Shop 'Til You Drop

Port Louis, Mauritius

I’m sure the question you’re asking yourself is, “Where the heck is Mauritius?” It’s a question I asked myself not too long ago. It’s a small island about half way between India and Africa. (I challenge you to find it on a map.) We were only there for about 8 hours, so there isn’t much to report. My friend Christine and I treated it as more of a shopping stop: stocking up on supplies for the upcoming Sea Olympics, buying snacks for our long haul to South Africa, and hitting up the post office. We stopped by the local market and decided to inquire about the price of some of these really cool pants that we’d seen. The two guys running the shop insisted on taking us to another stall down the way. They attempted to take each of us into separate stalls in order to bargain and see how much money they could get out of each of us. We were pretty insistent on making a package deal because buying in bulk usually bodes well in environments like this. They originally quoted us a price of $60 and all we could do was laugh. I got him down to $20 and Christine managed to get her guy down to $15. I then proceeded to pay my shopkeeper $15, insisting that we get the same price. They kept insisting that they were conducting two separate transactions and that we should each honor the individual price. They were quite upset that we both insisted on paying the same price for the exact same thing. Silly us. One of the shopkeepers then proceeded to insult us, telling Christine that it was a shame for such a nice girl to argue over a couple of dollars. We then proceeded to tell him that it was shame he would try and hustle two nice girls out of a couple of dollars. At this point, money had already changed hands so I’m not even sure why we were still having this conversation. We told him we were sticking together and that we were going to pay the same price. The shopkeeper then asked us if we were lesbians as if that had something to do with it. If standing up for ourselves in order to not get hustled by a sketchy guy at the overpriced market makes us lesbians, then sign me up. Long story short, it was not a shopping experience that I appreciated. Makes me really miss the Gap.