Problems with the Mail in Mexico

There are three main problems with having things mailed to you here: it can be very slow, things may disappear en route, and you might get charged duty which can be quite high.

Now some expats  have had pretty good luck with the Mexican mail system, but I don’t happen to be one of them. One example: a Christmas card from our daughter reached us just after Easter the first year we were here!

We eventually gave up our post office box in Ajijic.

One reason the mail can be so difficult is that Mexicans don’t use it much. Ordinary Mexicans in our town typically seem to go years between pieces of mail. Cellphones are ubiquitous, they pay their electric bills at the grocery store on the highway, their water bill once a year at City Hall, and I don’t know how they pay their phone bills, since we have never managed to get a regular phone ourselves.

I have heard from some other foreigners here that the mails are improving noticeably.

Fedex and other Delivery Systems

These are here, quite reliable, and priced high enough that you don’t want to order a ton of books from Amazon this way. We have sent and received important papers with Fedex just fine… we didn’t try to have them come to our hard-to-find house, so I don’t know if they do. We used a local Fedex office.

Mailboxes in Texas

Here in the Lake Chapala area, there are some choices that aren’t available in places with few expats. I’m sure this is true in San Miguel de Allende, Puerto Vallarta, and other expat favorite spots. Various companies in our area have arrangements with companies in Texas — I don’t know if they use Mailboxes Etc. or what — and the mail is brought down regularly. I’ve certainly heard complaints about this but by and large it seems to work pretty well.

A Word About Customs

Until the presidential term of Vicente Fox a few years ago, books could come into Mexico duty-free. Then his administration put duty charges on books, but whether or not it will be charged is variable. It’s supposed to be a fairly low rate but I do know someone who absolutely needed a professional book for her online business and she got socked with customs roughly equal to the hundred bucks or so that the book cost.

Most medicines are here and cheap but sometimes people need meds from north of the border and if they come by mail or courier, there may be some customs. I don’t know how much.

So What Do We Do?

Living in an area with thousands of expats and snowbirds really helps. We bring things down for each other, and  we take tax forms, birthday presents, and other things to be mailed up north when we go.

I for one have been surprised at how easily I have adapted to not having the mails in my everyday life. I *do* miss easy access to Amazon.com and my favorite vitamins and supplements. But with Mexico’s second-largest city nearby, over time we have found sources for many things here.

The Mail in Mexico is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

I almost got attacked by a cat first thing. It was hissing at another cat or a dog under a truck and considered taking on my ankles.

Narrowly escaping that hazard, the rest of the outing was a piece of cake. I chatted with a Jehovah’s Witness. She didn’t say she was till I asked, just said she loved to talk about the Bible with others who speak English.

At the market, I sat down behind the stall of a friend of mine, Connie, who was looking especially beautiful today. I’ve written about her before… she and her mother sell plants. We chatted for a while. Then an American friend I hadn’t seen in several weeks came by. I wandered down along the stalls with her and friend of hers. Learned that another friend of ours had gone back to the US to see about making some money. Got invited to a Christmas Eve party. Bought some produce from our usual vendors, Blanca and Carlos. When I commented on Carlos’ beard, he said it was for the cold weather.

At another stall, I bought two wooden picture frames. I asked the vendor where they were made and he said in Michoacan, a state nearby. He lives here and his family is there.

While picking out a Mexican Christmas songs CD, I was greeted by another Mexican friend. Jose also commented on the cold.

As I wandered home, stopping in at the tortilleria for a stack of fresh hot tortillas (2 pesos, about 15 cents US), I reflected on cold weather. Taking off my long sleeved shirt because I was too warm, I thought: this ain’t it.

Just a Walk to the Market is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

The cost of chartering the buses is paid for by Walmart, and that was our destination. There are at least 5 Walmarts in Guadalajara, and this trip goes to one at a shopping mall called Plaza Mexico. There was a department store, aptly named “Suburbia” at the other end from Walmart, and numerous clothing stores, shoe stores, restaurants, snack bars, and whatnot in between. Not too thrilling, but practical.

I didn’t take my camera along, but here is a link to a blog entry I wrote last year, about a mall in Queretaro, with quite a few pictures. That mall was more interesting architecturally than this one.

