Puerto Vallarta Journal
La Jolla de Mismaloya : Part Two
August 11th, 2006
Arriving home soaked and disheartened from Mismaloya, we decided that the whole misadventure had been the result of a small miscommunication, and not an ill omen for the whole property-purchasing endeavor. Therefore, once we had dried ourselves off a bit, we got on our computer and tried to call Ismael right back and ask him what had happened with the whole meeting.
All in all, the conversation followed much as the first one had, with neither of us sure what was being said, the phone passed around between who knows how many people, and a whole lot of "Bueno? Bueno?" going back and forth. We did glean one useful suggestion, however, and that was to give up on calling with Skype and try a payphone instead.
Really, that made all the difference in the world. Suddenly all the blurry mumblings took shape into actual words and phrases, and we were able to determine that: a) Ismael had indeed been waiting for us at the Jolla de Mismaloya, in the area in front of the gate, and that b) yes, we had been silly in thinking that past the gate and the guard made more sense than this. Chalk yet another one up to cultural differences? Yeah, sure, we'll call it that.
So we arranged a second meeting with Ismael, this one for the next day at about the same time. This time he even got a description from us of what we'd be wearing, so as to avoid as much confusion as possible. Everything was set, and we went to bed that night satisfied that we were going to see this property, come hell or high water.
Three o'clock rolled around, and things were bad. Not three in the afternoon, when we were supposed to meet the fellow, mind you, but three in the morning, when I woke up, sick as a dog, and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half in the bathroom losing most of the liquids in my body in some of the more unpleasant ways imaginable. It was bad. When morning finally came, I wasn't feeling altogether much better, either. But we had arranged the meeting, and when the designated time came, both Danielle and I couldn't bring ourselves to call it off, and I felt obliged not to allow her to go and meet a stranger in a different town by herself. So we headed for the bus.
This is where things get a bit fuzzy for me. While I was doing acceptably enough in our apartment (at least enough to reason that I could go out without TOO much discomfort), being out in the hot sun on shaky and fast-moving vehicles was something of another matter. It didn't help matters when, forgetting the lesson we had learned about timing the previous day, we actually managed to arrive even earlier the second time. So we had to wait for about an hour in the hottest part of the afternoon, and me feeling like absolute garbage. Now that sounds like a recipe for FUN!
We waited until 3 o'clock, and then waited some more, with scarcely any sign of someone coming to meet us. Finally, an older fellow, who seemed to be approaching everyone in the vicinity BUT us, came up and talked to the two of us, only to discover that we were the people he was looking for. He seemed quite pleased to have found us, while I, meanwhile, was borderline catatonic. But he insisted that we accompany him down the road in something of a rush, where he proceeded to head into a restaraunt, joining two friends of his, and spend the next half hour enjoying a leisurely meal. After that, he was back in rushing-mode.
A quick cab ride brought us to the property, which was neither near a beach, nor possessing much of what could be described as a house. At this point, I wasn't much surprised. Essentially, what $15,000 gets you in Mismaloya is a bare lot, right next to a wall that goes up to a highway, and four walls made of concrete, covered with a tarp. Joy.
He seemed optimistic about how we'd take it, though, and brought us back to the bus stop to discuss it. When we got back on the bus, he accompanied us, and about ten minutes down the road (with nothing much visible in terms of buildings or landmarks) informed us that we all must get off here. So, being a trusting (and too-ill-to-question) sort, we did. He then brought us over to a booth beside a gate, which led into a very expensive-looking condo complex, informing us that this was where he worked.
Danielle went inside the booth, where they discussed matters pertaining to the property, while I, who didn't fit in the booth along with them, stood just outside with no shade from the scorching sun whatsoever. He informed us of a number of delightful facts about the property, such as that there was no land title whatsoever, and that in buying it we might as well be giving our money to someone in a dark alley with plots of land serruptitiously concealed under a large trenchcoat.
Excusing ourselves as quickly as we could while still being somewhat polite, we managed to flag down a bus and headed, weary and still sickly, back to Puerto Vallarta, and back to our apartment. As we drove by his booth, we couldn't help but wonder at the fact that he was rather freely able to wander away from his 'job,' and head aimlessly down the road as we watched. Oh well, his business, not ours.
