Puerto Vallarta - on the malecon

After much consideration we chose one of the proposed tours then asked directions to the famous Puerto Vallarta Malecon.  It was only a few blocks away so we walked, enjoying the bustling life and traffic in this vibrant city. 

Malecon means something to the effect of “walk along the water," or "walk along the beach," I’m not exactly sure. It seems that every coastal Mexican town and city that I have been in has one, and so far they have all been beautiful.  It is typical that the walk would be paver blocks or tile, with park benches, short concrete walls along the sides, elaborate landscaping, and  bronze statues every so often, mostly with Mexican History themes, along a special stretch of beach or water.  There are usually little shops along the Malecon with specialty foods of all descriptions.  Street vendors sell everything from caramel corn to enormous balloons.  There always seem to be Mexican families out for walks with their kids and grand kids, along with their dogs, their cats, and in one case, their iguana.   It’s not unusual to see three generations of a family walking, talking, enjoying the malecon, and eating junk food together.  It is a beautiful sight.  The family values of the Mexican people are to be envied. 

The Malecon of Puerto Vallarta met and exceeded any standard that I had for malecons.  It was big, trim,  neat and elaborately designed. The beach was beautiful, the statues magnificent, and crowded with people having a good time.  There were mariachi bands, duets, and single musicians all along the way, contributing music to the already delightful atmosphere of the walk.  The shops were first rate and sold anything that any tourist might ever want to take home with him, from clothing, leather jackets, food, booze, jewelry and beach toys, to the absolutely greatest array of junk one could ever imagine.  We took pictures of everything, and wallowed in the delights that were the Malecon.

There was one other thing that Sharon had read about that she wanted to see, and that was the lighthouse at the Puerto Vallarta Marina.  We had seen several busses with Marina written on their windshields, so not knowing exactly how far it was away, we decided to catch a bus, rather than trying to walk, and I was glad that we did, because it was a long way. 

When we finally got there, it was no problem to find the lighthouse after we found the Marina, but it was closed, locked up, and we could not get inside.  The Puerto Vallarta Marina was amazing.  There is no telling what it would cost to keep a boat in this marina.  It is truly an international marina, with boats from all over the world, and not small boats.  These were major, ocean going mega yachts, floating condos, agua estates.  I doubt that any boat in the marina cost less than a couple of million dollars, and I can’t even fathom what the most expensive would be.  This place was fully top drawer, first rate, elite, and well done.  This whole side of town and totally surrounding the marina, were huge, gorgeous condos and apartments, with doormen, and valets walking all around, and people wearing furs climbing into limousines.  Boy, did I feel out of place.  Country mouse gone to town. 

There was a malecon like walkway all around the marina and along the walkway were shops and restaurants, end to end forever.   Behind the shops and overlooking the malecon were apartments and condos, with balconies that hung out over the shops, with views that probably included the entirety of Banderas Bay.  We decided that we would walk around the marina, and look at it all.  It was a most pleasant stroll, and we stopped once to have a beer and savor the sights.  The beers were 100 pesos each, a little less than ten dollars, so we decided that we would just buy some bottled water at the tienda. 

Along the malecon, there were signs mounted all along the way, as one would expect in a facility like this, but one in particular caught our attention.  Translated, it said “Beware of the Crocodiles”.  We laughed, but after thinking about it, asked a security guard, if that was a serious sign, and he said “Yes”.  The crocs come up into the marina on a frequent basis, especially at night, from the estuary that is the entrance to the marina, and sometimes can be seen walking down the malecon.   That could make for an interesting midnight stroll through the marina.

Near the end of the marina, the sea wall changed from a concrete wall to one of rip rap, or large rocks laid on a slope.  Lying right on the malecon, sunning himself, with his eyes closed, was this 5 foot long iguana.  It is not unusual to see an iguana along this type of rock wall anywhere, but this boy was big and friendly, because as Sharon approached him to take his picture, he walked right up to her, not afraid of her at all.  He looked like a little puppy wanting his head rubbed and Sharon got some real good close ups.  A security guard came up behind Sharon, with a big smile on his face and a hand full of flowers.  “This is what he wants, Senorita”, and handed the flowers to Sharon.  Sure enough, that iguana was almost standing on his back legs and ate the flowers right out of Sharon’s hand.  He was really cute.  If he had been a little smaller, I would have taken him home in my back pack, but he would not fit in, and besides, I figured he would eat me if I tried to pick him up.

