Riding the Big Cat

We have settled into a little Mexico rhythm since our guests departed.  Though we are trying to "live" in Melaque, we find it a little tricky because we keep running into past friends we haven't seen since our last visit three years ago.  These meetings usually involve scheduling a dinner together in a restaurant which is always fun. It does, however, get a little more expensive to entertain out than do our daily "live" in Mexico thing.

Assistant Manager, Renaldo's Rugs.

Every day we try to get some exercise away from our casa. Linda signed up for a workout club costing $15 per month. She does her weights every other day and still runs three days a week. On the other days, she walks 4 miles and enjoys the mornings. I sleep in and start my days with coffee and some reading. Later on, I try to do a long walk and finish with a swim in the pool.

Pizza and karaoke across from the rug shop.

While out walking, I stop by and visit various friends. We have been spending time working on puzzles, so I have been put in charge of borrowing and returning them as I walk about.  Recently, I stopped by Reynaldo's Rugs to visit with our friend Reynaldo. I stepped in the door of the rug shop and he immediately smiled and said, " Good, you can watch the shop while I go get some paper. It will only take a few minutes." and off he went. I stood there looking about. What if someone came in? No prices were marked on anything. I don't speak Spanish. How will I take care of things? 

I took a selfie and decided that I was the rug shop manager, so I sat and waited. Reynaldo was gone for about 15 minutes, and during that time no one entered the shop. I did, however, give Linda a call and told her all about my new job and how I had moved up to manager in a short time at the store.

Once Reynaldo returned, a few people showed up to look at his goods.  A cute young French Canadian woman came in looking for a medium-sized rug. Reynaldo showed her his collection. She had a specific idea about colors to match the area in her home. Reynaldo was busy pulling out rugs and showing what he had. The young woman looked at me and said, "Could you ask him if he has some earth tones he might show me?" I smiled and turned to Reynaldo and said, "Renaldo, do you have any earth-toned rugs you could show this young lady?" Reynaldo said, "Yes, right over here." In perfect English.  She blushed and laughed. I turned to her, winked, and said, "Renaldo speaks better English than me." We all laughed. Reynaldo has a wonderful sense of humor and I always laugh when we are together.

My latest big adventure was a catamaran ride out on the Bahia de Melaque.  Linda and I had purchased tickets for the sailboat ride earlier on in the week. The tickets support the effort to provide funding for the schools of Barra and Melaque.  This is a large fundraiser called Cruise-in Week and annually provides funding that is needed for the schools to operate. Mexican government only provides the facilities and pays the teachers, so all other operational expenses are on the shoulders of the parents. This makes it hard for young children of poor families to attend any educational facility.  The money collected is well managed and only goes to items needed to run the schools on a daily basis.

Waiting for our water taxi.

On the evening before the sailboat event, Linda started feeling bad and when morning arrived, she could not attend the trip. We both were crushed. I love to do these little adventures with Linda and this was an opportunity for her to sail on a catamaran on the Bahia de Melaque. I was on my own, a scary thought.

It was early in the morning when Linda had to make the decision not to go. I then started preparing for the day. We put together bus money, the boat ride tickets, my bag of necessities, my sailing wardrobe (my everyday clothes), and my camera.

Heading out in the taxi for our adventure.

I caught the bus to Barra within two minutes of getting to the bus stop. In Barra, I stepped off and made my way to the restaurant El Manglito, where I was to catch a water taxi to the catamaran Baja Fog.  Everything went well, a little disorganized, but smoothly in a Mexican sort of way. 

I introduced myself to a couple folks from Manitoba, Canada who would be on the catamaran with me, and we waited for our water taxi.

Sailboat names were called and people loaded onto each taxi and then disappeared.  Baja Fog was the last to load. It took quite a while, but we were off to our vessel.

SnowBored, formerly owned by Bodi Miller.

Our taxi made its way to the G Dock where Baja Fog was moored. As we entered the Grand Bay Marina, we passed a very familiar luxury yacht, SnowBored, out of Park City, Utah. Our first meeting with this vessel took place when we were sailing with the Edwards family in the San Juan Islands. We docked our boat Trivoli at Roche Harbor and moored there was SnowBored, Olympic skier, Bodie Miller's Yacht. Miller is now in the process of selling this yacht for around $3.5 million. You can check it out here if you are interested in buying it. Let us know and we will come to visit you on it.

