these on the rack. We were in a bit of a hurry to get home that day as we had just picked up milk and cheese along with other stuff that needed to go in the fridge, so I asked the young fellow in the store what the price was for the flip flops. He told us $170 pesos. I told him we would be back tomorrow to look more closely at his store when we had more time. The next day, the young fellow wasn't there but we assume it was his mother who greeted us. I pulled the same shoe off the rack and asked her the price. She looked at me, paused for a second, and then announced they were $190 pesos. Naturally I filled her in on our conversation from the day before. She relented while looking at the floor that $170 pesos would be fine. Finding comfortable flip flops is a challenge so I bought them but it was just another reminder to be on top of your game here.

And a game it is. The art of barter has been mastered by the folks at the flea markets. Their opening price is usually triple of what they paid and then they have room to make you think you got a deal when you talk them down in price by 10 to 15 percent. Of course, they would prefer that you will actually pay their initial asking price - nothing is marked with a price. Mexican Nationals get the same item for much less. Previously undetected by us, we have discovered that flea market vendors discretely send each other signals and knowing looks when a ripe victim nears (that will be us..). Although Patty is pretty much entrenched here as a resident Mexican and gets many of the good deals herself, she is smart and sometimes gets her Mexican friends to pick up items for her to get the best price.

At some point in the spring I decided that I wanted to give my tattoo a refresher. I already have a great tattoo but I thought it just needed to have a dark outline added to make it stand out a bit more - "pop" a bit. This discussion had been an ongoing thing with Cyndi for a while now, and she thought it was a good idea to finally git-er-dun. I also got a bit of prompting from our Mexican friend Jonathan who just had a fresh tattoo installed. His tattoo covered the entire inside of his forearm and is one of the most intricate and detailed tattoos I have seen. Beautiful artwork. He said I should come with him to meet the guys in the tattoo place and he would set up a time slot for me. Apparently he paid $1,800.00 pesos for his six hour sitting. Okay, well then, lets go check it out with Jonathan. There was a lot of quick Spanish discussion between the two of them when we first went in. Then thankfully he was able to communicate with me in broken English. He wanted me to sit down so he could start working but with hand gestures I finally was able to let him know that I just wanted an estimate for the work. So he set about punching a lot of keys on his handy dandy calculator and raising his eyebrows several times and then starting over again. He looked at me several times while he was entering numbers, then he finally came up with a total and turned the calculator toward me. $5,440.00 pesos. Ka-ching! Jonathan and I looked at each other in shock and disbelief. I started thinking that there must be precious metal ink or jewels to be embedded in my skin as part of the deal. But how could that possibly work as part of a simple black outline... My gringo brain immediately went into exploited expat mode with that dollar sign on my forehead that only Mexicans can see. After recovering, I simply said “no gracias” and walked out. Jonathan later said he was embarrassed that the price was so high and that I was treated that way. Then he made a joke about my skin colour being wrong. He's right - no joke. Jonathan then told me that the guy in the shop was not the guy who actually did the work on his tattoo and he promised he would talk to him and have me come back.

As it turned out, the second tattoo guy wanted to charge me only $2000 pesos when I went in the tattoo shop again. Then he dropped it to $1000 pesos when we repeated that it was just a simple single-line outline that I wanted done. I paid him the $1000 pesos and gave him $200 pesos for a tip because he did a great job. I guess we are starting to get the hang of this...nice tan eh? :-)

Life here continues.... cheers!