We left Ajijic around 10 and got to our destination something after 11; there may have been something interesting to see out the windows, but I was absorbed in conversation and whenever I glanced out, it was typical Mexican urban stuff. We didn’t go through any quaint or charming areas.

Kelly and I first went over to an Office Max in another shopping center next door, and our most interesting find there was a set of one-foot panels of cork that we have put on our walls to create a photogallery with. Back in the first mall, we had lunch with our friends at an Italian coffee place, then went to Radio Shack. Just like Alamosa, Colorado, where we would do those sorts of things from Crestone.

I found a bookstore, and I bought a copy of El leon, la bruja, y el armario which is giving my Spanish a workout as I read it. This classic children’s book by C.S. Lewis — better known to you as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe — is really a good reading level for me, giving my recognition of past-tense verbs a challenge. (Today I came across a copy in English in Ajijic, and bought it. I’ve read that up to where I got in the Spanish, and discovered I did miss a few key plot elements!)

WalMart is Mexican-owned, I think, though it hardly matters to a shopper as it’s the same thing as in the US. We found vegetable seeds and some solar lights for our yard, things we hadn’t found near Lake Chapala. Well, we’d found seeds, but this was a better selection.

Around 3, everyone piled on the bus and off we went, in time to kick back with a swim at home. I’d noticed a headline on one of the Guadalajara papers, announcing that the population of the city is now 6.8 million. It’s the second-largest city in Mexico and quite a handy resource for us lakesiders.

Shopping Trip to Guadalajara is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

So it was time for a shopping trip. Yesterday we went to Soriana in Chapala. Soriana is a WalMart-like kind of place, a little bit of everything and lots of groceries. This being Mexico, they also have lots of baby stuff! Mexico has a number of different stores like this, (Gigante, Comercial Mexicana, etc.) and they are very handy. Soriana tends to be my favorite, maybe because I had such fun at one in Ciudad Victoria a few years ago. The link takes you to where I tell that story, with a photo of Soriana down the page a little.

In any case, Soriana is the only one in the lakeside area.

UPDATE 2009: We now have a WalMart by Lake Chapala.

We priced new refrigerators. They had a good selection, complete with energy usage charts pretty similar to what you’d see in the US. The ones we liked began at about $500 US. I had never heard of most of the brands, though they did have Samsung. We asked about delivery and it was possible though the woman had no idea what the cost would be. We would just pay the guy who brought it.

While we were there, we took cash out of one of the several ATM machines and got some groceries (it’s much like a regular chain grocery store in the US, though while you can get lots of kinds of salsa, they don’t carry black tea). I also picked up the only model of crock pot they had, a simple Rival with one temperature and a bowl that doesn’t lift out, for about $12 US. Kelly and I picked out a small barbecuing grill, on sale for about $30, and some bags of charcoal too.

In the parking lot a small boy (maybe 7) insisted on helping us put things into Cando, even though I told him no. He was persistent and just kept handing me things so eventually I gave in and let him help, giving him a peso, about 8 cents, for taking the cart back as well. At the same time, Kelly had said yes to a young man who offered to clean our very dusty windows, and he seemed happy with a 5 peso tip for that.

Our next stop was in Riberas de Pilar, a suburban area west of Chapala and east of Ajijic. There’s a store there, Tecnicos Unidos though I’m not sure that’s what’s over their door. (It’s on the mountain side of the highway, going downhill after you’ve passed Clinica Maskaras and Mom’s Restaurant on the lake side.) We have been very happy with the used Maytag washing machine we bought there, so we decided to stop in and see what refrigerators they had. I am not a huge fan of second-hand refrigerators, but I was open.

It didn’t do anything for my skepticism that the first unit I saw was of the Mabe brand. “Maybe it works,” I grumbled. But inside there was a large Whirlpool without that horrible musty smell old fridges can get. It was about $300 US with a one-year warranty and free delivery — the guy groaned good-naturedly as he remembered the long uphill climb to our house from the street — and they could bring it over between 1 and 2 the same day. We agreed, and the deal was done. We also wanted them to take our old one, and they agreed to that, saying at least they could use it for parts.

