Sun Guilt

16 Monday Dec 2013

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Puerto Vallarta, seasonal affective disorder, sunset

The other day I was watching Portlandia in the afternoon down here in Mexico. It was that episode about the annual day in July when the first beam of sunshine returns to Portland after eight months of gray and drizzle. People come rushing out doors with their picnics, bongo drums, sun hats, skateboards, and guitars. I instantly doubled over with guilt, verklempt with shame, suffering a double dose of Sun Guilt in both art and life. The sun was shining, and I was inside making a bracelet. I should have been Out There. Continue reading →

Hunks and Chunks, but No Shoes

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom in Accommodations, Travel

≈ 3 Comments

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Emiliano Zapata District, Old Town Market, Puerto Vallarta

Everyone who knows Louise knows that she’s a varsity-level shopper. Leaving the theater last night, she lingered at numerous shop windows even though the shops were closed. Closed! When the shops are closed, she plans strategy. When they’re open, she manipulates prices, selections, and even vendors with the precision of an NBA star on a charge to the basket. The woman is shopping’s Kobe Bryant.

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Home Improvement

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom in Accommodations, Travel

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Los Tules, palapa, Puerto Vallarta

That may be a poor choice for a title. Tim Taylor worshiped power tools. (“More power!”) At Los Tules, repairing palapas is done without a power tool in sight. Just three guys and a machete. Sorry, Tim.

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Chic But Still Shabby

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Louise in Travel

≈ 2 Comments

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Los Tules, Nayarit, Puerto Vallarta, Sayulita

The Sayulita beach. (Click to enlarge)

Yesterday we hopped on a two-dollar bus for the one-hour trip to Sayulita, a fabled old surfing town that has blossomed, since the ’60s, into a chic-but-still-shabby cluster of shops, restaurants, and very expensive real estate. No big hotels, no high rises, and the 4,000 permanent residents all seem to know each other.

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Foiling Bureaucracy

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Tom in Accommodations, Travel

≈ 10 Comments

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Christmas, Home for the holidays, Puerto Vallarta, Timberline Lodge

If you’ve ever traveled to Mexico, you’re familiar with the FMM — the Forma Migratoria Múltiple that, for most of us, is acquired on a plane. You fill in the blanks while you’re still in the air and surrender half of the FMM when you pass through Mexican customs. Don’t lose the other half! Trying to return without your half of the FMM guarantees an eternal encounter with Mexican bureaucracy. You say you’ve never met anyone who has had that experience? I rest my case.

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Lard, Lust, and Laughter

25 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Louise in Travel

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Cooking, cooking class, Mexican cooking, Puerto Vallarta

Still trying to tell one chili from another, I signed up for Dolores Brittingham’s famous top-secret, top-drawer, word-of-mouth-only cooking class, which promised hands-on experience and a generous and scrumptious menu, plus unlimited wine. Dolores, who is Filipino, Spanish, and Mexican, has been teaching cooking for thirty years. As many as sixteen students can crowd around in her gorgeous gold- and green-tiled kitchen. Before moving to Puerto Vallarta, she and her husband Rob worked for Boeing in Seattle, and now return to the Northwest only for September and October. These months are Hades in Puerto Vallarta.

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We Were Fleeced

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Tom in Travel

≈ 27 Comments

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Don Lalin, Puerto Vallarta, Sierra Madre, tequila, tequila distillery

Don Lalin's patio-sized tequila distillery

The patio-sized tequila distillery at Hacienda Don Lalin

The best Mexican tourist-fleecing operation is not the timeshare industry, it’s not the machine-carved wooden dolphins sold by beach vendors (“my family make them here!”), it’s small-scale tequila distilleries. And I say that with high praise.

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The Rain Has An Attitude

05 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by Tom in Travel

≈ 10 Comments

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Puerto Vallarta, Weather

4:30 PM
I take a bottle of water from the refrigerator. It begins to drip before I get it to the patio, instantly sheathed in condensation as if it had been dipped in wax. It is eighty-eight degrees and the humidity is more than that. A storm is coming to Puerto Vallarta.

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Dia de Muertos, Part Two

03 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by Tom in Accommodations, Travel

≈ 13 Comments

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Dia de Muertos, Puerto Vallarta, sugar skull

“They were out of white.” Louise had just returned from the makeup store bearing brushes, remover, and a large tube of silver makeup. “They said silver will look just as good.” Silver? Who’s ever heard of a silver skull? I was destined to look like a piece of jewelry, not the sugar skull I anticipated.
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Dia de Muertos, Part One

02 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Louise in Gallery, Sentiments, Travel

≈ 19 Comments

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Dia de Muertos, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta

In Mexico the whole Halloween thing is overshadowed by a more ancient version of the holiday: a combination of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day called Dia de Muertos (“Day of [the] Dead” — which this year is today, November 2nd). On this day the Mexicans celebrate the lives of the people they’ve lost, with altars. The altars typically have a picture of the late dearly beloved, as well as bottles of whatever libations and vices the person preferred, favorite foods, and symbolic objects.
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