g is for goods.

I feel like I could talk about the shopping on this trip forever. There were many different types of shopping experiences. In Argentina, they have a tourist area called Florida Street that is filled with hundreds of shops and restaurants. There are different types of shops though. There are higher end shops and then there are more dowdy shops that are willing to barter with you. A lot of the shops have business cards that they will give you so that you can come back.

In Brazil the majority of our shopping was done in markets. The two main types of shopping are through shops or markets but there are also street vendors. You can definitely tell the class of the area by the shopping. If you shop in the tourist area of Buenos Aires then everything is very expensive. If you find yourself off the beaten path then the shopping is more geared toward the countries poorer population as opposed to tourists.

The exchange rates definitely affect your shopping experiences. There is a lot of math involved. Cusco, Peru was the cheapest shopping area we experienced. Across the street from our hotel there was a huge building filled with booth after booth filled with various goods. The streets were lined with shops and vendors. The art that I purchased was from a young man named Juan. The art vendors would wait outside of our hotel and try and sell to us when we emerged. Sometimes you would stop and look to be polite and they would try and charge you for looking if you didn’t buy anything!