New Friends

On Monday night, after a day of rest and recovery, we ventured down to the ATM to extract some pesos.  I sat on the curb and watched to slow wanderings of the tourists and locals as they prepared for the evening shopping. When Linda and Beth came out of the bank and approached, so did a man and woman.  The man said “Where are we?”, She said ”Is this Melaque?”;  we sat there for a moment trying to figure out if they were teasing or not.  Once we realized they were serious everyone started laughing and introductions were made.

Main street Melaque, the spot where we met Don and Terri.

Not the best shot of our new friends, they look stunned.

Don and Terri are from Vancouver BC. They had taken the bus from Puerto Vallarta to Melaque to stay for a couple months.  When they arrived at the bus stop they didn’t know that this was their destination until Terri noticed the nearby hotel and asked Don if it was the one where her sister was going to stay. They exited the bus and walked directly up to the first non Mexican folks they saw.  That was us. Without thinking they asked us where they were and thus received the crazy looks that we gave them.

We talked for quite some time and then met down at Bigote’s for drinks.  Linda and Beth imbibed in two of the stiffest margaritas one could hope for and the evening got fired up.  The drinks hit hard and we decided that we needed some food so we grabbed our new friends and walked to Pedro’s for tacos.  Enjoying stories we continued a classic night of drinks, fun and food.

Don and Terri had no plans but needed to find a place to stay for the next couple months.  We made arrangements to meet and exchange names and suggestions of people they could contact to help find a room.  With dinner over we walked into the plaza where Don suddenly stopped and started talking to a guy that looked Mexican but was actually Canadian First Nation, and a friend Don had not seen in about 20 years.  It took everyone by surprise to have Don walk up to this unknown man and start hugging and talking. It really is a small world.

After the plaza we returned to the main street where we met and parted ways.  We hope they find a good spot and that we can get together again before we leave.

Sunset from Sr. Froy's.

Tuesday was a lazy day.  We all walked into town and Linda registered for the Festival de Melaque fun race/run.  They promised that the race will be an actual 10K, instead of the Mexican 10K that she ran last year.  We called it a Mexican 10K because it was two miles longer than and actual 10K.

This year’s course will be better, yet probably a bit harder.  She will not have to run up to the top of the big hill this time and they are not running on the highway, but she will have to run two miles on the beach sand.  I prefer her not running on the highway because the drivers down here are crazy.  She would probably prefer to not run so long on the sand.

Then once we finished her registration we walked to the other end of town where I contacted a hotel and made a deposit on a room for a fellow I have gotten to know on line.  He is from Canada and he asked me to make the deposit so that he would have a room when he comes down in February.  Linda and Beth did all the negotiations with the hotel owner to get the deposit paid.  He only spoke Spanish and they did a great job of communicating.

We returned home and played volleyball next door.  The volleyball crowd has grown so there is always enough folks available to have some spirited games.

 After naps we walked into town.  While we walked a Mexican friend, Tito, came out to greet us. He was working his second job waiting tables at a restaurant.  His first job as a waiter in the morning is at Sr. Froy’s.  Last year Froy’s was located out on the highway, but Tito told us that it had moved to the beach.  He immediately left his job and led us down three blocks to the beach and made sure that Froy met us at the door to his new restaurant.

It was another great homecoming.  We sat on the beach and had drinks and watched the sun set.  We plan to have dinner this Thursday with Froy, he is having a special Mexican Christmas party that night.

We walked to a restaurant called Alcatraz and had dinner and then returned home and turned in, tired from a long day of relaxing.