Puerto Vallarta

Bright and early the next morning we were in the dingy and on our way to town.  We laughed because Sharon had heard how late the party had gone on, and we both expected to find bodies still lying in the street after such a celebration. There were signs that people had had a good time: there were cups and napkins in the gutters, all the street vendor had tarps over their stands,and few old men were leaning against the buildings with their eyes closed, obviously sound asleep. But all the merchants were out with their brooms and everyone, including a small band of city workers, was cleaning up the mess.  It wouldn’t be long till the celebration would begin again. 

As we strolled through the town Sharon indicated all the points of interest that she had discovered yesterday, and guided us toward a restaurant that had caught her attention.  The doors to the restaurant were these heavy carved wooden doors that are so impressive and fairly common, particularly on historical buildings. As we stepped inside the whole scene turned white as the floor and the walls were all covered in bright white tiles, with a white ceiling, all brightly lit.  There was a bar that was accented with wood trim and the entire place just reeked of cleanliness and purity.  It made me uncomfortable, and I felt...inadequate.  I’m not sure if that was what they were going for, but it was a most unusual sensation.  In the front of the big room was a lending library, a rare thing to find in a restaurant, with a sign saying, “Here, take one of these books to read, bring it back when you finish, if you can.”  The back side of the front big room opened onto a patio with outdoor dining and we migrated in that direction.  The patio was full of families having breakfast, and the sounds of little girls giggling made for a delightful backdrop.  We found a table located under a self portrait of Frida Kahl, and Sharon insisted on sitting there.  It turns out that Sharon is a huge fan of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and knows all about their art, their lives, scandals and achievements; she continued to educate me all through breakfast.  I had never heard of them, but that’s just uncultured me.  Sharon put her shawl over her head, imitating the portrait of Frida, and had me take her picture along side the portrait.   It seems that the talented pair lived many years ago in Puerto Vallarta, and there is a huge mural done by Diego that Sharon is desperate to see.  Its OK with me, put it on the list.

After a most satisfying, and tasty breakfast, we paid the bill with a ridiculously small number of pesos and headed out for the bus stop.  We had to walk through and up the main street of the to a big highway where we could catch a bus.  I couldn’t believe it, there was a Raymarine Store, right here in La Cruz.  I didn’t think there was a single Raymarine dealer in all of Mexico, but here one was, in this little town.   It was only a small  store, but I will make a point of visiting here before I leave.  This is very good information to have.  A great deal of the electronics on Milagro are Raymarine Brand, and I was excited to see their representation in Mexico.

We reached the highway and it was obvious where we should go to wait for the bus.  There were a couple of other people there also, and they were waiting just outside a small concrete canopy.   I found a place to stand out of the sun, under the canopy, right beside a trash can that had a long dead chicken in it, and the smell of death and decay almost claimed me.  Now I understood why all the other people were standing upwind of the bus stop, and I joined them there in the sun, almost immediately. 

We didn’t wait long at all for the bus to come. It was a brightly colored, old school bus looking thing, that rattled to a smoky stop right in front of us.  The driver must have known about the chicken, too!   We all climbed on board and I clumsily held out a hand full of change to pay for the trip. The driver said in perfect English, “six pesos each please”.  Really?  6 pesos a piece.  That is less than $.50 and I knew the trip was going to be about 25 miles around the bay.  Dang, 6 pesos..I love Mexico!

Even the main roads in Mexico have pot holes that could swallow a Volkswagen, and we rattled along, bouncing and pitching, and jamming to a stop without any warning at all to pick up additional passengers.  This is a really good way to explore a new place, taking a bus. You get to meet, and smell the people, and watch the changing landscape skate by like a slide show on a computer screen.  It is really fun!  Sometimes a guy will stand up with a guitar and start to sing at the top of his lungs, and many of the other passengers would join in.  It was great.  I sang right along with them, even though I had no idea what the song was.  I really smiled a lot on that trip.

