T-minus 1.5 days

we have only one full day left in Mexico and look forward to spending it relaxing at Quinta de Liz here in Troncones. We dropped off our rental car on Wednesday morning back out at the airport. I am not sure if I mentioned that when we first arrived we could not find the local transportation and due to this and the late hour of our arrival we had to fork out $78US per person for a taxi to Troncones? We were both a little sore about it and ironically when we dropped the car off at the airport, the bus stop for the local collectivo buses (they are small Nissan 8 seater vans that have had the seats removed and have benches in them) is right in front of the car rental place which is only about 200 meters away from the gates of the airport!!! To make it really funny, the cost to get Andreas and I into Zihuatanejo from the airport on the collectivo was 15 pesos, about $1.50! Needless to say, if anyone in the future plans to visit Troncones or Zihuatanejo, we are more than willing to impart our hard earned knowledge to you!

On our last day in Zihuatanejo we did a little shopping for a few things and decided to buy a hammock. Quite an adventure!!! We found one dealer in the gringo part of town who wanted 400 pesos for one we liked. We were willing to pay it although we wanted to have a look around for others and compare prices. This guy right on the spot drops his price to 350 pesos, then 300 and then pulls out the pity card "I don't have any money for my family". It really frustrates me when this situation happens because I believe that if they weren't making some kind of living at what they were doing, they would do something else. As well, I am not one to support the pity card as I feel uncomfortable when I am viewed as a walking dollar sign and then they choose to purposely tug on the heartstrings! I want a little more compassion and connection when interacting with the vendors....too high of a price to ask for??

We left the guy and went back to the market where we had met a vendor named Cricket a little earlier. He too was selling hammocks and spoke very good english. We walked away from him earlier as we needed to eat and think about what kind of hammock to buy. He was over the moon to see us return. We struck up a conversation with him and learned he had been working in the same market for 23 years! He told us the story of how he became to be known as Cricket and we bought a great red and purple nylon hammock for three people (my goodness! Par-tay!). We paid 330 pesos and I think, made a new friend.

We spoke to Luis, our host at Quinta de Liz, who is a local Mexican and he told us several stories about people who are begging for money in town after we relayed our shopping experience with the first hammock-pity-guy. He agreed that shopping with compassion verses pity is the favorable option and mentioned that one of the guys who begs for money has two kids in university and has the timing of when the pension cheques are issued down to art.

I think that it always comes down to your intention and that regardless of what occurs after wards, if you donate or shop with compassion instead of pity, you are contributing to the solution and not the problem. I guess what is really debatable is where the line between compassion and pity lies for most of us.