Puerto Vallarta

Every time I have been to Pv it has been delightful.

I was up early in the morning as we docked a little before 8am. I took a series of photos of the Carnival ship, Pride coming into to join us in the tiny cruise section of the port. The steamy tropical mountains rise above the mist in the early morning. The layers of mountains around the port seperate out and spread before the development. Right in front of the ships park is the local Walmart. I have not been in but I heard that it is somewhat different than stateside's Walmarts. There has been significant development since were we were here last. More condos are built or being built, Cranes dot the new city sections.

The cruise park has great expanses of lawn around the dock. The park is completely fenced in and is secure. A long series of white tents usher the disemarking guest to the taxi and tour bus turn around.

When we first got to Puerto Vallarta the air temperatures had risen another 10 degrees. Many of the first people off the ship were a little older than we were. They were headed back to the boat when we were getting off. It is so nice not to have to tender. These people came on the boat looking tired and said that it was too hot to go ashore. Sounds like a tale for mid February. It was warm when you go off the boat, but once you put your hat on and felt some of the ocean breeze it was wonderful.

Sue got a chance to get off again and took it. She had a great time shoping for a mexican dress, some sandals and a little jewelry. I tagged along and through the merchants off balance. They didn't know who they were bargaining with mammacita or pappa. We had a great time. After mom had had enough, we got her to get some food aboard ship for lunch.. its always nice to have a spot to provide basic sustence and liquid. I had a marvelous lamb shank.

On the way back to the ship I spotted an atm. My ATm card from the credit union worked! It didn't on the ship. So I pulled out the maximum I could at one time.. in pesos.. 1,000. It pitched them out in two 500 peso bills. The exchange rate is 15 to one so the 1000 pesos was really 65 American dollars. So we worked with pesos in the afternoon as much as possible. The merchants were less happy to deal in pesos although after most of the bargaining in English in the morning the merchants translated it with a calculator to pesos and all the receipts were listed in pesos. The 15 to one ratio is a little harder to figure than you would expect. So I basically figured from the 1000= 65 ratio and that means the 500 equals 33 dollars.

Mom was happy to get some rest, while the girls and I set out to walk the river walk shops. Under the canopy of wild exotic trees were a group of wild iguanas that lived up in the trees. They have red highlights on their combs. The shops that follow the walk are particularly nice with everything you could imagine in in stand level crafts. There were also a couple of very nice stores that contained a rather select artisan set of crafts and Mexican pewter. The girls and I found some very nice treasures in a couple of these stores.

We also found a very cool restaurant/bar that looked out over the walk. It looked like a very nice place for a cool drink. The bar was advertising two for one happy hour.. so we got happy. I was wondering how we were going to do the two for one bit especially since we were strictly top shelf margarita drinkers... and there were three of us.. No problem man.. they brought us six. We sipped and watched the crowd walk by. It was getting late afternoon and people were gettting past their siesta. Linzi asked the manager where she could mail a postcard that she had made in Cabo with me up on the deck. He asked the waiter and pointed and described a place back up the walk to the swinging bridge and over to the grocery store. She found it and made it back to finish the drinks.

Heather fell in love with a ring in the silver store and the proprietor had no probems with a mix between my leftover pesos and a few American dollars.

The ride to the river walk in the suburban like truck was 3 dollars each. The driver took 7 passengers form the ship. One passenger was headed to a bar a little further out, he was charged 4 dollars. We were charged 4 bucks each to get back to the ship in a little Honda. The three of us was enough to get the taxi driver to make the run.

The end of the River Walk put us on the ocean. The Malacon fronts the ocean in PV. There are some cool galleries and some really classy stores along the way. Of course it is also the home of Senior Froggs.. the most marketed designer tee shirt/bar/restaurant in Mexico. Apparently there are Senior Froggs both of the coasts and not unlike the hard rock cafes, collecting the ones from the different locations provides some folks a chance to buy something Mexican. We enjoyed the walk at dusk along the other side of the street where the public sculpture meets the ocean.

So we had a great time in PV. Everyone in the family got to enjoy a little taste of it on shore and the port did not disappoint.

: ) Pat