Buying cheese in the pueblo store in Mayapan Yucatan Mexico

 

For me, I feel like I have many advantages living near the small Maya pueblo of Mayapan.  It's only about 3,000 and everyone is friendly.  No crime.  Lots of fresh food and meat.

But there are some disadvantages.  1 is there is nothing like what most people would call a supermarket or large grocery store.  The nearest one is about 30km away and it's not a really large one.  But it is a supermarket.   There are no banks or ATM machines.  No one takes debit cards.  Everything is done with pesos or barter.   There are no gasoline stations closer than 15km away.   There are not big stores to shop at for a big selection.  But pueblo life goes on and people live with what they have.

To make up for no supermarket, the pueblos have little stores called tiendas.  They are generally about  15m2 or about 150 sq. ft.  They have the basics.   Some might be 1/2 that size.  And a small pueblo like Mayapan has at least 20 of them that I know of.  They are spaced all over the pueblo, because when people need something they just walk to the store and get it.    

Generally there is no meat counter, because meat comes from one of the families in town that kill a cow once a week and sell the meat fresh.   There might be a few produce items but not in large quantity.  And there would be eggs.

Some of the tiendas might have a refrigerated cooler where they have hams and cheese rolls.   Generally it would not be pre-packaged in small quantities.  But you tell the owner what you want and they pull one of the big pieces out of the cooler and slice it for you.   You order by the kilgram which is about 2.2 pounds.  You might order 1/2 kg or 1.  Usually people would just order what they want for that day.

In my case, since I only go to town once or twice a week, I get in bigger quantities.

This photo is what 1 kg of cheese looks like sliced.   You can't tell from the photos but the slices are rectangular and not square and would be about 50% larger than sliced cheese you'd find in the states.

This much cheese cost me 205 pesos for 1 kg which is about $10.00 USD.   I'm not for sure, but guess it's about 50 slices the way I want it.