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
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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)
16 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in Sentiments, Travel
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
09 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
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.
05 Thursday Dec 2013
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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.
03 Tuesday Dec 2013
Posted in Travel
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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.
27 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
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.
The Expat Almanac 