We could tell when we have reached the end of the bus route 'cause the bus was empty, except for us. The driver turned around and looked at you with a blank stare and shrugged his shoulder.  We were fortunate enough to be somewhere in downtown Puerto Vallarta. We stepped off the bus and were immediately greeted by a representative of the Puerto Vallarta Tourist Bureau.  What a lucky break. He had a hand full of brochures, this huge smile, and talked very fast in a delightful form of Spanglish.  The brochures were shiny and colorful and I was immediately attracted to them.  Sharon was tugging on my sleeve, trying to save me, but I was intrigued by what the guy was selling.   He was inviting us to participate in all day bus tours of the city and the surrounding areas, and there was a choice of various things that the tours would cover.  You could choose from artsy tours, or scenic tours,  or adventure tours, and any number of other themes.  Now this got Sharon’s attention because she wanted to visit this mural painted by Diego Rivera - somewhere near a big famous church - and she asked if any of the tours went there.  And sure enough, several of them did.  Now we had her attention. We let the guy go through his entire presentation and he said we could have any tour we wanted for $30 each for the entire day.  I thought and thought, then told him we would have to think about it some more and began to walk away.  Suddenly he called out, what about $15 each:  I reached for my wallet, and Sharon began to review the list.

A day in the life of...

I spy....a Milagro ancestor

The next day was Sunday and Sharon wanted to explore the town while I needed to take a shot at fixing the generator.  We needed to make some water and the generator kept shutting down. Sharon had a shopping list of places she needed to locate in the town: the laundromat (my supply of drawers was getting pretty low), the grocery store, scope out the restaurants, and identify a hardware store just in case I needed one.  Besides, she just liked to walk and explore.  I would drop her off at the dingy dock, and I would return to Milagro to shake down ole Jenny.

As we were coming into the dingy dock through the marina, I spotted a boat that looked a lot like the shape of Milagro.  Milagro is a 43 foot Spindrift.  The hull of the Spindrift has been used in several different boats, under different names.  I was aware of some of the history of the design and evolution of the design of my boat.  All of these different boats are Perry designed boats and built in several different boat yards in Taiwan.  Regardless of how many different names these boat have had, to see a boat with this design hull is very rare, and I wanted to explore it. 

There was a guy in the cockpit and I motored over to speak to him.  It turns out that this was one of the earlier models of my boat. I could see the differences; the this boat had more teak trim and structure on the deck, and the appointments were different, but the shape, structure and hull of the boat were exactly the same.  It was fascinating to talk about.  His boat was built under the name of Formosa, and was called a Formosa 44.   His boat had been somewhat trashed in a previous life and he was in the process of rebuilding it. 

But then the most improbable thing I could imagine, happened.  He told me that the original wooden boat, from which the fiberglass molds were made in China - for all the boats that had been built with this hull, including mine - was right here in this marina!  I could not believe that such a wild coincidence could possibly be, but he pointed to the berth were the boat was located, and I could see it.

I parked the dingy and walked over to the old boat, and I could immediately see the shape of the hull, and the superstructure were exactly the same as Milagro’s.  But this boat had the wooden mast down and strapped across the crutch, the paint was chipping and fading, and the boat was falling into disrepair; being wooden, would not be long for this world.  But for a few moments I made a connection with Milagro’s great-great-great grandfather, and I felt very reminiscent. Luckily, Sharon pulled me away in just the nick of time, because my mind was drifting toward adoption. 

Sharon had taken the mobile VHF radio, and when she finished her walk some 4 hours later, she called me to pick her up in the dingy, which I did.  All the way back to the boat she told me about La Cruz, and all the neat things that she had seen.  She found out where we could catch a bus to go into Puerto Vallarta, she found a nice laundromat (closed on Mondays) and there were several little hardware stores around.  The only grocery stores were more like convenience stores, but she assured me that we didn’t really need anything that we couldn’t get in a convenience store, and not to worry about it.  She said that the town had several rustic little Mexican restaurants, and identified a couple that she would like to try out.  She was very excited and described the town as being out of a little Mexican storybook.

I had had some modicum of success on getting the generator to run, after many, many tries, and had made a supply of water.  Actually the raw water was so full of algae that the filters kept clogging up, so I didn’t get the tank full but made enough to hold us for several days. 

We made an early day of it, and decided that tomorrow we would have breakfast out, and catch a bus, and explore Puerto Vallarta.   The movie tonight will be “Despicable Me”, and we will have popcorn and beer.  Yahoo!

LaCruz or not La Cruz

I had read a great deal about this marina, called Marina Riviera Nayarit. It was a very large (340 slips), modern and upscale marina, part of a larger condo-house-hotel resort development.But it also had a very good anchorage just outside the entrance to the marina, a dingy dock inside the marina, fuel docks, a restaurant, boat parts store and a ship yard.  Anything that a sailor might ultimately need could be found here and it was just adjacent to the little town of La Cruz.

Knowing all this, you can imagine my surprise when I guided the dingy around the end of the seawall and came into the marina. You couldn’t tell  until you got inside but it was tiny and full of fishing pangas and fish cleaning stations.  OMG, I am in the wrong place.  This ain’t La Cruz, and this ain’t Marina Riviera Nayarit!