I boarded the Baja Fog and the captain immediately set off out of the moorage. Everyone sort of wandered as we motored out to the Bahia. The captain was the owner, I think, and it appeared that his crew was his partner, Monique. We were not given any instructions; just hang on and enjoy.

Our Captain.

We spent the next three hours sailing out in and outside of the bay. I heard the captain say that this was the best sailing they have ever had during this event and that we were able to sail about 90% of the time.

I chatted with several of the guests and watched the sky-blue water for fish splashes or whale spouts.  As we returned to the bay, we heard over the radio that other boats were spotting whales, so we kept our eyes peeled. Sure enough, we spotted three pods of whales moving about the bay. They would breach and show their tails once every so often. It was a great surprise and an end to our day on the water.

We returned to the Grand Bay and the captain did a great job of docking.  Once things were secured, I found our captain and thanked him for the sail. He seemed very nice, but our visit was very brief.

The sailboats parading out of  Laguna de Navidad. 

Our taxi picked us up and delivered us back to Barra. I walked directly to the bus stop, hopped aboard the next bus, and returned to the west end of Melaque.  I was hot and tired when I walked through the gate of our casa and immediately jumped into the pool. It was a nice adventure, but I sure missed my partner, Linda.

Guests taking in the views.

The shipwrecked oil transport.

Whales in the bay.

Laguna del Tule

The Barra shore.

Vallarta Visit

Ready for our Plus ride!

Our Primera Plus bus rolled out of Melaque up Highway 200 at 10:15 AM on the dot. We were packed and ready to explore the big city of Puerto Vallarta, five days of fun and friends. This adventure came about when our good friends John and Loretta Sutherland told us they would be in PV for Loretta's birthday. Since we were bus-ride close, Linda made arrangements at a couple hotels and the trip came together.

The drive up was uneventful. Highway 200 is a windy stretch that follows the coastline northwest and then at Tomatlan cuts across the land forming Cabo Corrientes and rejoins the coast at Boca de Tomatlan. It then follows the coast of the Bahia de Banderas into the sprawling vacation fun land of Puerto Vallarta.

After a little over three hours of travel, our bus turned a corner and stopped at a busy intersection in Old Town PV.  We gathered our packs and Linda programmed her phone to lead us to our first stop the Hotel Rosita. We walked the ten blocks to the quaint old hotel and checked in

View from Sutherland's room at Hotel Rosita.

As we finished up with the check-in process, John and Loretta walked in the front entrance. Immediately the two ladies started making plans for the evening.

The Rosita is a quaint 70-year-old hotel located directly on the Malecon with the surf slapping aginst its breakwater. Our room was on the second floor and overlooked the street. It was nicely furnished and provided us with ample space to move about. Road noise was less than we thought it would be and we actually enjoyed watching the events unfold just out our window on the main street.

John and Loretta's room was located on the third floor and overlooked the Malecon with a spectacular view of the Bahia de Banderas and the shoreline of Puerto Vallarta. They were able to sit out and enjoy the evening breeze off the Bahia.

Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

Our first two days were spent exploring the markets, Malecon, and sites found in the historic old part of PV. The area was very crowded with tourists and we had to avoid eye contact with every huckster and condo salesperson. This was an almost impossible task. We were bombarded with greetings and if you took the bait you almost had to be rude to get out of their grasp.

Though annoying, we looked at it as just part of the adventure and got very good at letting them know that we were not interested without being too rude.

The art and colors in this old town area were amazing. I think this was the thing that made our stay in both the old town zone and the Zona Romantica so enjoyable. You were constantly treated to wonderful eye-catching art all along the walking areas and shops.

Night view of the Bahia de Banderas.

During our two nights at the Rosita, we ate at two very different restaurants. Our first night we dined on the sandy beach next to our hotel. The food was marginal, and a bit expensive for what we ate, but you could not beat the location and since it was Loretta's birthday, that was all that mattered.

The next night, Linda worked her magic and found us a place two blocks off the Malecon into the city to a taco joint that provided great tacos at a very reasonable price. We ate with the locals and enjoyed watching all that goes with the ambiance of a corner taqueria.