So we now have the largest refrigerator we’ve had in years. One benefit is that we are keeping all our beer, wine, and packaged juice and milk in it, along with containers of water in the freezer, so that when the electricity in our neighborhood goes out, things will stay cold a lot longer. By bedtime last night it was down to 50 degrees and we commented that all those liquids went in at probably 75 degrees. This morning it’s down to 40.

There are other appliance -shopping choices in Mexico. All over the country, in any small city, you will find stores that sell appliances and furniture and that deliver.

On to the next adventure…

3 Comments from the old blog:

• Anonymous said…

  Hi Rosana & Kelly,

  Congrats on the new refrigerator. LG (Life is Good ;-) appliances are VERY good. LG in Korea make much of Whirlpool and others
  appliances as an OEM. I know you have done something else this time – just wanted to mention they are an excellent company and stating to appear more and more here in the States.

  About delivery – this is VERY dicey in our part of Mexico. While everyone delivers typically – once they have your peso’s your new appliance may arrive banged up or you may not even get the same model you thought you had bought (if it is new). We were warned by several people to avoid delivery if possible. One should check that the item you think you are getting is in fact the one being delivered. We bought a new LP clothes washer Chedraui (a big grocery chain in our area). We had our truck and thus chose to take it right then and avoid the free delivery. They actually brought a different model out. Also you should have them open the box and make sure it is not scratched or damaged. Check the item before they get it off the truck. If there is a problem the may not be willing to take it back.

  Once you pay the game is not over. The ‘movers’ are often consigned by the store and not actual employees. In this way their bad delivery will not be part of the deal in terms of responsibility of the seller. Perhaps this is more localized than I think – but I thought I would pass this along. You will not have the same buyer protections that you have in the States. Caution is the rule of thumb.
  John Calypso

• And I said:

  Great advice, John! And one reason we felt more comfortable with the small, locally-owned shop where the guys take a lot of pride in their work. Not to mention that they remembered where we live.

  BTW, I lost the url of your excellent blog when my hard drive crashed a while ago. Would you post it here for all to enjoy?

• Hi Rosana -
  Our Blog is :
  http://www.vivaveracruz.com/blog/

Refrigerator Shopping in Mexico is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

posted

Buying a Computer: Where? is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

First, we had coffee in the mall. The man on the left is on his cellphone, a common sight. Rob had just bought a new Sony Ericsson cellphone here last week and he stopped in to ask for help in figuring out some of the advanced features, like sending photos. It turned out that there was some kind of glitch, I’m not sure whether it was nation-wide or just in the region, but nobody had been able to use those features for two weeks! Nobody had thought to tell Rob when he bought the phone.

Rob went off to a meeting for a few hours. Kelly and I went to open our account but the bank manager suggested we wait till we get our FM-3 visas soon, as we will be able to get a more versatile account.

So then we walked a few blocks to the Prisa paint store of a friend of ours, singer-guitarist Luis Estrella of Tequisquiapan. He and his family have turned up in this blog several times before. He had just opened this store recently — we met them at another store of theirs, in Ezequial Montes, near where we live in Bernal. Luis happened to be at the other store, so we just left him a note. Then we walked along a main street which has a lot of chain stores. And we thought we’d left Suburbia behind! Note Costco just beyond it.

We walked about four long blocks to… Wal-mart. We wanted to find out what it had, as a help in deciding later what we needed to bring to Mexico from the United States. We didn’t take any photos inside, but just picture your local large Wal-mart and that is exactly what it looked like. Except that things were in Spanish.

We walked back and still had some time, so we went inside a mall across the street from the mall where we had started out and where we were to meet Rob. I was really glad we did, because I explored the Commercial Mexicana store and found it had most things that Wal-mart did. While I did that, Kelly took a picture inside the mall:

Then the security man asked him not to take any more. So he didn’t until we crossed the street to the original mall, Plaza Boulevardes, where he took this shot at my request:

And this one… there are about ten movie theaters just to the right. You can see the CINE sign high on the wall, along with the Food Court sign.