I immediately turned the dingy around, and headed back to the boat to get the cruising guide, and figure out what was going on. 

It didn’t take but a minute to see that I had missed it all together.  Obviously when I came around Mita this morning, I was so tired that at the sight of any anchorage, I just assumed I was there.  I looked at the GPS, and sure enough, the way points for the anchorage I had intended to make was something like two hours away.  I was so embarrassed.

So we pulled the hook, and towed the dingy deeper into Banderas Bay to the real town of La Cruz, and Marina Riviera Nayarit (20 deg – 44.850N by 105 deg – 22.252W). This was a much better anchorage.  There was a significant point of land around the marina that protected the anchorage from the surge that is so prominent from the Pacific Ocean.  We jumped into the dingy and went into the marina, and this time I got it right.  What a beautiful marina.  It was everything that I had read about.  We found the Port Captains office for check in, and it was already closed, in fact it was not open at all today as this was Saturday, and nobody had told me, and we would have to wait until Monday to check in.

We walked around the Marina and it was beautiful.  There was a small tienda, the boat parts store (which had a sign in the window that it was going out of business), a huge fish market consisting of many buildings that in the morning hours would have all its racks full of fish for sale, and people from all over the place coming here to buy fresh fish, as well as couple of high end restaurants.

There was a little dirt road branching off the back of the marina that led up into the little Mexican town of La Cruz.  Almost the first thing we came to when we walked up into the town was this well landscaped and tended city park with a small amphitheater, families walking with strollers, pets on leases,all in the lovely, shaded park.  Children were all around, and everyone seemed to be totally absorbed by the gorgeous weather. 

But something else was happening too. There were signs around the cobblestone streets and as usual, to my dismay, they were written in Spanish so I couldn’t tell exactly what they said, But I gathered that this was the 60th anniversary of the town and the people were assembling for a parade, music in the park, and street vendors with amazing smelling carne arsada, tacos, hot dogs and all sorts of frozen fruit delights.

Sharon and I decided to stroll on and see what this was all about. We found a food vendor with tables and chairs next to the stree, and we decided to try out their tacos.  They weren’t allowed to sell beer, so we ordered Jamaica pronounced Himica) a tea made from hibiscus flowers. About that time the parade began, almost right where we were sitting.  This was perfect!

Like most celebrations in Mexico there is a religious theme, or at least a religious element, to all public displays: the Catholic Church is very prevalent here.  They had little tiny girls dressed in really fancy little dresses sitting on the hoods of elaborately decorated pickup trucks, floats with kids waving, and prancing groups that looked like cheerleaders, only there were too many of them to be cheerleaders. There were ladies who looked like they belonged to a yoga class and were all dressed up in their yoga outfits, going down the street doing stretches.  The Mexicans have this misconception that loud music is the same thing as good music, and I’ve never had the heart to tell them otherwise. Truck after truck came by loaded with these huge speakers, all of them blasting popular Mexican music which I have come to enjoy.  Popular Mexican bands would consist of a tuba, a base guitar, a tiny little classical guitar, a couple of trumpets, an accordion or two, and someone wailing the lyrics.  It is a beautiful thing, and you can’t help but enjoy it when it comes your way.

The parade was fairly short, but allowed us time to eat our tacos and Jamaica while being thoroughly entertained.   The parade circled around the park, and seemed to stop at the amphitheater where the next round of celebration was due to begin. 

Sharon and I finished our dinner, and decided to go back to the boat.  We were still pretty tired and looked forward to calling it an early evening.  On the way back to the dinghy we met a very formal looking lady on the malecon, walking two very impressive full size poodles, all trimmed up and looking fancy.  Sharon, loving animals, walked up to the lady and for the next twenty minutes talked about dogs.  The lady seemed to have a very proper Spanish accent, with almost a French overtone.  It was delightful to listen to them talk, Sharon with her British like, South African accent, and this lady with this most unusual formal air.   I asked her about the celebration they were having in La Cruz, and sure enough, it was a 60^th anniversary of the town, and she advised us with a little chuckle in her voice, to get prepared, as

it would be going on for the next 6 days, and would go almost all night long, every night.

I told you, Mexicans are the most celebrating people I have ever met.  Give them a reason, even a teeny little reason, and they will have a street festival.  It is really a delightful culture, and I continue to enjoy every minute of it.