30 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
I’ve been eating in Mexican restaurants for a zillion years, but I didn’t know how ignorant I was about Mexican cuisine until faced with multitude of unidentifiable foodstuffs in the Mexican supermarket. Dried beef? Tripe? Hominy? Pozole? Menudo?
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28 Monday Oct 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Gallery, Travel
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We live right on the beach, so when we go downtown or uptown, we take the blue bus. For 45 American cents, we can go just about anywhere we need to.
18 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
I’ve written earlier about Los Tules, our home for six months — a former coconut-palm plantation, complete with fear of coconut missiles falling from sixty feet. Amazingly, there’s no concussion wing at the local hospital.
How do they avert danger (and certain litigation)? They harvest the coconuts by climbing up trees with machetes between their teeth.
16 Wednesday Oct 2013
We have so much time in Puerto Vallarta — six months! — that we’re determined to spend a respectable part of it pursuing worthy causes. After all, there’s only so much hangin’ out by the pool that a person can endure.
It is with these lofty intentions that we have embarked on a research project that will benefit all our soon-to-be-visiting friends. With benevolence in mind, we have set out to explore PV’s gringo bars.
15 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in Travel
I am a caged animal, strapped into a hot, sweaty sling, with a healing wound on my shoulder. It’s too hot to sit outside when a girl can’t swim, and I’m too cheap to sit inside in the air-conditioning for long. So I pace back and forth. I bead, and read, and pace again. I’m eager to go somewhere and don’t feel like it either.
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13 Sunday Oct 2013
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The street that fronts our apartment at Los Tules is named Boulevard Francisco Medina Ascencio. It’s a long name for a long street. Walmart is on this street. So is Costco. You can buy a Ford or a Chevy on this street, or souvenirs at Señor Frog’s.
With all that industry, it’s no surprise that Ascencio is not only long, but wide — eight lanes wide. Eight lanes of rattly buses, death-wish motorcycles, and cars — lots of cars, all traveling at homicidal Mexican speed. We cross this road almost every day. Our nearest grocery is on the other side of Ascencio and crossing it is like playing the game of Frogger — for keeps.
11 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Just arrived in her private room, Louise smiles with anticipation.
October 10, 2013, 6:30 AM
I awaken to our warm bedroom. The bedroom is upstairs and heat rises. We don’t use the air conditioner up there because it makes noise and we prefer to hear the surf at night through the open window. In the kitchen I fix one cup of coffee — for myself. There will be none for Louise as today is the day she is scheduled for surgery.
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09 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Sometimes when you go to visit friends in third world countries, you are asked to bring something desperately needed and locally unavailable. Peanut butter. Clinique cosmetics. VooDoo Donuts.
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07 Monday Oct 2013
Posted in Travel
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Well yes: you can Google Walmart and read about their oft-quoted unfair labor practices in the US, but in Mexico — where benefits aren’t expected and a living wage is a fraction of what’s required in the US — people love the place. It’s only about two miles up the road. Naturally, we had to pay it a visit.
03 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in Sentiments
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Blue agave plants growing on the grounds at Los Tules
Those of us in the US tend to forget that, like our own, Mexico is a country of united states — 31 in all. The Mexican state that we’re living in is Jalisco. Among other things, Jalisco is where the blue agave plant (above) is grown, and the sweet syrup from the agave is used to make tequila.
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The Expat Almanac 