Monday, February 22, 2010

Puerto Vallarta Trip

You can't imagine our shock to wake up Monday morning one half hour later than planned. It was 6:15, which was the time we had planned to leave the ranch to walk to the corner where we were supposed to meet the bus. The alarm clock was definitely calling out to us but we slept right through the buzzing. We didn't get much sleep due to a pesky buzzing mosquito in our bedroom which we couldn't manage to find. So, no showers, no coffee, definitely no breakfast. Thank God we had packed the night before. We were out the door by 6:30 (which was the time we were supposed to be at the bus) and ran to the bus where everyone was waiting for us. We were justly rewarded for being the last to arrive by getting the two back seats.
I slept for a while then woke up to most of the folks opening bag lunches that they had sensibly packed for themselves. I always make a travel lunch but for some reason didn't this time. Now I felt even more miserable......no coffee, no breakfast and now no lunch.

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta at around 1 oclock. It took a while to get 30 couples checked in and wouldn't you just know it....our room was the last to be ready. Fortunately though, lunch was still being served and we were able to eat something, at last. We went for a walk and returned to a "bonus" room, one with an ocean view. That was to thank us for our patience. Room with a view and a lovely little terrace to sit and watch the rolling waves.

Greg & Lynne - Puerto Vallarta

Our hotel, The Buenaventura, was on the main road running through downtown P.V. The front doors were on the equivalent of Yonge Street the backyard was on the ocean front. We loved it. Two large HEATED pools, and a short walk to sea and surf. I'm so happy that our hotel was in the heart of town and not in Nueva Vallarta where most of the big all inclusive hotels are located.

Greg Collett Puerto Vallarta

Although it rained for a day and a half of our 4 day stay we managed to enjoy ourselves very much. P.V. has a heartbeat. The Malecon (boardwalk) is wonderful. The time share guys are a hoot once you learn how to manage them. We walked or ran on the malecon every morning, rain or shine. We shopped, drank and ate to our hearts delight. We chatted with new people , we drank margueritas and daquiris. I had a bath which was a real treat as our casita in Ajijic boasts a shower only bathroom.
Greg Collett puerto Vallarta

We ate dinner in two of the specialty restaurants. One an Argentinian "meat house." There were about 10 courses, each a different kind of barbequed meat brought to the table stacked on a huge skewer. I don't eat meat but managed to enjoy the shrimp and salmon courses very much. Greg was in heaven.

The last night we ate at the Sunset restaurant and watched the sun do exactly that. Our table was right beside the waves, the food was wonderful and the service impeccable.

We didn't leave on Friday until noon so Greg and I did our usual walk along the malecon, photographing all the sculptures, including the amazing sand sculptures that artists had built on the beach. We crossed the river and walked right up into the old town. Very European. Lovely little hotels, restaurants and shops. The last morning was sunny and hot. We did one last beach walk and then got showered and ready to board the bus. We were certainly mindful of being on time.

Unfortunately, the lady behind us had had three margueritas before boarding the bus and snored for 6 hours of arduous, twisting, mountain road driving. We both wanted to slap her but managed to restrain ourselves.

We arrived back at the Rancho on time for Happy Hour. Everyone stood and gave us a warm welcome. Greg whistled for his pups who came running to him. The two sick ones had survived our absence under the fine care of Ray and Marlene. They did seem to be worse though now then before we left. A vet had been called but did not show up. Lucia and Concho came to get them the next morning and took them to the vet in Riberas. He gave them shots, special food and medicine for the next four days. If they are not better in the four days they will have to be put down. The one pup who is showing no signs at all of the distemper which is what all the others have had, is healthy, strong and lively. She has been renamed "Lucky."


Lynne and I went to 'Carnival" in Chappla the day before we left for Puerto Vallarta. Here are the pics from there.

Carnival
This week is going down as the crappiest week that I've had since we arrived here 3 short months ago.

I eat something on Saturday night that didn't agree me. I'd figured it was time to get brave and eat some actual authentic Mexican food. That turned out to be a VERY BAD decision. I don't have a strong stomach at the best of times.

