Puerto Vallarta Journal
Poor Birthday Pancake
September 19th, 2006
The 17th of September has come and gone, and with it, Danielle's birthday. It was a very good day, all things considered. Firstly, we woke up early to go and meet up with Jeff and Liz for breakfast. We went to a little place that they frequent in Old Vallarta called Fredy Tucan's. It was a very nice place, and true to our friends' word, the service was excellent. I think I had to fend off at least a half dozen coffee refills as we finished our meal, and I could barely eat all of the food that was laid in front of me as a consequence of choosing a particularly bountiful menu-item.
The meal concluded on an unexpected note, with the entire wait staff of the place coming out singing a song in Spanish, bearing a cute birthday pancake with mickey mouse ears, raisin eyes and a great long banana nose, presenting it ceremoniously to a rather surprised Danielle. To her greater surprise, when they finished singing they immediately started into a chant of "mordida! mordida!" which, after some prompting from Jeff, we interpreted to mean that she was to bite the poor little pancake's nose off. That's exactly what she did, and it was celebrated with much clapping and cheering from all except the poor pancake, who was voraciously consumed by all.
After that, the four of us headed over to a little market around Paso Ancho. We were told that the market opens every Sunday, when they close off a section of street and set up booths of all kinds, mostly selling clothing, produce, knick-knacks, and the largest selection of obviously bootlegged DVDs and CDs this little Canadian boy has ever seen. We didn't buy much there ourselves, aside from a little embroidered jean skirt for Dani. It's a fair bit shorter than the type she usually wears, but she picked it out at Liz's urging and, in the end was quite pleased with the purchase. Personally, I think she looks fabulous in it, though she alternates between nervousness at it being 'too short' and feeling rather pleased at the fact that she can easily pull it off.
Following that, unfortunately, I was rather tired and not feeling so well, so we retired to our apartment for the duration of the day. While at home, we got all varieties of calls and emails from friends and family wishing Danielle a most happy and wonderful birthday, which made her feel every bit as special as I always tell her she is. Not only that, but we found out that my sister is getting married! I haven't mentioned her in this blog before, but if I had, rest assured that this news would be surprising.
As the day came to a close, we had a little of the black forest birthday cake (which incidentally seems to mean strawberry and chocolate in Mexico, and not cherry as I had always been lead to believe in Canada) we had bought on Saturday and reflected on an all-in-all very nice birthday for Danielle. Happy Birthday, love! Even though it's now two days later and I've already said it to you a thousand times! I'm so happy that you were born! (teehee)
Le Bateau Ivre, or, The Drunken Boat
September 13th, 2006
We were up bright and early on Sunday to get ready for a boat trip, which was no easy feat considering that our alarm clock stopped working a few weeks ago now. We had been invited a few weeks earlier by our friends Jeff and Liz to come on an annual boat trip put on by a popular bar called Que Pasa, and we had jumped at the chance. We were able to catch the bus to the marina and arrive at around 9:30, half an hour before the boat was supposed to leave. Owing to our adventure a few months earlier trying to get an extension for our FMT, we were fairly well acquainted with the marina area and had no problems finding our way to the entry gate. We paid our fiteen pesos each to get in, and found the Que Pasa group already congregating.
The boat we were taking was called the Bora Bora, and it was one of the many tour boats that run regular tours around the bay. Just inside the marina, are a number of booths set up where they sell tickets to these regular tours, and each boat has its own booth. Despite the fact that the boat was chartered and paid for for the day, the Bora Bora booth was still manned, and apparently taking money for tickets. I would have thought that having paid for the trip in advance would have discouraged anyone from paying a second time, but apparently that wasn't universally the case, and we listened to a rather humorous rant by one of the trip organizers as he tried to track down whose money he had recovered from the over-zealous booth operators.
Once a large enough crowd had gathered in the entry area to the marina, we headed past a security checkpoint and into the marina proper. At this point it was about 10:00, with no sign of the boat. As we looked at the tour boats that were there, we were relieved to note that they looked quite well-suited to a group of 70-odd people, with multiple levels and ample shade. Then we saw the Bora Bora-- it was a single level, and looked just barely large enough for our group. Furthermore, it was shaded only by a medium-sized tarp, big enough to shelter maybe half of us. Maybe.
