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  Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Mexico
Sunday, January 27, 2008

January 17 - 18
 
The winds were high and out of the north, with whitecaps in the bay of La Paz when we boarded the ferry and set off across the Sea of Cortez. Our kind ticket-seller from two days before managed to find a junior suite to upgrade us, so we had a king-sized bed, a small TV viewing room - whose TV didn't work - and a large bathroom, plus dinner and breakfast, all included in the price of the crossing. We went up to top deck to watch the departure from La Paz, as the land fell away. Once the ferry turned east-south-east , we had the coast of Baja on the starboard side and then it, too, faded into the darkness. Sleeping was like being rocked in a cradle, with a long, slow movement (that is Carol's version- my version is the boat motion, without stabilizers, turned us over in bed automatically. For breakfast, we had our usual "huevos revueltos" or scrambled eggs, which makes me think the eggs are revolting against their fates

The Good Ship Lollypop

.
 
Sunrise was beautiful but John was once again without his trusty camera. Mazatlan appeared as a long stretch of city along a rocky coast strewn with three small islands, called either the three brothers or three sisters, of stone and interspersed with lovely sandy beaches. Warmer than La Paz, but still colder than normal for this time of year. We cruised the newer section of the beach first, went in to ask directions and ran into an American couple who live there and recommended a good beach-front hotel, where I sat on the patio watching the sun descend into the sea - typing. We stowed our gear and headed for the old part of town, starting with the cathedral. It was very large and quite impressive in an odd mixed way. The façade and towers were plastered and decorated in European style; the walls of the structure were concrete blocks with the mortar showing. A Saturday wedding was being celebrated, and the priest was in full oratory form for the homily, so we escaped out the other side. We were in the middle of the modern Mexican town, complete with a permanent market structure covering at least a full city block. Inside were the various stalls of the merchants - everything from T-shirts to serious daily commerce. The butcher stalls were fascinating, if a little gruesome, with entire sides of beef ready for making into individual cuts at the customer's request. It appeared that no part of the animal would go to waste, including the heads

Sunrise in Puerto Vallarta

. The fish displays were beautiful - large ocean fish freshly caught the same morning. Everything needed for the household seemed to be available.
 
From the market for the locals, we wandered into another part of old town, now redone - and very well done, too - for the tourist crowd. We found a lovely park surrounded by cafes and upscale shops and dominated at the moment by a rather large sand sculpture of human figures and native patterns. There are two pictures included in this entry of them. This appears to be a common practice through Mexico during the Christmas season.We visited an installation in one of the historic buildings showing the interior of an upper-class family in the late 19th/early 20th century. Lots of heavy, dark carved wood in the furniture and 4-poster beds draped with lace - perhaps as much for insect protection as for style. Then we headed for our objective, the anthropological museum. It was a small gem, containing significant pottery and religious figures, from cultures dating back as much as ten thousand years. It was clear that these were sophisticated and organized societies, with political structures and developed agriculture, all of which were destroyed by the Spanish explorers.
 
 
January 19-24
 
Quite a drive down the coast to Puerto Vallarta, taking the main highway, which was sometimes a two-lane road, sometimes a divided two-lane toll way, complete with toll booths and exits

Sunset In Puerto Vallarta

. The final approach to PV was down from the upland plains to the coast through a beautiful mountain area on a small twisting two-lane road that reminded both of us of Ireland. As we approached the coast, we were in a line of traffic behind a double-unit semi with no chance to pass, so we had a chance to admire the scenery. It looked more like northern California than Mexico, except that these mountains were higher and the vegetation more lush. We stopped at the bottom and called our friends Carmen and Stan on the satellite phone to tell them we were on our way. It had turned nice and warm - finally. Their directions were great, and Carmen was waiting on the corner outside their immense condo/hotel/marina/zoo complex - complete with small Aztec temple - to guide us in the final stretch. We've been enjoying the amenities greatly after ten days on the road, working out in the health club, lazing or playing volleyball on the beach. Stan is a beach volleyball champion, and he got John to go out and play. Carmen and I read under palapas on the beach. We got our temporary passes to all the facilities in the office, where one of the owners or staff was playing with a small tiger cub, only a few weeks old, but the size of a large dog, who had been rejected by its mother and was being raised by her for the zoo. Of course we did not have a camera - again.
 
Since then we have been enjoying our friend's hospitality, site seeing up and down the coast and into the jungle a little way, and eating and drinking

Diving for Pesos - Blindfolded

. We are including several pictures of some of our activities - a diver doing a blindfolded flip into a boulder strewn river, a number of pictures from an arboretum, sunrise and sunset, a flaming drink in the making for Stan - many of the pic's are from Stan's new camera and he is doing the shooting. Puerto Vallarta is a charming cobbled stone city in the old section, full of art galleries and restaurants and haciendas that climb up the hills behind. The amount of new development is staggering - miles of multi-storied hotels, resorts and condos along the north coast - and there are plans to continue the development even further into the jungle on the north. Watch this space - it's the new Miami Beach.
 
 

More Pictures

Yes - we are still talking	Natural Beauty	Tales to Come	More Natural Beauty
Sand Sculptures	More	Still More	Mayan Jungle Temple?
One hot drink	The Good Life

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