I don't want to get too descriptive here so, let's just say, I stayed very very close to the bathroom all Saturday night. We were going out on Sunday with friends to the zoo in Guadalajara. Lynne wrote all about that in the last update. She gave me a couple of Immodium pills and did they ever dry me up. I could almost not even talk my mouth was so dry, but it did the trick. We had a safe day, but the effect of those pills had worn off by bedtime Sunday night.
I spent Sunday night in the bathroom and Lynne suggested that I just stay in bed all day Monday. Monday night was about the same. Tuesday wasn't much different except I got a fever at night. At this point I started thinking about the flue - swine flue and how we'd not had shots for it. A friend from home told us her experience and how it was worse than the chimo she'd gone though.

Wednesday morning the fever was gone. I laughed when I looked in the washroom waste basket and saw that it was completely full of empty toilet paper rolls! Thanks God I bought the more expensive but, 'oh so soft' good stuff!

Thursday morning we decided that enough was enough and we should head over to the local hospital. Thought of home and never ending waits in the waiting room came to mind. I expect that the fact that we don't speak the language yet would add more time and aggravation to the situation.

So, here's the hospital story.

9:00 - Arrive at hospital and go to reception. (Well, Lynne went to reception, I had to find another bathroom.)
9:02 - Doctor comes out to get us.
9:10 - exam done, prescription written
9:12 - pay the bill. $12.00 Cdn
9:15 - back in the car

That's what I call "Health Care Reform"!

So, some crappy (hummm, maybe a poor choice of word there) medicine to drink for a few days, Some pills for a week and . . . . I went to the bathroom and peed this afternoon, and nothing else. What a nice treat that was for a change.

It's raining here tonight (Thursday) but the weather is supposed to clear up and it looks like it's supposed to be a nice sunny week in Puerto Vallarta next week.

We're both leaving our computers here at the house while we're away. We're looking forward to a totally offline week.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Weekly Update Feb 1 -7, by Lynne

Three days of rain proved a bit challenging especially with almost non existent internet access and poor t.v. reception. We didn't even make it to the tienges (outdoor market) this past week because the thought of doing our shopping in a downpour just wasn't very appealing. We did attend all of our Spanish Lessons and various other groups. It was the perfect time to Skype and email people back home and get caught up on all of our correspondence, banking, Greg's web work etc., but without the internet that proved impossible. Grrrrr! Mucho frustration. Gonzalo, the Remax rental manager brought us (and some of the others on the ranch) individual modems but alas everyone else's kicked in through the phone company in 24 hours except ours. (When Bad Things Happen to Good People.) Ours is finally up and running today. Yippee!

This was not the only bad news. On the second day of rain, Little Wolfie, one of the pups who had seemed quite sick for several days, lay on our door step in a wet mass, barely breathing. Greg brought her in and towelled her dry and held her and we tried to give her warm milk but when she seemed completely non responsive we went to get Lucia who promised to take her to the Vet. Today when Lucia came by with a new piece of furniture for our casita, we asked after the pup and found out "es muerto." Greg especially, is very saddened to lose another of the original 8. And then there were 3. They lie on their mat in our house throughout the day and we feed them but feel we have to put them out at night because they haven't been cared for very well and are probably flea infested and we can't give them the run of the place while we sleep. A new critter has joined us. Roxy, (Greg Note: real name Satan!) the tea cup chihuaha who belongs to one of our Canadian neighbours, was purchased a couple of weeks ago at the tienges. She's a wild little thing, but adorable and she climbs on top of the Shepards and tries hard to be one of the girls. The funniest thing though is to see Smokey curled up in the little chihuaha's bed. She barely fits but doesn't seem to mind her head and rear end hanging over the edge.
Puppies
One of these things don't belong with the others.
Can you spot it? :-)
On Saturday I had invited three of the women from my Miracles group over for wine and snacks after the class. Dorothy, is turning 80 this month and has taken quite a shine to Greg. She flirted with him outrageously and he is a big flirt too but doesn't quite know how to respond to this chick who is old enough to be his mother. After they left, we were heading out to the movies to see "What About the Morgans?" I think that's what it's called, and the Mexican's up at the top our property were having a Baptismal party and it was Anna's (the girl who cleans our house once a week) baby who had been baptized so they insisted we come and "gusto" with them.....that means eat and party. We sat around a bit like bumps on a log because our Spanish is not good enough yet to really communicate. Then Gonzalo our Mexican property manager from Remax arrived with his wife and daughter. He speaks English. We loved their company. He's so adorable and his wife Maria Elena is lovely and speaks a fair bit of English, as does Helena, the 7 year old daughter.

