The Supermarket

I would like to dedicate this post to my supermarket experience in Bolivia.

Going to the supermarket here is very different from going to the supermarket back home. When you go to the supermarket, you have to lock your belongings in a locker and cannot enter with any bags, for fear of theft. This includes grocery bags. You know, the ones we use to save plastic; to "go green." I found it very frustrating that the guard would not let me enter with my re-usable grocery bag. I tried to explain to him that it was to help the environment, but he wasn't having any of it. I locked it up, regrettably, re-entered without the bag, and sarcastically said to the guard: "More plastic! More trash! Yay!!!" to which he responded enthusiastically. I don't think he had a clue what I was talking about.

So anyway, we are compiling large amounts of plastic bags at home due to the anti-reusable bag rules, but those bags did end up coming in handy which I will explain in a later post (maybe).

Some good points about supermarket-related matters: 1) The papayas here are delicious and very round 2) There are a lot of interesting fruity and herbal teas 3) While I thought it silly that almost everyone drinks instant coffee in a country that must produce delicious coffee (I am yet to try it), after trying the instant coffee, I can say that it is pretty tasty! Much better than the instant coffee I am used to! So now I am drinking the instant stuff, too.

Bolivians are really into breads of all shapes, sizes, and textures. Big, small, with cheese, without cheese, with coconut, circular, quadrilateral, spiral, "book"-shaped, and more. I have been having fun trying all sorts of things. The only thing I really miss that I cannot find here is coconut water.

Alicia and I bought a lot of stuff that day at the supermarket, and of course after we had bought all that stuff we were craving exactly what we didn't buy: hamburgers! So I went and got us some while Alicia got a cab for us to take home with our groceries. I feel uncomfortable taking cabs here because you always have to be careful if you don't know the cab company; it could be illegitimate. Alicia chose one that looked like a gangster car with tinted windows. WHY, Alicia?! Why this one??! I thought to myself. I asked the taxi driver for his card and he gave me one. This is one way of checking to see if it is a legitimate taxi. I was still kind of skeptical, but we got in and hoped it would be okay. It ended up being fine. I felt bad for giving the guy a hard time, but better safe than sorry.

So we made it home and had our hamburgers with a beer while listening to Cesária Évore. o_O