La Jolla de Mismaloya : Part One
August 8th, 2006
Since we've been here in Puerto Vallarta, we've been keeping our eyes open for any nice, inexpensive places to buy. As a result, we've been reading a little local classifieds paper since we got here called Mano a Mano. The day after our wonderful trip down to Mismaloya last weekend, we happened to be looking through these classifieds, when oh! What's this? Property for sale in Mismaloya, you say? Right beside the beach, you say? Even a little house on the land, you say? The hell you say! Only $15,000 dollars?! It all sounded too good to be true! And boy, was it ever. But did that stop us? Not a chance.
Our first ordeal was in trying to call and inquire after the property. Rather than buy a phone while we're down here, we've been using a free internet phone service called . It's not terribly practical for day-to-day use in Mexico, but it's allowed us to talk to family back in Canada well enough. The trouble is that the sound quality is not stellar, as it cuts out every now and then. After calling the number for the property, we discovered how a minor inconvenience like that can become a massive handicap when the person on the other end of the call doesn't speak the same language you do.
We wrestled with the connection for about fifteen minutes, trying to explain our reason for calling, getting passed around to a number of different people, and hearing the word 'bueno?' uttered in desperation far more than one ought to in casual conversation. Once the call was finished, we were pretty sure we had set up a meeting to view the property the next day. We were to meet a man named Ismael in the foyer of the Jolla de Mismaloya at 3:00pm. Alright, no problem. The foyer of La Jolla de Mismaloya, I can remember that. It sounded like promotional copy for a high-profile Vegas boxing match. Moreover, we had remembered the name of the place because it was the hotel we had walked by to get to the beach on our earlier trip.
The next day we jauntily boarded the bus down to Mismaloya and careened through the countryside in the manner to which we were now accustomed. The trip had gone much faster than we anticipated, and we arrived with about forty minutes to kill until the designated meeting time. Now, we thought to ourselves as we stepped off the bus, where's the foyer...?
La Jolla de Mismaloya, from what we had seen, was a secure compound. From the bus stop, we could see the hotel's sign, a gate, a large, imposing wall, and a long, winding road leading down to the actual hotel building. Er, alright then. To complicate matters further, on the way in we had also seen a condo complex, also called La Jolla de Mismaloya, which although not a hotel, appeared altogether more accessible than the fortress which we now looked upon. And we'd forgotten the paper with his phone number at home. Hm. It looked as though we'd need those extra forty minutes for more than just relaxing and waiting.
First we walked up the road to the condos. It looked pretty isolated, and not exactly a great meeting place. The attendant behind the counter in the entrance of the building informed us that it was far more likely that we were to meet our friend at the hotel, since no one ever came out here for anything like that. Fair enough.
We walked back to the hotel and started past the gate. Before we had made it ten paces a guard appeared out of the gate booth and called us back. We told him that we were to meet a friend inside, to which he asked us what our friend's room number was. We explained the situation as best we could, and the guard agreed to give us two guest passes to go inside. We began to make our way down the road and through the parking lot to the hotel entrance, only to be greeted by a very loud and very close-by thunderclap, which set off just about every car alarm within a kilometer of us. Oh, that's a wonderful sign, we thought.
Inside the hotel was large and very fancy-- not at all the kind of place that a meeting like this was likely to be arranged. We pressed on though, and we waited. Outside the weather grew nasty, progressing from spitting rain to an out-and-out torrent. Still we waited. The minutes ticked by, and three o'clock came and went, largely unremarked. We were convinced for a time that every person who appeared around a corner must be our man, but finally we admitted to ourselves that we were probably in the wrong place, and went outside to try again at the condo complex.
The rain had eased a bit for our journey at least, but alas, the attendant at the condo complex was just as sure as before that no, we must be looking for the hotel, but that we were welcome to wait a while if we really wanted. That we did, but find Ismael we certainly didn't. Ok, so we'll go back to the hotel. We'll ask if anyone there, anyone at all, knows who Ismael is. That we did, and that they most certainly didn't.