They invited us to join their family the next day to go to Guadalajara to the zoo. We said sure and met them in Jocotopec (a town about 30 minutes down the road) at 8 in the morning. The family included the wife's sister and brother in law who is a gynecologist and their two children and the Abuela and Abuelo (grandparents)......we arrived in Guad in two cars at about 10 and quickly headed to the big Cathedral there for mass. It was interesting. We participated as best we could except for taking holy communion, although Greg was starving and really wanted one of those wafers.

After mass we had breakfast at an outdoor restaurant in the square .....and then off to the zoo....and quite an impressive one I might add. Greg and I, though, were quite exhausted after about 2 hours but we spent about 5 hours at the zoo. We saw every animal in the place and fed carrots to the giraffes who were head to head with us, leaning into our Safari truck to get the little morsels.
Giraffe
The zoo is definitely world class. Lovely grounds and well thought out environments for the different species. However, we were more impressed with the human family interaction. Three kids under the age of 7 and not a single whine, tantrum or complaint all day long. Now I know everyone in Canada is getting ready for family day on Feb. 15. The Mexican's would laugh at that notion. Every Sunday is family day here. And that doesn't mean just your immediate family. It includes the grandparents and the sisters and sometimes the brothers and their children. I say sometimes the brothers because it is customary here for the men to go with the wives to their families. You have to feel sorry then for clans without daughters. Church together is always the opening activity. Greg and I were honoured to be "part of the family" even if only for the day. They told us we are welcome to join them any Sunday we feel inspired to do so.
Our Family in Guadalajaro
The activities ended with dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken and the ride back to Lakeside in the dark. Greg and I fell into bed. He hasn't been feeling great since eating Mexican specialty beef at the baptismal party on Saturday night.

Nadia and the boys have confirmed their flights and will be arriving on March 22nd. My BFF for 52 years, Susie Neudoerffer celebrated her 60th on Feb. 2nd and my cousin Brian Gold celebrated his 65th yesterday. Michelle and Gavin got a new dog, a sister for Sneakers called Shasta. Jordan needs money, but that's not really news.

And so a new week begins.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Weekly Update Feb 2, 2010

