Adios Puerto Vallarta, Hola Melaque

We left fairly early from San Blas skipping breakfast altogether. We opted to take the more scenic route, the one skirting the coast. That was a very good decision although it took a bit longer to get to Puerto Vallarta. The road was breathtakingly beautiful with huge trees overhanging the road, meeting halfway across it and forming a lovely bridge of greenery overhead. There was dripping bougainvilas their bright red, pink and purple flowers providing splashes of color amongst all the green. The road meandered across verdant hills, glimpses of the sea appearing at unexpected moments. The only sour note were the many impromptu, improvised garbage dumps where a view point might have been. It's an unfortunate reality here. There is far too much garbage and nowwhere to put it. There's no point complaining about it, it will take years before that state of affairs changes, if ever. I don't want to sound pessimistic but it is a real problem and there are no easy solutions.

We stopped in the seaside town of Sayulita. It's a cute little town, soon to grow bigger since it now has been discovered. Quite a few gringos here.
Initially this was where we had wanted to stay but I preferred moving on to
Puerto since it's a bigger city with a lot more options in terms of food and lodgings.

This is our fourth visit to P.V. We came here over ten years ago, coming back from traveling across other parts of Mexico and Guatemala. We knew that the cheaper hotels were situated south of Rio Cuale which is a river in old P.V. Just like in Mazatlan there is an old and a new section, the new being the one where most of the all inclusives are found. There are a few semi types of all inclusives in old Vallarta but not very many. It's mostly condos, houses, hotels and cheaper types of lodgings.

Not surprisingly we ended up on a street called Madero. It's been an old stand by of ours. We've stayed in 3 other hotels on this same street. One was very noisy, one was smelly, one was all right and the one we're in right now Hotel Economico Azteca is by far my favorite. The room is pretty big, two nice beds, there's an inner courtyard, the washroom is functional, cable t.v. and free internet accessible in the room. All this for the tidy sum of 280 pesos a night which works out to about $24.00, a real steal.

The beach is about 4 blocks away but it's a pleasant walk. We only went to the beach twice, once walking and once for swimming and lazing about.
There is much to explore in P.V. The little island separated by the rio is home to a beautiful garden, a theatre and an artesania market. The malecon which is a sparkling promenade along the beach always has entertainment of some kind going on. We saw Tolteca Indians from Vera Cruz, go up this post with ropes which they twirl along the top of the platform they sit on.
There are five of them on the platform. Four each tie a rope to their foot and slowly unfurl the rope coming down while the lone guy on top plays the flute. As they spin around the pole the rope gets longer and longer till they finally reach the bottom. It's quite exhilarating to watch. It's an old Tolteca tradition.
Another most amazing thing is the balancing rocks. We've all seen "sculptures" of rocks on top of each other while walking in the forest or along the beach. This guy, a "rock whisperer" doesn't just do rocks he does boulders. It's unbelievable. He places boulders at the most incredible angles one on top of each other. We actually witnessed him placing a third boulder. He was wonderfully focussed and concentrated. I even saw him talking to the stone before taking a step back and there it stayed this huge rock at an inconceivable angle, it should have toppled but it didn't.
Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. We went back today but Sunday is apparently his day off because he wasn't there. We were told that every morning he topples his creations and starts over.
If we come back to P.V. I will definitely take a picture or two.

While walking I noticed a French cafe type restaurant and bakery. I wanted to see if the croissant and pain au chocolat passed the mustard. I talked to one of the waiters and he said the owners were French. We met both of them Sophie and Pierre who's the chef, one of the 250 best chefs in France we were told. Of course his wife said that and she's obviously biased.
Nevertheless the pain au chocolat was very good so we resolved to have our big night out on Saturday by treating ourselves to a French restaurant meal.
The whole thing was quite formal but the food was delicious and it was a novel experience for us and quite a change from our usual dining venues.

Today we went shopping for groceries at the big Soriana store. Melaque is quite small and it's sometimes difficult to find certain items. We will be cooking for three weeks there. It was important to get certain necessities.
We will probably be going back to Melaque again after our trip to the interior. We've really enjoyed our lovely time in Puerto Vallarta. Hope you do too, it's just a little glimpse I know.