Emiliano Zapata Municipal Market, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Thursday, October 11th, 2018)

Each morning we have been enjoying the nice light breakfast provided by the hotel, but tomorrow we are going to head out early to go to the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens.  It is quite a ways south of the city, and our usual breakfast doesn't open until 9:00, so today we are going to head up to the Municipal Market (Mercado Emiliano Zapata at the corners of Lazaro Cardenas and Camichian) to see if we can find some breakfast food, and hopefully enjoy and adventure as well!

The Municipal Market is where the locals shop, and it is done a little different than the grocery store.  Each of the little stores is privately owned, so they each do things a little bit different, but basically, they have bowls or baskets out that you carry around to put your produce in, and then when you are ready you take your bowl to the check out counter and they ring you up and bag your groceries.

So much great produce!

We took this picture for our youngest daughter because she loves froot loops, and that entire bag next to Steve is full of fruit loops.  And the big yellow buckets by Steve are full of mole.  Quite a combination!

They sell just about everything you can imagine, mostly in bulk.  We ended up buying some eggs, oil and vegetables to make some scrambled eggs for tomorrow morning.  It was a really fun shopping experience and we even managed to come home with some breakfast items.

On our way home, we walked down the hill, and then headed out to the shore to walk along the beach.  Every day when we have been swimming in the afternoon, we come in full of sand because the waves are really churning it up.  Yellow flag on this section of beach, but some areas have red flags.

As we got near our hotel, we came across these two city police officers who were digging up turtle eggs that had been laid the night before to relocate them to a safer place.  This is so great to see!

These were the groceries we bought at the city market.  They even packaged up our eggs for us so that they wouldn't get broken.  

Just another adventure in Puerto Vallarta, and now we have to get started cooking so that breakfast will be quick in the morning.  Then off to the marina again for an expat dinner.

Peruvian Market (Saturday, December 30th, 2017)

I love markets!  No matter what country I am in, I love to visit the markets and take in the atmosphere and all the goodies available.  

Our first stop was for chupa bread.  It is a traditional bread of Peru, made with anise. We bought a loaf to share later in the bus, and oh my was it good!!!  I would love to know how to make this very tasty bread, and each loaf is big enough to feed a small army.

Then on to the fruits and vegetables.  I wish we had markets like this in the U.S.  They always make their produce look so pretty and irresistible.  And even better it is super cheap!

Flowers

Fresh cheese

Next was the meat department.

A little lady selling seaweed.

Dried and fresh spices.

Homemade sauces.

This was the cutest little lady!  She was so happy and talkative!

Then we came to the food court.

One of the restaurants in the food courts was serving sheep head stew.  If you're lucky, you get the jawbone.  I think it's a lot like getting the wishbone on Thanksgiving.

Last but not least, we visited the coca store.  This woman sold anything you could ever want associated with coca.

Including a huge bag of dried coca leaves.

Every country we visit has a slightly different flair in their markets.  I love seeing what is available and how it is displayed.  Most of the time the vendors are busy chopping, peeling or doing some sort of work on the merchandise they have for sale.  Nothing is done in the back room, it all just happens right there in the market.