I had a pretty event full week this week.
I went out one day this week and climbed back up to the shrine, then carried on to the cornfield and then hit new territory finding new trails to descend back to town from.
Cornfield Ajijic
I pushed a bit heading up to the shrine and made in 11 minutes. I rested a bit there and saw a women come down from higher up the mountain. She was dressed totally in white coveralls including white hat and scarf. Only her face showed and she carried a few plastic one gallon water jogs. She asked how far I was going. I told her I was heading up to the cornfield, but I didn’t know where I was heading from there. She asked if I’d help her group out. I’d seen small trees that were planted along the trails on previous hikes. I had no idea where they were from. I’d joked with Lynne once that they were part of the Mexican reforestation project. It ends up that was about right. She and her group were planning all along the trails. There was a fence that I had to cut through to get up to the cornfield. She asked if I’d help out by taking one of the jugs and filling it from a large container that was next to the fence and then carry it up to the cornfield. I guess she had carried the half dozen or so jugs she had up to that fence. I said sure. Why not, it was all I could do to get up to that cornfield the first time I’d done it. I might as well try it with a big jog of water in one hand at the same time. In the end, it wasn’t has hard as I thought it would be.
Greg Collett - Ajijic
I hung out at the cornfield which is about 1300’ above the town, which is about 5200’ above sea level. I took some bars and a few water bottles with E-Load. I felt good. I took a bunch of pictures looking up the mountain and down to the town. The mountain continues up another 2000 feet or so. There are a couple of climbing groups around, but I’m going to continue exploring on my own. I’ll go a bit further and fine new trails each time until i get really familiar with these hills over the next month or two before going back to running.
On the weekend I headed out by car to the town or Morelia. Morelia is about 500k east of here, about half way towards Mexico City. Morelia is the town that the Monarch butterflies migrate to each year. Now, I must admit, I really couldn’t care less about butterflies, but I figured that, seeing as I’m this close and it is pretty amazing that these bugs fly from Canada to here each year, it was something worth going to see. Something I found interesting is that the butterflies fly down from Canada to the same mountain in Mexico each year. They get here; they breed, and then die. The butterflies that are born here fly back to Canada in the spring and breed, and die there. The butterflies make the several thousand kilometre trip by instinct, arriving at the same area year after year, generation after generation.
LAnd Before Man
Lynne wanted some time alone. We’re together pretty much 24 hours a day. Some time alone would be good for both of us. I drove out on Friday morning. Within a hundred kilometres the landscape changed from the mountain ranges that we live in to old volcanoes jutting out of the otherwise flat green land. The skies were overcast. The overall appearance reminded me of pictures of "the land before man". I’m told there are some live volcanoes in the area. I’m going to research them and visit one soon.
The GPS put me on the toll roads pretty quickly. I turn off after a few hours and headed south towards the town of Patzucuaro. John and Joan told us it’s a beautiful town and that I should check it out on this trip. It was getting late in the afternoon. It was going to take me another hour to get to Morelia from there so, I just drove through and looked around from the car. The town did look inviting. There were tons of wood working shops, wood carving actually. Almost every corner was another shop. I don’t know why i didn’t get any picture. I’m sorry now that I didn’t, but I’m sure Lynne and I will head out there for a weekend soon to spend some time exploring the town.
I notice the first strip joint I’ve seen anywhere in Mexico too. The building was huge and the music was really loud. I could hear it from the car from the middle of the road. I looked at the place, thought about all the stories I’ve heard of gringos getting killed in joints like those and, kept on driving!
Lina, our Spanish teacher kindly forwarded a newspaper article that spoke to the 2600 people who were killed in the first 6 months of last year due to drug wars in the area. I think that prompted me to stay in the car too! I didn’t see any traces of drugs, drug lords or drug wars while I was away. Lina did email me when I got home to tell me that 8 people were found beheaded in that state over the weekend. I’m glad she waited until I was back home to tell me!
The drive from Patzucuaro to Morelia did take about an hour. The roads twisted and turned everywhere. It was a fun drive. It was interesting that, as many woodworking shops I’d seen in Patzucuaro, there were as many, if not more, stone carving shops on the roads to Morelia. There were stone carvings of everything from small animals and birdbaths to huge pillars that would sit in front of massive cathedrals. I’d love to go back again another day and explore some of the shops in both towns.
Morelia was an amazingly busy town traffic wise. It took an hour to get the 3.5k to the hotels when I got to town. The GPS showed me that there were a number of hotels all in the same area. What it didn’t tell me was that they were all the high-end hotels at the centre of town. I was too tired to head our again when I realized what I was in for, so I took the $120. Room and spent the night there at the edge of the incredibly beautiful town square. $120.00 isn’t a lot for a hotel at home but, it’s a fortune for Mexico.
I tool lots of pictures of the hotel and the room, but headed out early in the morning for ‘Butterflyville! It ended up that I was still a couple of hours drive from the sanctuary.
Greg Collett Morelia
The place was high in the mountains. The temperature was only about 8 or 9 degrees. The skies were overcast again. I found the place, parked the car and walked through the woods for about 30 minutes. Up and then down the mountain to the end of the path. I was a bit pissed at first when there were no butterflies in the air. All the stories I read about the place talked about the millions of butterflies. What I didn’t know at the time was that, when the weather is cold, they group together high in the trees in hugs clumps, huddled together to keep each other warm. Eventually I notice hundreds of dead butterflies on the ground. I did see one butterfly in the air. I laughed when I realized it had died and was only falling to the ground! I headed back when it started to rain.
Oh well, I’ve seen it!
I headed back home, but stayed on the main highways all the way. Again I loved looking at the landscape that kept reminding me of those "Land before Man" scenes.
Kids In Truck at 140 kph
Traffic laws here aren’t what they are at home. The speed limit is posted at 110, but most people drive at around 130 - 145 kph. I followed a pickup truck for a bit. Mom and Dad were in the front. 4 kids were playing in the open cab in the back. At one point I clocked us moving at 160 kph. The kids played in that open cab as if they were sitting in a playground. I kept waiting to see one of them or their toys go flying out onto the road!
I got a couple of good shots of the red sunset sky on the way back. I was home by about 8:30pm. It was a fun trip. The butterflies sucked, but the adventure of exploring the land was great. I think next weekend I’ll stick closer to town and head back up into the mountains or over and explore the town of Chapala.
Sunset
Our neighbours John and Joan left for California on Monday morning. Like us, they sold there house and are traveling around deciding where to settle down. We’re going to miss them. They were the first friends that Lynne and I made since we left Aurora in July. Hopefully we’ll keep in touch by email.