Tom
Jun 24, 2003, 6:44 PM
Post #6 of 7
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Re: [David Eidell] Patzcuaro On Fifteen (US) Dollars A Day?
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I'll bet it can. A big question is alone or with someone else.
A 130 peso hotel room (2 year old price w/o bargaining) split in 2 you have a slam-dunk, leaving 85 pesos for eats (an easy mark). Two bolillos from a panaderia (a block or 2 from el Centro - 1 p each), a banana from the market nearby (1 p), and 3 manila mangoes (@4-5p) for breakfast makes 8p. Get your bottled water in a big volume and keep refilling a 1 litre empty spreading the cost over days (maybe 5 p a day). So far 65p + 8p + 5p = 78p. Blow 30p on comida corrida by going big and getting fish, leaves an irresponsible 48p for tacos al pastor after dark in the market and some great ponche. Or you could follow the smell of woodsmoke to a few blocks from el Centro where there are uddles of women making tamales at night. You ought to be able to walk away from there with a 25p saving built up for the next day. What I would do then is catch a bus to Santa Clara del Cobre late morning and get a quarter kilo of damn fine carnitas from a good stand right in the heart of things, a stack of tortillas, and some guacomole salsa or some pickeled peppers.
Things not to do: drink pop, drink alcohol, hire a mariachi group to seranade you.
Or go gringo, take the math out of your life, and just ask around who houses gringos for language schools. Approach them personally and make an offer for room and board - 150p. Or find some women who are jealous of her and knock the price down to 75p, leaving 75p for touring, buying trinkets, or paying for your bus ticket to and from Patzcuaro. Under these circumstances even if my room and full board were paid at 75p, I would still go and gorge on carnitas at 2 PM in Santa Clara for the heck of it.
Or.....(if you are going back north in the near future) talk around and see whose got sons working in you area in the USA (shouldn't be hard). If you know any of them you are home free! Then offer to carry a box of mom's mole and other home make heart food up north with you. There are mom's who have 2-3 son's up north who are building her a new house and their bedrooms are empty until they return in November-December. The trick, if you can't find personal connection with someone up north, is to establish sufficient trust. Just keep talking. Say you are looking for a place, talk about your health problems, the duplicity of talking open markets and giving farm subsidies in the USA, cooking techniques, etc. Sooner or later somebody is going to know somebody.
If you can get your hotel for 80p or less, you can still eat well sticking closer to the market and carrying a pocket knife for pealing and cutting - pepinos, zanahorias, and the list goes on. If you are not just passing through and want to sit out a month or two with great sleeping nights, you could rent a place; cook, and probably start a bank account.
I heard tell from a guy in a pueblo that there was a gringa living in his pueblo with a couple for free room, she used their kitchen to cook her own food and only had to pay for her supplies in the market. Everybody in the pueblo likes her. He said, "La vida aqui es barato. Barato!"
Actually, David, I've read your posts over at the People's Guide quite some time ago, and I don't think that 150 p/day would challenge your creativity. Heck, spread the word that people told you that you couldn't live in Patzcuaro on 150 p/day, and you said it could be done. People will start telling you how to do it.
If you go I want to hear every detail.
Tom
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