I don’t remember if I’ve addressed this in a previous post
or not, but either way here goes.
If you want an imported good such as a box of Frosted Flakes
or some other US good, it is extraordinarily expensive. That’s just part of the
price of living in a country that has somewhat limited trade flexibility with
the United States. However, if you want produce it is cheap. Like super crazy
cheap. Like stupid cheap.
Every Saturday, Shannon and I take a short trip to the
Inaquito Market. Surrounding the market is a series of little tiendas that vary
in their specialty. I would say that about a third of them are florists where
you can buy two dozen gorgeous roses for $4 or so. Another third of them is
assorted plastic goods such as Tupperware and pitchers and the like. The last
third is liquor stores.
I won't show you what it looks like before it gets to the plate. |
When you walk into the market which is essentially a large
warehouse, you see a food court to the side where you can buy hornado. Hornado
is pretty much the only thing you can buy. Hornado is an typical Ecuadorian
plate that consists of fried bite sized pieces of pork. You also get a sliced
avocado and choclos large kernel corn, all for about $3. The whole raw dead pig
is usually hanging on a hook or on the counter. They will carve it for you
depending on what you want and then fry it up. It sounds gross. It looks gross.
It kind of is gross. But, the food is delicious.
When you walk past the cafeteria area, you find a variety of
stands that serve as makeshift butchers. None of the meat is wrapped or
refrigerated so we haven’t really taken them up on their fantastic prices but
we hear the quality is good.
Then, past all of that is the goldmine. You arrive at a flea
market style setup with rows and rows of fresh fruit, vegetable, and spice
stands. In the spice stands you can buy all of the spices you need from curry
to chili pepper, to cayenne pepper, to ginger, to well..you get the idea. They
usually sell a bag that is a quarter of a pound for a dollar or so.
The fruit and vegetable stands are equally as appealing. The
owners try to give you a gringo price and expect you to haggle but sometimes we
find that it’s hard to argue over .10 worth of a price when you are getting such
a great deal. For example, we usually get 6 or 8 oranges for a dollar. We buy a
pound of strawberries for a dollar or less. We get 6 apples for a dollar. We
buy a bushel of peppers for a dollar. Fresh heads of lettuce, cabbage, parsley,
celery all cost about .40 apiece.
All in all we bring a backpack and two reusable grocery bags
and buy about 15 pounds of produce to use for the week for cooking and snacks
and we spend less than $20. It’s another unexpected advantage of living here. I’ll
take the $7 Frosted Flakes for this deal any day.
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