We have vacationed on the Caribbean Coast of Mexico in an all-inclusive resort. We’ve visited friends who were long time residents and pastors in Baja Mexico. We’ve lived in Alaska, Tennessee, Oregon and Montana.
Now we LIVE on the southern Pacific coast of Mexico and I can see many differences between living in a place and vacationing.
When you vacation in Mexico, especially at an all-inclusive resort, you are there to pay money to be served. You don’t have to learn the language or speak to anyone who doesn’t speak English (unless you want to). Your credit card is on file. You don’t need to learn the cash system as everything you do is on your card, and if you do need some help…you’ll have people there at every turn if you are lost, confused or hungry! It’s a wonderful experience! How a vacation should be!
Living in Mexico is another story. Wonderful as it is, and we love it…it’s no vacation :0)
When you first arrive, even if you have friends who show you around, it’s all on you! There’s no waiter there to bring your latte…if you want that you have to find a coffee shop.
Oh and finding…no arrows saying, here’s food, here’s the beach, here’s the store. No you have to figure out where you live and what is in your area and how to get around…
And getting around requires one of two things, MONEY or WALKING! If you walk you save money, however, if you don’t know where you are or where you are going you may have a problem…
Speaking of problems, if you do take a Taxi, how do you tell them where you want to go or even more important, where you live…
AND how do you decide where to live?
The learning curve is HUGE and at first stressful but we have learned that you relax, be patient with yourself, don’t be afraid and learn one thing at a time!
Cut the lines and go! We arrived in Mexico with all our worldly goods…4 suitcases, 4 carry on bags, one guitar amp and one guitar! That is all we owned when we arrived. The new challenge…did we bring the right things? Can we get what we need? We arrived in Mexico in early afternoon. It was wonderful to be met by a greeting party who swooped us up and introduced us to a good place for lunch. After lunch and checking out our new apartment it was off to a hotel because our apartment was not quite ready…
Our next stop was one of the three department stores in the area. Our friend Pastor Willy negotiated with the store to sell us floor models and avoid a ten to thirty day wait and called a friend with a big truck to bring our purchases to our new apartment!
Confident our home would be live-able when the land lord had it finished, we were off to our hotel to recover from a very busy and somewhat stressful day in our hotel.
Day 2 – Find some cash and figure out Mexican Pesos! Cash is King in Mexico. Our city in Tennessee had virtually done away with cash in most businesses due to the pandemic, so we were not accustomed to carrying American cash. In Mexico we needed Cash at every turn. Taxi’s taco stands, restaurants, laundry lady, even our hotel required cash! The first week we always found ourselves short of cash.
Our friends and expats who arrived at the same time understood the cash system because they had been in Mexico longer or more frequently. It seemed the first two weeks we were always short of cash or the ATM gave us $500 pesos bills which taxis and some taco stands could not break.
Then there is figuring out the exchange rates. It’s stressful to spend $1000 pesos when you first arrive, until you realize $1000 pesos is less than $50 US dollars. Whew…the panic is real and so is the relief!
In the U.S. the difference between dollars and coins is pretty recognizeable but not so in Mexico! You look at coins, is this a five, ten, two, one? Yikes! It takes really studying the coins to know what you have…or don’t have.
Shopping. On Day 3 Phil and I were in our apartment and ventured to the large Mexican department/grocery store; much like a Walmart. After we left the produce area I looked at Phil and said “I have no idea what to make here.”
The store is clean, modern and well stocked but my orientation was off. My taste was off and I really could not think of anything except tacos! So funny! We did find some breads that were tasty and some familiar brands. In fact, the Kroger and Safeway “Select” brand is in Mexico called “Selecto”. That was nice but it didn’t really help me with shopping and menu planning.
Buying meat was most difficult for me! For the first 11 months we only bought meat at the “super stores” or markets specially designed for expats and toursits.
And then there was the meat in the outdoor markets; whole chickens, laid out for you to choose, hanging meat that is salted and dried, fish in buckets sold by ladies on the side walk. Now please don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking or making fun of the way they do things, it was just a real shock initally to see meat displayed this way. If you are a tourist you can walk by and say “oh wow, that is interesting, gross, unusual, etc. However when you are a resident you realize this is the chicken you will be buying and eating. I have had to reframe most of my home economics instructions on meat handling.
AND I now agree with my Mexican friends. Why would I buy meat that was killed how many days or weeks ago, packed in a truck and sent to a store where it was handled again?
I think my Home Ec instructions were because the meat we would buy was NOT fresh!
The funniest thing was when we were in the super store and there sat a pigs head smiling at me!
And so you learn to adapt and enjoy the new ways of doing things and the stress free life in Mexico, where even the dead pigs smile.
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