On our second day, Linda and Loretta climbed the stairs up to the Mirador La Cruz del Cerro where they got a tremendous view of the entire PV shoreline. John and I stayed back at the hotel making sure the coffee was good and breakfast was satisfactory.

Later that morning, we made our way through the streets to a bus stop and caught a local bus that took us all the way across town in search of the pier where the local fishermen bring their catch after the day of fishing. We got to see the entire city but didn't really find the marina we were hoping to find.

We ended up eating lunch at the Marina Vallarta. This marina was more of a yachties hangout so we didn't get to see any "daily catch" in the area.

Tacos al pastor at the taco stand.

A little disappointed that we didn't see any of the panga fleet returning with their catch, we caught a crowded bus back to our hotel. The bus rides were something that made the trip well worth the 40 pesos it cost each couple to go out to the marina and back. By this time in our stay we had decided that people watching would play a huge part in the enjoyment of this adventure. The bus did not disappoint on that front.

Back from our exploration, we prepared our backpacks to move to our next hotel that next morning. We didn't know exactly how far the Casa Dona Susana was from our hotel, so John flagged down a taxi cab and we made our move.

Tacos!!!

As we rode to the new location John made arrangments for our taxi driver to return in the morning and take us out of town and to a quaint little puebla, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle or just La Cruz. We had the bus experience under our belt. It was an easy agreement that we should spend the pesos for a taxi for this next excursion to visit John Karpenko at the Marina Cruz de Huanacaxtle.

We checked into our rooms at the Dona Susana and spent the evening walking around the Zona Romantica. Our hotel is located in the heart of everything in this area and just walking around is a unique experience.

The two Johns at Marina Cruz de Huanacaxtle.

At 9:00 AM sharp the next morning we loaded into the taxi that John had secured the prior evening. Our driver was very happy to be driving us to La Cruz. He and John talked about fishing and John found out that he had never been out of PV his entire life.

After our driver dropped us off, we walked to the marina deli and had a quick bite to eat. John K. showed up and we had a great reunion. After a bit, Cherie arrived and John introduced her to the gang. We then loaded on to Mangata, John's sailboat, and headed out into the Bahia de Banderas to sail.

The winds were good and we spent the day chasing whales and talking. At one point we noticed a couple of honey bees flying about. Soon we had more bees flying about. One point there were enough bees that everyone started getting nervous. How could there be a swarm of bees this far out on the water? Cherie got stung and several minutes later I got a sting on my arm. The fight was on! Normally we don't kill bees, in most instances, we can run away from them and stay safe. This time we were on a boat and the bees were sticking around. With no place to run, we decided to fight. We killed several using shirts and towels. My sting was swelling and starting to hurt. This lasted for about forty-five minutes and then the bees were gone. Just like that.

We sailed on and saw several pods of whales. At the end of our day, we dropped the sails and hopped into the refreshing water for a swim. Ducking under the water brought you the sounds of the whales. This was a first John and Loretta.

Returning to the marina we docked the boat and went into the facilities and took showers. From there we walked to a restaurant called Osos and had dinner. It was open mike at the bar and by the end of our evening, we were all out on the floor dancing and singing. What a fun way to end a great day!

We caught a taxi back into PV and went to bed. Thanks, John K, for a wonderful day on the ocean.

Our next day was filled with beach time and shopping. What can you say about that except that it was great people watching.

Saturday morning Linda and I got up and had breakfast. We were packed and ready to go so we caught up with John and Loretta and said our goodbyes. We had such a great visit with them and enjoyed our little vacation immensely. With our bags on our backs, we hiked up to the bus stop and waited for our ride back to Melaque. Going home always takes longer than coming, the bus rumbled on and we were ultimately glad to get back to our little casa.

Swimming and listening to the whales in the bay.

Our dinner at Osos in La Cruze.

Creating the beautiful seats in the
Parque Lazaro Cardenas y Estacionamiento.

There seems to be a theme with the vendors here. (Enough said.)

Crossing one of the bridges to the old town river island area.

The required PV sign pose.

Mirador La Cruz del Cerro

View of Hotel Rosita from Mirador.

Our room at the Hotel Casa Dona Susana.

Linda taking in the happenings from our balcony.