Casa Mexicana Question
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deepsea21
Contributor
I'm guessing we won't be seeing any $ spent on capital improvements in Cozumel for a long time. I watched a video on Youtube posted by a tourist who took the ferry over and was walking around the town square about a month ago. The place looked like a ghost town. I can't imagine it even makes sense for any of those shops to open their doors. I mean, when I'm there I avoid that area and either walk on the waterside sidewalk or head straight to the back streets due to the constant annoying barking of those shop people in the tourist zone. Can you imagine what it must be like now walking around there as a tourist? May as well be a lone sheep walking through a pack of wolves (assuming the shops are even bothering to open).
gopbroek
Contributor
Actually I was down last week and the vendors were very subdued and respectful of pedestrians. More of a reserved desperation as opposed to the normal banter. I felt sad for them as they were obviously trying to feed their families.
The only way to escape the sellers is to either stay way south or stay home. The square last week was probably 30% open...but I went to support a few...thats not a bad thing is it?
deepsea21
Contributor
gopbroek
Contributor
TrueOh Gary, you don't count... You're down there so much they all probably all know you by now. Or you're wearing one of those ratty T-shirts and they assume you don't have 2 Pesos to rub together.
deepsea21
Contributor
Not a bad thing at all. I would suggest you give shopping on the back streets a try outside the tourist zone back around the Municipal Market and such where the locals shop. Totally different experience. No annoying barking and the prices are 50% of what they ask in the tourist zone. Also, back there the prices are pretty much what they are. No need to haggle to get an item down to 50% of the list price where it should have been priced in the 1st place. I personally wonder just how much $ spent in the tourist zone actually makes it's way into local pockets. A lot of those stores are owned by off island corporations and the few local ones primarily work to pay the grossly high rents to off-island land lords who own all of that tourist zone real estate (aside from Pepe who I believe is a local and seems to own about 1/2 the town).
I remember being back in the Municipal Market looking for some hand embroidered pillow cases. We found some great ones. They were like 150 pesos each or something. I tried to get 2 for 250 pesos and the shop/stall owner was like No, estos son hecho a mano (hand made) and he showed me how to tell the difference from hecho a maquina. We held off and went back into the tourist zone to look at some we had seen there and sure enough those were machine made and they wanted 350 Pesos or something for one of those pieces of machine made garbage. Next day we went back to the Municipal Market and bought the real deal for less than 1/2 the price of the fake and actually supported someone, somewhere who hand embroiders in Mexico as well as a true local shop owner.
I also remember when the town square was under construction for like over a year or something all torn up and boarded up with 8' tall plywood walls everywhere... Looked horrible. No one was visiting the square back then for like a year. I was told one of the reasons the construction seemed to go on forever was it was intentionally dragged on and on and on. The owners of that real estate had lots of long term tenants on long term leases at rents ended up being far below market. Their plan with the powers that be in cahoots was to keep the area torn up and the tourists away long enough that they could drive those businesses into default under their leases, evict them, and then when the square was completed and re-opened they could lease to new tenants at the much higher current market rents. Can't say if this is fact or not, just what a waiter at Casa Denis told us (was either Blatazar or Martin) and I know they weren't very happy with what was going on. They did get those dancing fountains though... Until the electrical room that powered it all went up in a massive blaze. Can't remember if that has been repaired or not as I believe it was going to cost a fortune to fix it.
In about 20 trips and I've never been to Mercado Municipal. It is definitely going to happen on the next one.
deepsea21
Contributor
It's a cool place to see and shop at as are all of the stores around there. The last few trips there we've actually seen tour groups from cruise ships being led around the market by a tour guide! Go figure... cruise passengers PAYING to be driven to and escorted around a market! Maybe I need to buy a bus and charge Mexicans for tours into San Diego and escort them around a mall somewhere. Oh, I forgot, most U.S. malls are vacant these days with pigeons flying around and roosting in them.
That's the Catch 22. If it's super busy, then it's a huge disruption to the customers to tear out escalators and put in elevators. Closed down is the perfect time, but there's no revenue to help with the cash flow. Now, they don't know when things might return to anything close to normal.
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