The Tia Store in Montañita, Ecuador 2020

Well, Montañita is a small town in Ecuador so you wouldn't expect large malls or huge grocery stores like you can find in every small city in the United States. Though they don't have everything you may want, they certainly have everything you need. We definitely enjoyed stopping by here every few days. Sometimes every day. We wanted to try buying for the week in advance but couldn't as we had a minifridge that didn't get cold enough to store food for too long.

But it was a great little walk and we usually brought home a new (or familiar) snack home. As you can see in the pictures below, it's well lit, clean, and well-stocked. We enjoyed seeing items shift around every visit and the smile of the security guard at the entrance. (I think he thinks we are fatties since we keep leaving with a bunch of snacks...)

What surprised us a bit was the varying prices. There were some items that of course were cheaper here (like beer) but there were also some items where we could definitely purchase cheaper in the US (like flip-flops). Either way, we managed to keep our budget down and did well not to splurge too much...or too often. We did experiment with a lot of new items and took many samples home with us for gifts.

As you can see, the prices aren't bad. Yes, they also use USD so we didn't have to do any money conversion! Also, since this store uses cash registers, you are fine to use any bill over $10. Most stores in town do not have change for anything larger than a $5 dollar bill and may have to go next door to get change. So this store we tended to make larger purchases and use up our $20s that gave us smaller bills to use elsewhere. The bank only gives $20 bills and we sadly never figured out how to request smaller bills from their ATM if that option was available. There was no bank to go to in Montañita so we only could use the one local ATM that took our international cards. We only used an ENT card since it was a credit union and we had asked the bank back home if we could use it while in Ecuador. We could, as long as we gave them notice of our travels.

I got embarrassed taking out our phone to take pictures so these are all I was able to sneak during our two-month stay. What did you think of Montañita's largest store? Did you see anything you would want to purchase and try yourself?

I hope to see any pictures you may have taken of Tia!

Goodbye to the lovely flip-flops that we couldn't take back with us!