The Taco Traveler

I was looking for gifts for the boys when I was in San Blas a couple months ago, and in the small area set up for street vendors in that town I saw some little ceramic turtles that were perfect. They could lift the little tortoise shell and store money or rocks or tiny mismatched Transformer parts. So I asked one lady what she was asking for them. "Veinte y cinco" - twenty-five pesos each. I offered thirty-five for two. No. Okay, forty for two. No. Okay, thanks anyway. I walked ten feet further, to the next stand where a guy had the exact same turtles, and offered him forty for two of them. "Take them," he said, seemingly glad to be rid of them. As I left that area, I noticed at least five other vendors out of ten selling the exact same turtles.

Today I walked. I walked and walked, looking to buy some stuff. I need presents for the boys again, and I was also looking for a place to buy a cigar. The Hotel Morales has a great rooftop patio, and

I'm still hoping to have a cigar and a bourbon up there tonight. So as I'm walking, I find that each area I come to has literally dozens of stores carrying the exact same goods. Northeast of the hotel is the Linens District. East of the hotel is the Arts & Craft Store District, mixed in a little bit with the Glasses, Sunglasses and Optometrists District. Southwest is the Musical Instrument District. Southeast is the Printing District. West is the Gold and Dollar Exchange District. And to the northwest lies the most interesting of all, the Catholic Occasion Dress District, where there are at least fifty stores (no exaggeration) all selling dresses for baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations (15-year-olds) and weddings. And shoes. Don't even get me started on shoes. Zapaterias absolutely everywhere.

I finally found the Teatro DeGallado, too, and as I approached it I entered an area I can only call Shoe Shine Plaza:

The plaza outside the theatre had no less than twenty-six shoe shine stands. During a busy lunch-hour in the plaza, I saw only one shoe shine seat being filled Oh yeah, and there was one shoelace stand that was disguising with shoelaces the fact that it was also a shoe shine stand.

Why not spread out? Why be a neighbor to someone who can just undercut you? Another issue is the response to slow business. Rather than getting creative with sales or lowering prices when things get slow, most retailers in Mexico seem rather to raise their prices, apparently figuring that since they charge more they don't have to sell as much.

Is it a learning process Mexico is going through? Is it the retailer's fault, or is it the government?

The mall developers? I can't be sure, but I do know from looking around that the malls around here are set up for failure, with literally hundreds of tiny stalls seemingly designed for people just getting into retail. Many of those spaces empty and for rent. Very small spaces for very small inventories. Inventories that often are exactly the same as your neighbor's stall.

While a spreading out of the shops and more variety in the things they carry may help things, I think more than anything the culture needs a bit of self-examination. If the answer to everyone's financial future is simply to be a business owner, to import some crap from China and sell it on the street, then it would seem to me there are not nearly enough people filling other needs. Who's doing something difficult? Where are the dentist offices? Where are the investment houses? Who's seen the need for "Taco Stand Monthly" and is starting a magazine to serve that vast group? Talk about over-saturation... today I saw a parking garage that had been dual-purposed as a taco shop.

Yes, I'm lacking in objectivity because I'm not from here; I'm not even from a big city so I can't say whether the retail situation is much different in New York City. I'm educated, whereas many of the people trying to make it happen in their little stall may have very few options. I have no idea what benefits if any are given by the government to business owners, what the turnover is, whether it matters at all if they sell anything or not, really. Maybe occasionally lighting strikes and for some here retail truly is the path to financial success. I'm not equipped to provide the answers (or even a good analysis, looking back at what I've written so far) for the people of a completely different culture. I do know a bit about Adam Smith, though. And I know enough to look around and see that, given the similar inventory and the lack of serious buyers in most of the stores around here, something seems really out of balance.

 

I had to scour some "Best Cities in the World" reviews looking for Guadalajara because for the 8 hours I've been here, in the 10 square blocks I've walked, I have to say I think this city just kicks ass.

I got up early this morning and hopped on a bus to PV, got off at the Central Camionera (the main bus terminal, which is near the airport, and not 15 minutes later I was on a first-class bus to Guadalajara. The ETN bus I took was very comfortable and was only forty bucks for the five-hour ride. There were some minor issues: the restrooms were sort of gross and only partially functional (no water for hand-washing), and the crappy headphones they provide let more sound out than I'm sure was getting into the ears of the guy behind me. I sure wish more people would get good in-ear or over-the-ear headphones that kept their music a bit more private. Come too think of it, it drives me nuts when people spend $200 on an iPod or $400 on an iPhone and use the crappy headphones that come with the thing. It's not usually an issue for me except on public transportation. Sorry... noise pollution rant over.

The bus' route into Guadalajara was funny, and frustrating. I didn't know where the bus stop was here, but just in case it was close enough to walk to the hotel I programmed my handheld GPS with the hotel set as a mark. For about 30 minutes we stayed about 6 miles away from the hotel, coming as close as 3, but then ending up 6 miles away again at the central terminal. A taxi ride later, I ended up at the Hotel Morales in the city center. It's a restored hotel that they say the bullfighters used to stay at, and though I have an interior room with no view, it also has no street noise, so I'm fine with it. I want to be out on the city anyway and not hanging out in my room.
 
