{"id":14717,"date":"2022-12-19T15:21:26","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T21:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/?p=14717"},"modified":"2022-12-19T15:24:13","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T21:24:13","slug":"today-was-costco-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/2022\/12\/19\/today-was-costco-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Today was Costco day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mention Costco to any ex-pat<\/strong> or snowbird and they do the same thing – roll their eyes and nod sympathetically.<\/p>\n

Costco is a necessary evil to us all. It is needed because of either the products or the prices (if you like to buy in bulk). Shopping there is usually a good experience but the checkout is another world. The lineups, for whatever reason, are loooong, and no-one seems to understand why but accept it as punishment for going there.<\/p>\n

We went today, to buy a case of wine. But the first mistake we made should have told us that it was going to be an ordeal. That mistake was getting a bus to “Centro” without asking the driver if he went to the ‘Plaza Caracol’. There are a few bus routes into downtown and one has to study the stops on the bus windshield before getting on or else you will be taking a ‘mystery tour’. The bus we picked, after rejecting at least three for being standing room only, said ‘Centro’. Usually most centro buses take the same route – the direct route. But there is one route that goes through the barrios and takes at least an hour longer. We picked that one this morning – ‘the mystery tour’.<\/p>\n

Realising our mistake we got off and decided to walk the rest of the way. Forty minutes later we arrived at Costco. Found the wine, and a couple of other items and then stood in line and stood in line and then stood some more.<\/p>\n

The procedure after checkout is to get transportation and for those without their own car that means Uber or a taxi. But first you have to obtain a taxi and that is by submitting to the pleadings of a ‘taxi tout’ these unpaid folk chase around the lot and nearby road trying to get a taxi for you. When they succeed they help the driver load the trunk and then look at you with “Look what I have done for\u00a0 – give me a tip!” look. Some unsuspecting newcomers try to brush them off with the “I just loaded my own groceries what do you want a tip for”; wrong. Give them 20 pesos and everybody is happy.<\/p>\n

Back with what we wanted – enough wine to last a couple of months we were back home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mention Costco to any ex-pat or snowbird and they do the same thing – roll their eyes and nod sympathetically. Costco is a necessary evil to us all. It is needed because of either the products or the prices (if you like to buy in bulk). Shopping there is usually a good experience but the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-14717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mexico"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14717"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14721,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14717\/revisions\/14721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14717"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burdreport.ca\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=14717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}