03 Monday Feb 2014
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
“Pie lady! I’m the pie lady!”
She said this as though she were the Statue of Liberty. Yes, I’m what you’re looking for! We had indeed heard that when we got to the beach at the ancient town of Yelapa, fifteen miles southwest of Puerto Vallarta, we would find the pie lady roaming the beach, selling slices out of Tupperware. We bought a lemon meringue slice and ate it from our hands (she doesn’t offer forks) while walking down the beach.
20 Monday Jan 2014
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
(The beach at Boca de Tomatlan. Click to enlarge)
As in real life, which this is not, sometimes we set out to have a certain adventure, and then we have another adventure instead, which is probably better than the adventure we didn’t have. So it was with our trip south to the coastal village of Mismaloya. We didn’t know much about Mismaloya, including where to get off the bus.
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.
03 Friday Jan 2014
Posted in Sentiments, Travel
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allyouneedtoparty.co.uk
As I sit here I am surrounded by happy Mexican extended families and their kids and dogs. Los Tules is crowded because of the holidays. And though these are well-bred, peaceful folks by day, they don’t seem to have a fixed bedtime, and neither do their children. The party rages on, late into the night.
Mexicans, we have decided, love to party. It is one of their most endearing traits. And as an excuse to party, they have a wickedly long holiday season. We are only halfway through.
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.
25 Wednesday Dec 2013
Posted in Sentiments
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Kappy, Bernie and Kathy, Doyle, Michael, Beth and Jim, Sybil and James, Cole, Lillie, Weston, Hayden, Topaz, and Kerri — thanks for making our Portland Christmas everything we hoped it would be.
But enough of the freezing fog already. It’s back to Puerto Vallarta (and sun, and beach, and surf) tomorrow.
Tom & Louise
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(Photo by Sybil Lichty Fontaine)
24 Tuesday Dec 2013
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Downtown Portland in gingerbread
Max, the light rail train, was waiting for us inside the airport. The fare was a dollar. It took us downtown, within two blocks of our hotel. We had arrived for Christmas in Portland.
19 Thursday Dec 2013
To prove what a great husband he is, Tom booked us on a tour to Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico. It wasn’t just any tour, though, it was a shopping tour, and I saw more different kinds of stimulating marketplaces in three days than ever in my long life as a black-belt agoraphiliac.
The Expat Almanac 