It’s not that I’m so enamored of malls — I rarely go to them in the US — but I do think this set of photos shows a different Mexico than many Americans would expect. I’m often struck too by how many of the cars are late model and kept gleaming:

When Rob rejoined us, we had lunch at “California” in the mall, where Kelly and I had the Executive Package. For just over $4.00 US each, we had a delicious creamy corn soup which was subtly hot, followed by a main course of chicken or fish with rice, with iced tea or iced herb tea, plus a simple dessert. Rob chose the buffet, and when he came to the table with his dessert plate, Kelly jumped up and took a photo:

The mall had a special feature going on. Over a dozen vendors from Oaxaca, far to the south, had been invited to have booths selling handicrafts and clothing. My favorite part of the whole day was when I began chatting with a woman selling clothing at one of these booths. She was so friendly, real, and direct. She said she loved talking to us because it was fun to meet people from everywhere, and that no matter if people were brown, white, or black, we were all equal in the eyes of God. My sentiments exactly. I asked her if she was from the city of Oaxaca, and she said no, she was from a town in the mountains an eight-hour bus ride from there.

I was looking at some of the hand-embroidered blouses when I suddenly remembered that last night I had had a dream about turquoise clothing. So I ended up buying this outfit from her for about $22 US total, plus $6 more for the necklace and earrings:

The photo is taken back home in Bernal, glad to be back in our quiet little town after a full day out.

3 Comments from the old blog:

• At May 18, 2005 9:50 PM, BillieS said…

  Oh my, I’ve been to almost all of the places you wrote about today. We have to make a Costco and Walmart run about every 6 weeks from San Miguel. On Flickr, I have a series of pics about shopping. Some of them are from the Walmart…shot from the hip. I didn’t raise the camera to the eye, just aimed and shot.

  I’m loving your blog.

• At May 19, 2005 1:17 PM, Abundio and Ruth said…

  Just the shot of encouragement I needed! What a difference between these and other rural areas. I agree with you, this gives a whole other picture of Mexico.

  Was the security guard who asked Kelly not to take more pictures concerned about terrorist activity? I have to say I hadn’t thought of that until that comment.

  Thanks for the pictures!

• At May 19, 2005 3:54 PM, Rosana Hart said…

  Billie, it was fun to get a response from someone else who’s been there. Kelly’s done some good from-the-hip shots at times too! I didn’t care enough to ask him to in Walmart!

  Glad you’re liking the blog. I may eventually use it as the basis for a new book.

  Ruthi, I think the security guards were more likely there to discourage shoplifting. With all those stores full of chic and expensive goodies, the teenagers must be mighty tempted. Plus there is a long tradition in Mexico of guards in places where the wealthier folks hang out. Queretaro has a reputation as a very safe city… and the vibes are good there!

The Malls of Queretaro is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

I went to the street where I thought the chicken might be sold. Ten in the morning is still early for a lot of shops here to open, and many of them don’t open at all during the week, as it is on the weekend when tourists come from Mexico City and elsewhere. The only shop open where I expected to find chicken was a small miscellany shop, of the type so common all over Mexico, with public baths behind it. I had seen a line of people waiting to bathe there another morning, but today nobody was around. In response to my calls, a boy of about eight came out. He had some trouble understanding my thick foreign accent, but eventually assured me that nobody sold chicken in the neighborhood.

Undaunted, I went to Miscelanea Silvia, my best source for yogurt and information. I was in luck. Silvia had several flavors of yogurt this morning. I bought a couple of one-liter containers and some fresh rolls, and then I asked her about the chicken. Of course, she knew exactly where it was, directly across the street from where I had been looking. (Next door to the Cooperativa on Calle Independencia, if you are ever looking for raw chicken in Bernal, Mexico.)

The chicken lady had a small booth just inside the front door of her house, otherwise unmarked. She had a few wings in a case and a bunch of whole chickens in a big bin. I decided to get a whole chicken, as my plan was to boil it up, freeze some of the meat, and make a soup with the rest. She held one up for my inspection, I nodded, and she whacked it into about a dozen pieces. I wanted to know how fresh it was, but couldn’t think exactly how to say that in Spanish, so I asked her when the animal had died.

“This morning,” she smiled. “It’s still warm.” She explained that they raise the chickens behind their house and have fresh chicken for sale every morning. She showed me a package of Milanesa — chicken breast pounded very flat and breaded, ready to fry a few minutes. That’s made fresh daily too. I assured her I’d be back to try it soon, and with a few more friendly words, I left, my chicken securely double-wrapped in plastic. That had been 51 pesos, just under $5.00 US. When I get to know her better, I will ask what kind of feed the chickens eat, and whether they get any hormones.