The security guard was nice enough to let us use his phone-- since he was reluctant to let us inside the hotel again-- and Danielle got to talking with the clerk on the other end. As we stood outside the guard's booth, Danielle waited for the clerk to perform a surprisingly thorough search of the hotel for anyone named Ismael. During this time, the rain had started up again, and we were subjected to a surprisingly thorough soaking.
By this time it was well past 4:00, and with no sign of Ismael we decided to return home for the day. We hadn't seen definitively that the property was no good though, had we? No! So, despite our frustration and our sorry, sodden state, we resolved to call again when we got home and arrange another meeting...
The Trip Down : Part Two
August 3rd, 2006
Getting to Toronto, that had been the easy part. Now we had the long haul down to Puerto Vallarta ahead of us. We decided long before our trip that a direct flight from Canada to Mexico was the only way to go. In January we had stopped over in Salt Lake City, and while the flights themselves were relatively painless, the 'getting on the flight' part of it was quite the opposite, owing in large part to the intimidating ordeal that is US customs. Even circumventing that whole thing this time around however, we weren't exactly trouble-free.
We knew in advance that Skyservice had stricter luggage requirements than WestJet had. The 160 pounds of luggage we had taken on the flight to Toronto would be well over the limit for this flight-- by about 80 pounds. At a stated rate of $10 per kilogram for any weight over that limit, we knew we would be paying through the nose to get on our flight. But, biting the bullet, we went to check in.
The first shock was the worst: not only were we over our limit in total, one of our bags was well over the per-bag weight limit of 70 pounds, meaning that they couldn't let us on the plane with it AT ALL. Crap. Double crap. Triple crap. We hadn't quite counted on THAT.
"What can we do?" we asked the rather annoyed-looking counter attendant. It should be noted that the Skyservice counters at this point were very busy. The flight left at 6 in the morning; it was 3:30, the flight was going to be totally full, and everyone wanted desperately to get their gear on the plane and get gone. It was a crazy scene. This didn't help us at all.
"Well, you'll have to reduce the weight of this bag," she told us. We stood there staring blankly for a moment, trying to figure out how we could possibly do that while, oh, say NOT tossing 20 pounds of our stuff into an airport trash bin. We were coming up blank. The attendant helpfully informed us that a luggage store around the corner would open at around 4, and that if we packed another bag (since we only had three and were allowed four in total) we might just squeak by. So we politely moved out of the line to wait.
What followed was not pretty. Danielle and I alternated watching the bags and running around the corner to check if the store had opened yet. People rushed around us, but we stayed put with our bags, looking desperate and confused. Finally four o'clock rolled around, but there was still no sign that the luggage store would be opening. Danielle went and asked someone at another airline's check-in counter when the shop opened. It wasn't until 6.
That's around when we started to panic. What do we do, what do we do?! We opened our bags to see if there was anything, ANYthing we could take out. Danielle started crying. I started hyperventilating. Time ticked by. It was now close to five o'clock. I started pacing back and forth in front of our luggage. It was almost surreal, the two of us having the most miserable time, looking like we were counting down the minutes until an execution, while everyone around us was happily prancing off on their journey to paradise.
Finally we made an executive decision. Let's take this crap out of here and put it here, and this out of here, and... in a mad flurry of activity we managed to purge ourselves of a few pounds, discarded in the middle of the airport terminal. Then I remembered that we also had a pretty sturdy make-up case that all our toilettries were in. Well, that MIGHT hold up on its own, I reasoned.
Okay! We were set to go. Just barely, but we now had four pieces of luggage, one of which might crack wide open, spilling its contents all over the tarmac before we'd ever see it again. At this point we didn't care. Back to the counter we went!
Much to our relief, we were technically-- and even then, barely-- in the clear to get on the flight. We didn't even care anymore about the exhorbitant overcharges. We just didn't care. Let's pay it and get the heck on that plane! But not quiiiiite yet. First there's a lot of line-waiting to do! Hooray! 5:00. 5:05. 5:10. 5:15. The minutes ticked by uneventfully, insofar as the two of us gradually edging towards simultaneous heart-attacks, anuerisms, and strokes don't count as events.
