I covered a lot of ground today!

Even though I had work to do today, I took the afternoon off to visit my friend Dale who has moved to the Mar Rosa trailer park in the Golden Zone. I left around 11:45, took the panga, and walked to the Malecón to catch a bus.

En route, I passed a licuado (milkshake) bar that also did fresh juices, so I stopped and bought a ‘small’ grapefruit juice. I think it had the juice of four whole grapefruits in it! It was really hot, I’d been walking for more than a mile, and the water I’d brought wasn’t cutting it. The juice did the trick!

A bus zoomed by me just as I arrived at Camarón Sabalo, the boulevard that parallels the Malecón, so I walked a few blocks to the first dedicated bus stop with shade and a bench to wait for the next one. It was a very long wait, more than 15 minutes, which surprised me.

After that, it was stop and go all the way to the RV park. I thought it was further past my cousin’s hotel than it was, so I would have missed it had a bunch of people not gotten off there, too. Not that it would have been a huge deal to miss it since I did see the sign for it as we passed, so I could have had the driver stop as soon as it was safe to do so and doubled back on foot.

Mar Rosa is a pretty nice RV park with a good location. It has high walls, so it’s not as noisy as you’d expect. The caveat is that it is super tight to navigate. It’s really a small rig park, although some bigger rigs wiggle their way in.

Dale wanted to have lunch and suggested a nearby restaurant with cheap, basic, good food, which sounded fine to me. I am not going to name the restaurant because I want to share something funny and don’t want to get them into trouble. You see, they served us beer, but billed us for chocolate milks, which tells me they were not licensed…

And this what they served us for 30 pesos each:

It’s a good thing Pacific is a fairly low alcohol content beer or we would have fallen asleep!

I ordered their 30 peso hamburger and was served a cheeseburger (not complaining). That burger was SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like hamburgers with seasoning in the patty and this one had plenty of flavour. The bun was also good and there was no pickle relish, but there were sweet pickles, and they had mustard. The Golden Zone still isn’t a place I’d want to stay, but it’s getting more and more worthy of a visit. 🙂

After lunch, we walked down to Rico’s Cafe so I could get coffee. I never did get used to the Looney Bean stuff, finding it too weak for my tastes. I bought a full pound of Rico’s Veracruz beans, coarse ground, for an absurd 128 pesos. I used to pay almost $20 per HALF pound of beans when I lived in Gatineau.

Then, Dale and I went back to Mar Rosa so I could see the beach. It is quite different from our Isla beach, especially in the sand. I think the difference is that we’re rather sheltered and this is more open ocean.

I got in plenty of cuddle time with her Boys:

Dale offered to drive me back to the panga! Wow, what a treat! She’s been driving around and is comfortable going to certain places. I told her I wanted to hit the Ley and she said that was fine or she could take me to Mega or Walmart if I preferred. I accepted that offer and we headed off to Soriana. I’ve never been to a Mega, but I know that Soriana’s prices are better, and I prefer to support a Mexican company. Getting to Soriana was very easy since it’s on Rafael Buelna, which terminates at Camarón Sabalo, and more of a detour than Mega, but on the way to Walmart.

I didn’t have much money for groceries and hadn’t brought cloth bags or ice packs, so I wasn’t tempted to get a ton of stuff, but I did look at the offerings, marveling at seeing things like HUMMUS. Dale found my shock at the low prices hilarious. For example, 18 pesos for a giant box of peppermint tea?! I came home with it!

Navigating a Mexican grocery store now comes more naturally than the first time I tried it seven years ago in Tijuana. I remember being in the Gigante, famished, and wanting to buy some pan dulce, but not understanding how the process worked and being too overwhelmed to ask.

To buy baked goods in Mexico, you need to grab a tray and tongs. You then select what you want and bring the tray to a weigh station where it will be bagged and priced. Baked goods are so cheap that you will be tempted to get one of everything, but remember that they don’t use preservatives, so your goodies will only be good for a few days!

All I bought today were four rolls, but it was hard not to walk out with some pan chocolate (chocolate croissants)! 🙂

When we had come into the store, I took the sales flier, just like I would get in a CDN or US grocery store, and saw that the big Lala yoghurts were half price. So I headed to the dairy section next and got the last mango one!

I picked up a few more things, including Post-It notes from their office supply section because I way under packed my office! Unfortunately, they were out of paper clips. Dale was amused that I completely blanked out on the English word for those. I have no idea of the Spanish word either. I just knew I wanted trombones…

I came out of there loaded down with toilet paper, cheese, yoghurt, bacon, fresh bread, butter, and a few other goodies for 274 pesos. I continue to find prices here absurd. 🙂

And speaking of butter, I really do think I’ve solved the Mexican butter issue. As long as you buy it ‘sin sal’ (no salt), you will get butter like back home, not the movie popcorn tasting stuff!

Now comes a good example of what makes Dale and me such a strong team. I knew what road to take to get to the embarcadero, but not how to get to the road. Dale knew how to get to this road, but did not know it would take us to the embarcadero! So between the two of us, we made it to the panga easily. It’s wonderful to know my way around now!

My bags were awkward for the walk home when I arrived on Isla and I was really glad to get in. I really do want to do a big Soriana trip next week and while I had planned on a pulmonía ride to the panga on the Maz side, I think I will add one on this side, too. Yes, I could take my truck to the embarcadero, but getting it out of this yard is such a pain that I’d rather pay the 30 or so pesos instead!

Well, I’d better get to work. Going to be another late night, but I then I can sleep in tomorrow. I have work through the weekend, but they won’t be long days. I put in a lot of extra hours this week because I was paid bonus money, which really made taking the workload worth my time!