It was in this neighborhood that I’d found a sewing notions shop, so I went down to see if it was open. It was, and I got the bit of ribbon I wanted for some mending.

Next, it was back past Silvia’s and a few doors down to the produce place that has the best selection in town. I was struck by a gorgeous huge bunch of radishes, and asked if I could buy half of it. Sure, the fast-talking young man said, along with a joking comment I didn’t catch. My bunch of radishes turned out to be about two dozen large ones. I got a selection of other produce. As usual, when leaving a shop in Mexico, I said “Adios.” A chorus of goodbyes came from the fellow and the other customers. As I started my trek back up the hill, I passed a very old man slowly going along the sidewalk carrying a small container of the homemade cheese they make here, and then I said hello to a woman of about 40 standing in her doorway. She had an astonishing haircolor, mostly her natural black color, streaked with a bright red-orange.

I hadn’t gotten everything I was after but my shopping bags were full and heavy. Guess I’ll have to go back out this afternoon! Each time I go shopping in a Mexican town is an enjoyable adventure.

Getting My Groceries in a Small Mexican Town is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

First, we walked about 5 minutes to the bus stop and then we stood for maybe 10 minutes till the local bus came. Think of a large UPS truck and make it longer — that’s about the size of this thing. Its seats were so close together that my knees were jammed in, and I am not a tall person. But I was lucky to have a seat. Kelly stood for about half of the 25-minute trip.

I was sitting next to a Mexican woman who had put her little girl on her lap so I would have a place to sit. The girl looked to be about two and she was in kind of a bad mood. She stared at me but wouldn’t smile. After we’d been riding along a while, the woman directly in front of me shifted her little girl of about the same age, so the girl was looking back at our seat. I was treated to the most blissful smile imaginable, with long eye contact — not once but several times. It was exquisite!

Gotta wonder about how the lives of these two little children will play out.

The market was great, the largest one we’ve seen on this trip. Several blocks in size, it contained lots of produce, food stalls that looked a little dubious to me in the hygiene department but may have been fine, used and new clothing galore, lots of tools both new and used, a little used furniture, shoes, artesanias (arts and crafts), dried herbs for healing teas, plastics of all sorts, patent medicines, blender parts (blenders are used a lot in Mexican cooking), other housewares, big bags of dog food open so people could buy a little, and lots more.

We were pretty early and a lot of vendors were still setting up. There was a lot of good-natured chatter going on around us. People were friendly with us… we didn’t see any other foreigners the whole day, and I realized later that I hadn’t even noticed that at the time!

After a while, we asked directions and headed for the center of town a few blocks away. We did some errands including finding a bank, where the ATM machine worked flawlessly, as they always have for us. (I do prefer the kind where you can swipe your card rather than insert it, as I have heard a few tales of the insertion-type machines keeping travelers’ cards and banks not being able to return them due to some regulations. This was a swipe-the-card type.)

Then we had lunch in a restaurant with a lovely tile floor and a sparkling clean bathroom, complete with toilet paper, soap, and a cloth hand towel. Most of the many bathrooms I’ve encountered in Mexico have been this clean, but toilet paper is usually a bring-your-own affair. Like many of the bathrooms I’ve used, there was no seat on the toilet.

Back to lunch. I had a quesadilla platter with small portions of rice, beans, and salad for 25 pesos. Kelly had chicken tacos with the same side dishes, for the same price. I had a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice for 15 pesos — excellent! Kelly had coffee, 8 pesos. It’s 11 pesos to the dollar right now, so the very filling meal was (The peso is getting stronger against the dollar, but that’s a whole other story.) just over $7.00 US for both of us including tip.

We wandered back to the market as we wanted to buy a few things we hadn’t wanted to carry all over town. We’d found unshelled peanuts, one of Kelly’s favorite snacks. Our bus was waiting, not nearly so full this time, and like us, most of the passengers had their own big plaid plastic shopping bags filled to the brim.

Great fun.

Shopping Trip is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico