I Love My 3 Purchases from The Big Market – a tacogirl San Pedro Shopping Listicle

Coming to you live from the rooftop of Lagoona Bar and Grill. I popped up here first to get the featured image above for the first San Pedro Town Council Market Day and decided to take a minute to start writing this story.

When you live on a small island the term “Big Market” takes on a whole new meaning. There are no super sizers here and big-box retail sometimes becomes a mildly scary prospect for islanders (myself included) with the thought of too much choice. I do still daydream occasionally about riding the escalator to the second floor while shopping for a new backgammon board at Liverpool department store in Cancun, Mexico, along with being overwhelmed with grocery options at Walmart, Chedraui, and Sam’s Club. For the most part, an outdoor market with a good handful of great shopping options in one central place is as supersized as I want to go right now.

Cheers to the new San Pedro Town Council for organizing the Saturday market day as a way to empower small businesses and give us a well-loved event. This new town council initiative will be a great addition to our island and I definitely plan on attending again.

I was excited from the get-go when I saw the SPTC Facebook flyer for market day and all the tasty treats that would be available. Looking from the restaurant rooftop down at Saca Chispas (the old football field) my excitement meter just doubled 😀 One of my favorite things in the whole world is other people’s cooking.

Enough for now, less telling the story and more living it so I have something to write about when I get back to my desk.

My friend Aileen and I decided to do a fast walkthrough and scout out all our preferred options before buying. The first thing that caught my eye, I knew I was going to buy after our walk-through – a tangy soursop. I ended up with a sweet custard apple too.

Of course, I knew I was going to stop and shop at my friend Cindy’s business The Lunchbox. She makes a wide variety of tasty treats but there was one I definitely wanted. I scored the last pack of honey sea salt beef jerky in the basket.

taco tip # 29: When going to an event wear a big print if you own any or a recognizable color. A bright, reusable shopping bag works too. This will help your friends easily spot you in the crowd, should you get separated. In my case, I can be prone to wandering in the direction of a delicious smell, or getting lost in the moment taking pictures 🙂 Thankfully, Aileen did not need to use my watermelon-colored bag to find me today. My last purchase was an unexpected find – a locally crafted Belizean hardwood phone stand. I knew they existed from watching my friend Lara’s, 12 Belize Shop live tv Thursday mornings on Facebook, but I did not know she was going to be at the event.

Friday afternoon, Town Council also had another important event, a Women In Business Expo – girl power! My friend Patty and I did a quick pass-through at the beginning. The Facebook promo had 24 female entrepreneurs participating in the Friday afternoon event, however, there were many that were yet to be set up by 4:00 pm start time. I knew it would be in full swing later with the after-work crowd and it was. Thanks to my friend Kitty, for catching the picture below – Julia’s booth with part of my recycling effort. She has long been accepting my coffee jars. Packaging is one thing we often throw away on Ambergris that someone could get one more use out of. In this case, as long as the items can be properly sterilized by the island cooks, they can be reused.

While I mentioned the rooftop at the beginning, truthfully this piece started in my mind thinking about a quick pitstop by the pool at Royal Palms, before passing by the Women’s Expo with Patty. I was going there to pick up a new toy that my friend Robbie Zeskie, in TX, helped get to our returning friend Brenda – an astronaut weeble. Someone special from afar gave me an encouraging reminder recently, to be a weeble and not to wobble too far in the face of covid challenges. Instantly I started looking up weebles on amazon and eBay to find the one I liked best. I named my spaceman Solomon. My top 2 runners up weebles were the pirate and a boy holding a sailboat 🙂