Shopping Day in Guaymas

Yesterday was a great girls' day in Guaymas. If you look hard enough you can find everything that you need and the language barrier gets less daunting when you put yourself out there and just try to speak Spanish. I picked my friend, Kris, up at around 11:0o and we drove into Guaymas. One lane of the main bridge in and out of San Carlos has reopened so it's a lot easier to get through town. You have to pay close attention because the detours change a lot. I have found myself on the wrong side of the median numerous times. The last time it happened I had to run the jeep over the median, through the shrubs and over the curb. I had no choice and I didn't do any damage.



Our other partner, Bliss, was unavailable because she publishes a book every year at this time and yesterday they went to press. Kris is a yoga teacher and she needed color copies of her brochure to hand out around town. We found the print shop that had been recommended (don't ask me how we found it). We went in and asked for pricing. The guy who was helping us said he couldn't do less than one thousand copies and we said "ok, how much". He said it was $210 pesos for 1,000 copies. That's seemed very inexpensive. We did this all in Spanish and we thought it was pretty impressive on our part. Then Kris handed him the brochure and he said "oh, it's more for two or three colors". We then realized that we were in a real print shop where they do actual typesetting, like for a newspaper. I don't even know if those still exist in the U.S. We excused ourselves then but it still might be in the running because the next place quoted 6 pesos per color copy. That comes out to about 80 cents - so around $80 USD for one hundred copies. I don't know why it's so expensive and why there isn't a Kinko's around. Kris might go with black and white and then she could pretty much do it for free. In any case, it's fun to find little businesses here and talk to the local people. I love it. It reminds of how it must have been back in the old days or in a small town in the U.S. before big business took over (like Kinko's). It's one of the things I love most about Mexico.



I knew I wanted to get some fresh fish so we headed towards the water to a fish store that had been recommended to Kris. Generally, the best fish comes in early in the morning and it was already past noon so all they had were shrimp. It's the beginning of shrimp season and they had the biggest, most beautiful shrimp I've ever seen. However, we didn't need any. Both Kris and I had shrimp from our local guy who comes around and delivers. We continued on towards the marina and we passed a fish vendor with a stand right near where the fishing boats come in. He had beautiful fresh fish, scallops and fresh crab. I bought a nice whitefish that is white and firm and I'm hoping it will taste like mahi mahi. We both bought some crabmeat too. It is so inexpensive here. I'll make crab cakes tonight.



We stopped for lunch at a big palapa restaurant that is very popular. I can't wait to take Bruce there. We were there before comida so it was empty. I had a fish taco made with mahi mahi and Kris had a crab tostada. It was absolutely delicious and the bill came to $72 pesos (about $6 USD) for both of us. We were right across from the water so we had a great view. Guaymas has an interesting waterfront and a very nice marina. It is definitely a working waterfront, not a tourist place. Mexico has some government run marinas that are nice, kind of similar to the ones run by the Canadian government. They are always cheaper than private marinas and I've heard the ones on this coast are well run. After great lunch and great conversation we left for our last few errands. There's nothing better than being with good friends and talking about anything you want to talk about. I love having girlfriends to goof around with. I swear it doesn't matter how old or young you are. There's just nothing like it. I wanted to show Kris a part of the waterfront that I didn't think she had seen yet. I found it one day when I was lost in Guaymas by taking a wrong turn at a "Y". It takes you out to a kind of inlet that has tiny islands covered with cacti and on the shore are ponga boats that belong to the local fishermen. On the right side of the road there are some really lovely and expensive Mexican homes surrounded by the desert hills that are so common here. It's a really beautiful section of town.



Kris and I finally wound our way back to Soriana, one of the mega marts in Guaymas and did some shopping. Their produce is fresh and we can't find anything great in town right now. However, that has changed today because Tony has reopened. Although I can get everything I need from Tony, I'll continue to go into Guaymas for the fresh fish and crabmeat. It's a lot cheaper and it's fun to stop and talk to the fish guy. So...that was our day in the big city. It was a great day.