When we finally got to the counter, checked in our luggage and paid our overcharges, the relief was palpable. "Do you need a receipt? I just have to write one up..." "No thank you, off we go, WHEEEEEEE!" and we ran to the terminal. Ok, so it didn't happen exactly like that, but close enough.
After that, the flight itself was bliss. Sure, Skyservice is cheap enough to reason that four inches is ample legroom for ANYone, and Danielle's seat was progressively encroached upon by her neighbor throughout the flight, and the in-flight movie was Ice Age 2, but we didn't care about that. We were on our way to Puerto Vallarta at last.
Beach Day
July 31st, 2006
We had decided last week that Sunday was going to be our day at the beach. Even though we've been in Puerto Vallarta for nearly a month now, we haven't been to the beach at all really. It's probably something that happens to our thinking in living somewhere versus just visiting. When you just go to visit, you know that you only have a limited amount of time to enjoy all the things that place has to offer, but when you live there you can always quell any such sense of urgency by remembering that oh, I can go and do that ANY time!
Of course, the result is that there are a lot of things you don't end up doing any time at all! We were determined that going and enjoying the beautiful beaches here in Puerto Vallarta wasn't going to become one of those things.
Before we left we headed down to one of our favorite little breakfast places from our last visit: Cesares, in north Centro along Francisco Medina Ascencio. In January we had eaten there a few times and ended up talking to the owner/manager about his trip to Calgary a few years back. Not only did he remember us, but he was so happy to see us again that it just made our day.
And then, on to the beach! When we were here in January, we had just spent most of our time around the Playa de Los Muertos, which is the beach along the Centro portion of town. To mix things up a bit, we decided this time that we were going to take the bus south of the city to Mismaloya, which is right beside Los Arcos, one of the many striking features of the Banderas Bay landscape, and one of our favorites. It's truly magnificent to see up close, and we'd love to take a tour out to the islands themselves one day, some day...
First we had to get there. Since we don't have a car here, the bus is our best option. It's been a lot of fun taking the bus though, if you aren't easily panicked. The best way I could describe the buses here is to say that they're pretty close to the Knight Bus in Harry Potter: fast, shaky, and largely unconcerned with the laws of physics. The big difference is that unlike the books, the PV bus drivers can't slow down time or magically morph the bus through obstacles. They just BELIEVE they can.
We arrived no worse for wear, and wowed by sights of the huge Conchas Chinas condos and luxury Puerto Vallarta hotels along the south coast. It would be enough to make one very jealous, if one were so inclined. Bastards.
The beach at Mismaloya turned out to be much tinier than we had anticipated. We arrived early in the afternoon, and discovered that at that time the water nearly came right up to the buildings in many places. It was hot, too, so we immediately sought some kind of shade. The only shade that was unoccupied were the beach chairs and umbrellas that were set out for guests of the hotel there. We diligently looked around for a sign to tell us that we couldn't use them, and seeing none, decided that no harm is indeed no foul, and sat down.
It was grand. We swam and basked for hours on the beach, until finally a security guard approached us. We couldn't quite tell what he was saying, since he was speaking entirely in Spanish and mumbling to boot, but we got the message loud and clear. Interlopers! Luckily we were ready to move on anyway, so we packed up our stuff and decided to hike up along the rocks past the beach for a bit.
It wasn't a long hike. Lots of fences with 'private property' signs making it abundantly clear just how unwelcome we were any more than a few meters in from shore. Even that trail seemed to end about twenty minutes on, at a strange little stone pier complete with stairs to nowhere and a creepy little battlement-looking thing. Oh, and a giant iguana on a stick. We debated scrambling up over the rocks around the battlement to continue our journey, but ultimately decided that we wanted a drink more than scraped knees anyway.
The walk back was fantastic, with Los Arcos perfectly framed by jungle trees as we looked out over the water, and thunder and clouds rolling in over the hills. At that moment, we couldn't help but feel that maybe the buses were magical after all. Everything here seems to be.
