Tag Archives: Los Tules

Chair Wars

20 Thursday Feb 2014

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Our front yard here at Los Tules is a swimming pool. Right now, at 10 a.m., all of its 24 lounge chairs are occupied, as usual.

Five are occupied by people, one by a teddy bear, and eighteen by towels. The towels are meant to reserve the chairs for people who won’t come until later — people who don’t want anyone else to use these chairs until they’re good and ready to do it themselves. It’s not uncommon in resorts and along parade routes world wide, but here in Los Tules it is a very touchy subject.

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You Think We’d Turn It Down?

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.

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And Then There’s a Party

03 Friday Jan 2014

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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.

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Wally World is Closed

29 Sunday Dec 2013

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Those vertical streaks are rivers of rain, cascading from our patio roof.

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.

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Chic But Still Shabby

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

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The Sayulita beach. (Click to enlarge)

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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The Great Coconut Harvest

18 Friday Oct 2013

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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.

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Frogger for Keeps

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.

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