Cancun - The Flea Market

After returning from the beach to our room, we noticed that our $90 tour gift certificate is GONE. Nada. Zip. Missing en el action-o. The uno in charge of paperwork who shall remain nameless (and who really does not want to be in charge of paperwork anymore and wants to be in charge of drinks!!) left it on the desk in our room. After our room was cleaned by room service, it's gone. Three hours this manana wasted with the time-share sales dudes is down the drain! Oh, speaking of down the drain, we'll get to you with the plumbing situations here later. it's very interesting.

We decided to shower and take the bus to check out one of the public markets and find food. Next stop -- the Flea Market.

Flea Market: "Hola Senora! Can I show you my store? Come on in! Only one dollar! Everything on sale! Almost free!" Nothing is marked with prices; all are negotiable. And, almost all shops have the exact same merchandise, and a super friendly guy out front to lure you inside. As soon as you exit one store, five or six other shop owners swarm around you, "My turn!!! Come inside!". The line I love is when you indicate something is not good quality, you're assured, "Theese eeez no Cheech and Chong!"

Once when Karen was at one end of the mall, she said my name out loud. All the shop keepers outside their stores for the next 10 stores or so would say "Lisaaaaaaa!!!!" when I walked by. Too funny, but usually it was just "Hey Lady!"

We quickly developed a method for getting good deals. One of us would go in and barter down the guy as low as we could on an item we both wanted. When we got them as low as we could, then the second one would come in and say, we'll take "Two for $x" which was several dollars/pesos less than the previous lowest bartered price on a per-each basis. Faced with the possibility of losing the first sale, or making two sales, we almost always got what we asked. It was a blast! Here are some photos from the flea market:





After scoring several great deals, but not taking advantage of the offer to sell us some herb from the pipe selling guy, we decided we'd had:
, and went to go find La Dolce Vita Restaurant for dinner. The place came highly recommended by some random guy we crossed paths with in the airport yesterday on arrival, and we must say it was excellent. Karen says they had the best lobster bisque soup she's ever had.

On the capacity filled bus ride back to our room, we were entertained by a guitar strumming and LOUDLY singing senor, who sang for tips. Very entertaining!