Hardship? Round 3 - Shopping...

By Donna B. McNicol -
We are living in a third world country, right? That should mean a hardship when it comes to buying things, right? I mean, who doesn't think about trudging down a dirt road to a local market where we pick and choose between a small choice of fruits, veggies and live meat, right?

Well, maybe not so much these days. Yes, we can go to Feria Libre and buy live meat and freshly killed meat (including the head of the chicken as well as its feet). Whole hogs are easily purchased as well. We can stop in smaller tiendas (stores) or even specialty shops. Something for everyone!

While we enjoy the mercados for fruit and vegetables, we also enjoy our local supermarket, SuperMaxi. The only way to tell it's not a supermarket in the US are the labels - rows and rows of products with labels written in Spanish. When we first arrived, it was hard to figure out what was what but now I am accustomed to things, it's usually pretty easy. Okay, so I still rely on the pictures on the front...LOL!

The shopping malls can rival most in the US as we mentioned during our exploratory visit. So to give you a glimpse, here are some photos I've taken during various shopping trips, to the grocery store, to the mall, to the hardware store, etc. {remember, you can click any image for a larger view}


Of course things are starting to get decorated for the Christmas holiday.


Don't forget to check out this old post on our five biggest surprises! As well as our other two hardship posts: Hardship? Popacuchu Cafe ... & Hardship? Round 2 - Sojo Spa

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