It turned out to be not nearly so bad once we got on board, though. Once the boat got moving the breeze kept us cool enough, and we had plenty of sunblock (not nearly enough, as it turned out, but at least we didn't feel it until the end of the day). We headed out of the marina at around 10:30, which all things considered isn't bad for Puerto Vallarta. Once we were out on the water it was magical. As we puttered along, we discovered that there were nets with cushions for sunbathing at the front of the boat, but that these could be much better-utilized as a place to lie and look out over the water.
And that was even before we came up to Los Arcos! As I think we've mentioned before, Danielle and I have had something of a fascination with Los Arcos since we've been down here. They're just so neat and mysterious looking, those big rocky islands just off the coast. It turned out, unbeknownst to us, that our little boat was heading right in between them. Could it get any better?
Well yes, as a matter of fact, it could. Not only did we head through them, but we stopped right at Los Arcos so we could all go for a swim, and you better believe that Dani and I were all over that. As we had passed through the islands we noticed that they were indeed arches, with little caves visible inside them. So once we were able to jump into the water, Danielle made straight for the rock and swam into one of the caves.
As we approached the arch, a mysterious squeaking noise gradually became audible. It emanated from numerous cracks high in the ceiling of the arch, and presumably came from colonies of bats living there. The water was clear almost to the bottom, and irridescent, leopard-print crabs scattered at our approach. Beautiful creepers hung suspended from the ceiling, and the whole place had a peaceful, mysterious, and ancient aura.
All too soon we were called back to the boat though, and on to the beach at Las Animas. It worked out well that we were heading down there, since our trip to Mismaloya had been intended kind of as a lead-up to a trip by water taxi to beaches further south. We were ferried to the shore on a little motor boat, and headed up from the beach to a little restaraunt for lunch. While mostly uneventful, the lunch was notable for the constant struggle we had trying to keep swarms of (thankfully very good-tempered) bees out of our sodas. Unsuccessfully.
The trip back grew progessively more amusing as we went on too, since the free drinks appeared to be finally catching up with people. Mercifully, it had started to cloud over a bit too, since we were feeling the effects of the sun pretty strongly by that point. There were also birthday celebrations for Linda, the owner of Que Pasa (Happy Brithday Linda!) and two Bobs, and it was general merriment and fun all around. Danielle and I were still transfixed by the water though, sitting up at the front of the boat and looking over the bay. As the boat occasionally and mysteriously made a few 360 degree turns in its course, we would briefly be faced by the seemingly endless expanse of the Pacific laid out before us, and we could feel our hearts jump out in that direction every time it happened. There's just something about the open water, like it was calling to us. We never wanted it to end...
We're Gonna Have A TV Party Tonight!
September 7th, 2006
Last Sunday didn't end at the pool. We spent the rest of the day with Jeff and Liz, who were nice enough to invite us back to their apartment to shower off the pool chlorine and get ready to go out for dinner! But first, we had a bit of time to kill, in which we kicked back and watched a bit of tv. Catwoman was on, and Jeff hadn't seen it yet, so we decided to watch that.
First a little flashback, though. When we were still in Canada living with my parents, my dad developed a rather unfortunate tendency. We had cable tv, and as anyone else with cable knows, there is a preponderance of terrible movies on tv, especially on the higher cable channels. Why any channel would reason that someone would want to watch Under Siege 2 six times in a row on a weekend is beyond me, let alone why they reasoned that enough people would jump at the chance to warrant showing it.
To my surprise, however, my dad turned out to be one of these people. He hadn't been the whole time I was growing up, but something about being able to watch Die Hard 2 every weekend at least twice somehow equated for him to a moral obligation to do it, and likewise for any other movie of a similar calibre. Catwoman was one of those movies.
It wasn't as bad as I feared, though, watching it with Jeff and Liz. We had a bit of popcorn and had our own mini-Mystery Science Theater session, gleefully laughing at the plot holes and inconsistencies. Great fun was had by all.
