17 Monday Mar 2014
Posted in Travel
Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Click to enlarge.
You gotta love these people: no one really knows where they came from, no one really knows what happened to them (even though they built what was the largest city in the Americas at the time), their primary deity was a woman, and they built the coolest pyramids around.
11 Tuesday Mar 2014
“Today we will visit a bakery.”
That was Vicky, our tour guide. To be fair, I’m as much a lover of chouquettes and panettones as the next guy, but we had committed five of our precious remaining expat days, and paid big money for airline tickets, hotels, and the tour itself — and now Vicky is dragging us to a bakery. This was Mexico City, the largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere! What happened to Aztek ruins, Mesoamerican pyramids, Diego Rivera murals?
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05 Wednesday Mar 2014
Julia is small, maybe five feet, and a spry seventy-something — the perfect candidate for a Charlie Chaplin costume. The day she penguin-walked into our living room the applause was loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Continue reading
13 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
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Snakes and lizards slithering through the jungle, slitted eyes tracking prey, anticipating nourishment fanged into deadly submission. That’s what my stepson Ted and I signed up for when we parted with our money to take the “Jungle ATV Tour” that was offered by a local agency here in Puerto Vallarta. Continue reading
07 Friday Feb 2014
I’ve never stopped to think about it, but now that I do, I find it surprising that for people who travel as much as we do, we hardly ever talk about money. We didn’t meet each other until we were in our sixties, so we each brought our own finances to the relationship. As time went on we never merged our finances, electing instead to establish a joint bank account to which we contributed whenever it got low. The joint account pays for rent, food, and other common expenses. Other than that, we each have our own checking and investment accounts to do with as we please. The other night, during our customary cocktail at sunset, we just happened to mention our individual savings accounts: They have grown considerably since we began our travels. Continue reading
05 Wednesday Feb 2014
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Traveling as we do, we meet a lot of people. Conversations ensue. Questions are asked, and among the first is, “Where do you live?” Then the familiar words: vagabond, expat, ne’er-do-well, and homeless.
Homeless.
After we tell the story of our travels — so well-rehearsed we can recite it in our sleep — comes the inevitable question: “What will you do next?”
Our answer has always been, “We don’t know.” But now, with less than sixty days remaining of our planned expat adventure — less than sixty days! — we have decided.
We’re going home.
15 Wednesday Jan 2014
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“I have been authorized to offer you the villa next year at the same price.”
That was Brissa, our real estate agent. We told you about her in an earlier post. She was the miracle worker who found our home in Puerto Vallarta and made it available for six months this year.
And now, as it turns out, next year too, for we paid our deposit two days ago. We will return to Puerto Vallarta and our Los Tules villa in January, here to stay for another two months in the winter of 2015.
12 Sunday Jan 2014
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
“Steak!”
“Huh?”
I uttered the word so unexpectedly that Louise almost spilled her Cape Coddah.
“Steak,” I repeated. “Now!”
Visions of a thick filet over a charcoal fire almost surpassed the vision currently upon us of sunset over Banderas Bay (pictured above — another episode of sunset guilt).
“As in this very moment?” Louise asked. But she needn’t: I was already on my way.
01 Wednesday Jan 2014
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Fireworks over Puerto Vallarta
It often seems that life’s most memorable moments are unplanned. Case in point: New Year’s Eve — last night.
29 Sunday Dec 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
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Those vertical streaks are rivers of rain, cascading from our patio roof.
It’s Christmas Week in Mexico. For many it’s a week off, and in Mexico where the family is cardinal and most people live inland, Christmas Week is spent at the beach. Los Tules has beaches (a half mile of them) and swimming pools (seven). This is the place for Mexicans to take their families for Christmas Week, and scores of Mexicans have done just that.
There’s just one hitch: it’s raining.
The Expat Almanac 