Our First Visit to an Outlet Mall in Mexico

Michael and I are pros at outlet malls, whether on the road to Las Vegas, closer to Palm Springs, up the California coast towards Santa Barbara, or even in the industrial part of Los Angeles.  It's been like withdrawal since we've moved to Mexico - though there is a nice selection of shops just south of San Diego that was visited every time we made it back to the states.

Our nearest outlet stores are in León, about an hour-and-a-half away from San Miguel.  Our nearest airport is on the outskirts of León/Silao - about an hour away.  We had heard that there was an outlet mall of nothing but shoe stores in León from a friend, and since our shoe purchases since moving to Mexico nearly 4 years ago have consisted solely (sorry!) of tennis shoes from Costco - and since we had a couple of cruises coming up traveling on one of them with a group of fashion-conscience friends - we decided we should look around for some new shoes.  [I'd already tarted up our tuxedos via the internet!]

And an outlet mall is an outlet mall!

A friend had recently shopped there and was more than willing to go back to show us where it is and guide us through the shops.  So off we went bright and early at 9:30!  (Not quite 'bright and early' by our standards, but still....)

Unfortunately this is the dry season, so our drive through the hills was boringly monochromatic: brown and more brown.  But we usually travel through this area in a shuttle headed to the airport for an early morning flight, so this time we could at least see what we were driving past.  And there had been some progress: the bridge they were working on and the roadworks outside Guanajuato had been completed.

It was a bit of a drive past the airport turn-off to reach León (I thought it was closer), and even then we were on the outskirts when the shoe outlet shops loomed alongside the roadway.  (At this point the highway is sort of a large street, so it was simple enough to pull into the driveway.)  Luckily for future shopping trips, there is a Starbucks at the entrance and a large Pollo Feliz sign, so we shouldn't get too lost if we try it ourselves!

León is the leather and shoe capital of Mexico, so the mall is huge!  Mostly one level with shops devoted to individual brands run by the factories that produce them, there are over 200 shops plus a few clothing places and a food mall for hungry shoppers.  I think we stopped into most of the shops, unless they specialized in women's shoes. Even then, since our friend's mother accompanied us on the trip, there were some stops there, too.

All told, the group of us purchased 5 pairs of shoes:  Lucy (our friend's mother) purchased a pair of quite nice trainers, Michael - 'it's still too expensive' - came home with 3 pairs, and I got one pair of Flexi leather court shoes.  Our friend even had two pairs of glasses delivered to the mall from the optician's shop he visited in Centro León last week!

A shame the stores didn't have everything in stock in our sizes/colors (it is an outlet, after all), but a good trip, nonetheless.  I now understand Imelda Marcos' fascination with shoes.  If the mall were closer, we'd be in BIG trouble!

Unfortunately, it was still another hour-and-a-half home with about a zillion topes to bounce over and cars/trucks to pass on two-way roads over the hilly, twisting landscape.

It's the thought of that drive that may keep us from visiting more than monthly....since the only way to see if they have shoes in our sizes/colors is to go there.

But we made it there and back, the dogs were happy to see us again, and we collapsed in a heap!  Until next time....

Aerial Bonbs, or a lack thereof

Just wanted to note that neither on the actual day celebrating the Consitution (Wednesday) nor the legal holiday (Monday preceding the Wednesday) were there any cuetas (aerial bombs) heard!  That means the dogs slept through the night and that means, we did too!

We now return to our regular programming.