I started in the bar downstairs for a margarita and some guacamole y totopos (and to finish some work using the hotel's wifi), and then started walking. I was blown away by how crowded the sidewalks are - New York is as close as I can come for comparison, but I haven't been to that many big cities, I guess. I love the "walk" signs they have here; they're animated with a stick-figure guy who looks like he's running. And at night the streets have tiny lights to help distinguish the lanes. The streets are sparkly. Anyway, I walked from the hotel to a large square where there were kids playing and literally hundreds of people just sitting on the benches and talking to each other, enjoying the magic hour (it was sunset time but we couldn't see the sunset because of the buildings). I sat and journaled for a bit, then decided to relocate. I walked kitty-corner to yet another square, this one even bigger, with a cafe, people performing at the cafe, shops all around.... Sat and had a coffee and journaled some more, listened to the music, invited a couple to join me as they were looking for a table and I was getting the check anyway, and we chatted a little bit - as well as I could with my limited Spanish. I think I actually speak fairly well for a gringo. I know what I want to say anyway, and I seem get my point across without being ridiculed (too often). But it's the comprehending that gives me trouble. Sometimes I think it's easier to pretend I don't speak Spanish at all - then I can understand them when they talk back because they either speak English or they speak very slowly.

God, I hope nobody's reading this. What an uninteresting entry. Well, I know you're reading it, Dad. :) Oh well, better to say something, anyway, and get it out there. I can make a point of it or make it interesting later. So anyone reading this, you're the unfortunate viewer of a stream-of-consciousness creativity excercise, where the point is not how good something is, but just that it's written. Sorry. I had a notion that I should create a new tag called "boring - don't bother" but tagging a boring entry as "boring" would go against the point of tagging. Who would want to click a tag called "boring?" What's the point of grouping stuff together with a tag unless it makes sense to click that tag and view all things with that tag? And how big would that tag get in my "Tag Cloud" where the tag size varies by freqency of use? "Boring - don't bother" would get pretty big, I'd say. Much bigger than "Actually worth reading."

Ahem - so... after the 2nd square I went to a restaurant called La Chata. It was highly recommended by someone who reviewed the hotel on TripAdvisor.com. It was pretty good, but nothing amazing. And that's it, really. Just lots more walking around with a strange grin on my face from two margaritas, two Pacificos, and two cups of coffee, enjoying the masses of people walking and eating and hanging out late on a Wednesday night in Guadalajara.

 

Yesterday was a very frustrating day trying to get new moorage closer to downtown Puerto Vallarta. I like it here in La Cruz, and I won't be here for the next two weeks anyway, but I wanted to be closer to stuff when I got back and save some money while I was away. The problem with a lot of marinas down here is they don't often feel compelled to answer email or their phone, so your best option when trying to get into a marina is to just go, be there in their marina, get them on the VHF and say, "okay, what's my slip assignment?" Well, it didn't work yesterday. I won't go into detail because it's boring, but it was a complete waste of a day.

So this afternoon I'm sitting here listening to Radio Lab podcasts and working, answering emails and making stuff happen. And soon I'll start packing for my trip inland, which I've decided I'll undertake tomorrow rather than tonight. I'm flying to Florida out of Guadalajara (partly because it was $100 cheaper, and partly because I wanted to see the city), and it's a five hour bus ride from PV. So no point in getting there at 9pm, paying for a hotel room and then just going to bed. The cheaper flight will end up costing me more, of course, with two night's hotel and a 400 peso bus ride, but I wanted to see Guadalajara. It's supposed to be "Mexico's most cosmopolitan city" and I'm ready for a little more culture. We don't get much culture here on the coast (tacos, fireworks and mariachi notwithstanding).

So I fly out of Guadalajara on Friday early morning, and as soon as I land in Panama City I'll get to see the boys play t-ball. R's been giving me great reports, and it sounds like they're doing great. G is great in the field and Ty hit a grand slam last week to win the game. He can also, apparently, do a backflip into the pool. Not a back dive or occasionally a back flop, which he was doing last time I was there, but a back flip, all the way around and his feet break the surface of the water. Since he's not yet 5 (2 more weeks) I can say "my four-year-old can do a freakin' backflip into the pool. From the edge of the pool." Look for that video soon, destined to be the equivalent of Tiger Woods on the Johnny Carson Show at age 4.

So on April 10 I'm back to PV and checking out of La Cruz on 4/11 and heading either to PV for a few days or more north, stopping along the way at places like Chacala, Mazatlan and Topolabampo that I skipped over before. Then again, if the weather's right, I may just float on north and save some of those places for next year. My plan currently is to do the Baja Ha Ha next year (they leave San Diego Oct 30) and give this trip another shot. But who knows....

TT