After that we were off to dinner. Jeff suggested a nice little place near where they used to live in Paso Ancho for hamburgers, and we were fine with that. On the way we walked by the Rio Cuale and saw a gathering of people having a grand old time on the opposite shore. On closer inspection however, we got a bit of a laugh: rather than the rustic picnic you might expect, they had simply hauled a tv out by an extension cord and were all gathered around it to watch. Whatever works I guess, right?
When we got to the burger place it turned out to be one of the kind of little places we'd seen all over Puerto Vallarta, but were never sure if we were welcome to go into and eat. Specifically, it was just a little grill and table set up in someone's yard where they served food. Danielle and I had been a little unsure of these places before, not because of any fear of the quality of the food or anything, but more because we genuinely didn't know if we, as outsiders were welcome, or if their service was limited to people they knew in the neighborhood. It turns out that (sensibly enough) there is no such restriction, and it was probably just silly and Canadian of us to wonder at it.
The meal was excellent, and afterwards we realized that we were close to the house of another couple friends of ours, Sarah and Rick. We've been insanely jealous of them for a while now, since we heard that they bought a place in Buenos Aires last year. See, Buenos Aires is one of the beautiful little neighborhoods that we wandered through when we first got here, but we never saw anything we could afford there, which we very much regretted. And here they have a beautiful little three (or four) story place right beside the river. Close enough to run an extension cord to the shore almost.
Name That Hotel...
September 5th, 2006
We've had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful couple named Jeff and Liz at the weekly board meetings we've been attending, and on Sunday they invited us to go to the pool. We weren't aware of this before we went, but apparently there are a number of hotels in Vallarta that will allow you to use their pools even if you aren't a guest. The procedure for doing this, it turns out, is remarkably simple. First, walk in like there's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. You are not, I repeat NOT doing anything sneaky, and you most certainly aren't doing anything against hotel policy, regardless of what the signs say. Second, and this is key, buy booze.
Since it's pretty plain that most places here make their money from alcohol sales-- though how this could possibly be is very odd, considering that at most places they practically give away Corona and Pacifico-- they are therefore more than willing to look the other way if you indulge them... and yourself!
Armed with this knowledge, we all went to the Hotel Tropicana for a quick dip. As we walked into the pool area, we noticed right away that it was not only almost deserted, but that they had even gone so far as to remove all of the beach chairs and tables. We chalked this up to Hurricane John, who had listlessly slouched through Banderas Bay a few days earlier with all the rage and fury of an age-and-drug-addled Ozzy Osbourne. The security guards seemed absent too, making our entry into the pool both easy and uneventful.
So we splashed around for a bit, having a grand old time and waiting for the bar to open. After about an hour, we were confronted unceremoniously by a rather irate looking security guard. Only one among us was particularly fluent in Spanish, and something of an argument ensued which the other three of us weren't privvy to. The gist of it, however, was that we were crowding up the pool. Apparently their pool has a capacity of exactly zero people, because that's how many were visible anywhere near the vicinity of the pool besides us.
But there was hope! We could still buy a few beers and calm her security-badge induced power trip, right? Well, yes, but it turned out we would need to buy considerably more alcohol than we had planned in order to stay in the pool. About fifty dollars more, in fact. Now, in Puerto Vallarta, fifty dollars will buy you a considerable amount of alcohol, and we had sort of planned on spending our day in the pool conscious, so we gladly packed up our things and left Hotel Tropicana with an empty pool and none of our cash in the bar.
Instead, we went to another hotel which we can't remember the name of, unfortunately. Danielle thinks it's Marisol, but we're not sure. We just know it's behind Cuates y Cuetes. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and enjoying the sun, and all in all it more than made up for getting kicked out of the other place. The pool wasn't quite as nice as Tropicana's, but at least they didn't give us any trouble about the it. Maybe it's because after our experience at Tropicana, we bought the beer first.
Still Waiting for John...
August 31st, 2006
I hear that they're making a huge fuss about this hurricane in the media up north, which is kind of amusing since we woke up this morning to clear skies. It's clouded over a bit now but the hurricane in my dreams was much more impressive than this one.
I think this thread on the Puerto Vallarta Scene forum sums up what's going on down here better than I could. There are even some photos that are so dramatic, I am sure the photographer risked life and limb just to take them.