Our First Day in México
The garbage-free challenge of México has begun!
Our first day and a half in Mexico was a little hectic getting through the border crossing, figuring out Mexican car insurance and vehicle permit, making sure we got the stamps we needed, and finding a SIM card to work in our phone–we realized how much we rely on Google Maps to help us when we didn’t have it. All with intermediate-level Spanish. It was an adventure. :)
On day one, we arrived in the city we planned as our destination with a nearly empty food tote (to avoid our food thrown away at the border), no set place to sleep, and a phone without a working SIM card. Two hangry gringos trying to make it through the city with no GPS. We finally found a lovely place to park our van with teamwork, Walmart WIFI, patience, and Michael’s Spanish skills!
New adventures to conquer:
There’s single-use plastic EVERYWHERE: Plastic water bottles, silverware, and packaging. Avoiding convenience stores is a must to get away from single-use plastic and even when you ask for your food ‘para aquÍ’ (for here) you will probably get some sort of single-use item. Navigating this will be a creative challenge and a way to improve our Spanish when asking for it ‘sin plastico’ (without plastic). Needless to say, our first couple days in Mexico were not plastic-free :(
Bulk stores are harder to find: We’ll have to do some research and looking once we get to larger cities, but we haven’t seen any stores with bulk options. The markets are a great place to find fruits and veggies, but all other things are wrapped in plastic bags.
Driving: Driving here is a whole other adventure and takes a bit to get used to. Some ‘rules’ of the road include: stop signs are optional, driving on the shoulder is normal, you can enter the street even when cars are coming at you, and avoiding tire-flattening pot holes keeps you on your toes. Our defensive driving skills have improved tenfold!
Even when asking for our meal ‘for here’ (para aquí), and expecting reusable dishware, we get single-use plastic :( It’s hit or miss.
We were excited about this meal!! No single-use plastic silverware, dishes, or straws!
All in all, Mexico is beautiful and the people even more so. They couldn’t be kinder, offering amazing service, help with our Spanish, and gigantic smiles when we initially start communication with them in their language.
We’re so grateful for our van-build and the ability to cook, use solar power, keep things cold in a 12 V fridge to avoid buying ice, sleep in a place that feels like home, and hold up to 5 gallons of water at a time to avoid single-use plastic bottles. (More to come on our zero waste van build in a future post.)