Kitten Kerfuffle
July 30th, 2006
Last night we finally met a few of the expatriates down here in Puerto Vallarta. There are two message boards frequented by a large chunk of the expats here, both of which can be found in the section of this site. We found the boards a while ago while looking for information on moving to Puerto Vallarta, and they were very helpful with every question, and when we found out that people from those boards meet up at the same place every weekend, we figured why not? It would be good to meet some people while we're down here.
Now, the thing is, we've been here for three weeks, and we've been down to Cuates y Cuetes where they meet. Three times. We've actually talked to anyone there one of those times. Er, yeah. What can we say? The previous two times we meekly sat down at a table near theirs (since it wasn't hard to pick them out, being the only larger group there), and hoped that they might notice us first. Sure, it doesn't make sense WHY they would, but we can be funny like that.
It turns out- as we knew deep down all along- that we had no reason to be. We were glad to meet everyone who was there, and they were all super friendly. Hooray!
Afterwards, the plan had been to go dancing at a club called Grace on the Isla Cuale, which is the island in the middle of the downtown area of Puerto Vallarta. That's also the reason we don't have any pictures today, since we didn't want to bring a camera. It had caught our attention one Friday during our week in January, since it seemed to be playing some decent house music, and we had wanted to go then. Unfortunately, the nice fellow who was there during the day told us that Friday was "just for the boys," but that we were welcome to come on Saturday. Unfortunately, that trip ended on Saturday. Hrm.
We reasoned that, well, today is Saturday, it should be grand! Only to notice, as we walked by, a sign that said, quite prominently, that this was "La Semana del Orgullo!" which, meager though our Spanish may be, we recognized as meaning Pride Week. Whoops. We talked to a couple guys in front of the place though, and found that it was fine, we were still welcome to go if we wanted, but that it didn't open for an hour or so. So dancing it was!
To spend the intervening time, we decided to take a walk up the island and have a little look 'round, and it wasn't long before we heard a little mewing sound from the bushes in front of one of the restaraunts. Danielle spotted him first, and it was the cutest, tiniest little kitten just sitting there mewing at us. Being suckers for that sort of thing (see the bit about the hermit crab, below) we went up and petted him.
He was positively darling: a little tiger-striped tabby with a slight kink in his tail (I'm a HUGE sucker for that, since my beloved childhood cat Nermal was a slightly stripy siamese with a tail that looked like a lightning bolt). With just a few little pets, he was rolling around at our feet and purring. He seemed to be just on his own though, so we figured he was just a little stray. On the other hand, he was very healthy looking, and extremely friendly. And we had been thinking of getting a cat eventually anyway, and... uh oh. We had both apprehended that train of thought pretty quickly, and now we were faced with the question of what to do about it.
Well, on the one hand, he's all by himself here, and we could take good care of him... on the other... oh, screw the other hand. He's sooooooo cute! But no, he must be doing alright here, and we're not even very settled yet, and... awwwww, lookit'im! Hrm.
We decided that to be sure, we should go into the restaraunt and ask if it was likely that he belonged to anyone. They replied that no, there were a few cats living on the island, and people would feed them and such. "Go ahead and take him!" they told us. So we agonized a little more, and decided finally to do it.
How to carry him, though? He didn't mind being picked up, but we were a ways from our apartment. Maybe if we had a box? Again we went to the restaraunt, asking if they had anything we could carry him in. They gave us a little paper bag, which we tried putting him into, but he would have none of it. No sooner had he gone in over his head than SPROING! and out of the bag he came. Ok, so much for that.
This all caused us to rethink the plan a little. Should we take him home? We decided to walk a little ways, and see if he wanted to follow us. He did, for a while, until we got close to the street. The loud cars and buses seemed to scare him a bit, but a little coaxing got him a bit further. Then he saw the trash can. Now, I don't know what was IN the can, but whatever it was, he seemed to like it a helluva lot more than us. We stood there for I don't know how long, waiting to see if he would come any further. Nope.
In the end, we decided that our little apartment with its oil paint fumes and juicy computer cables probably couldn't compete with the life he had for himself there on the island. Sigh. We'll miss you, hermit cra- er, kitten! After that, we just didn't feel so much like dancing.