On the road to Melaque - observations

Before leaving Puerto Vallarta paid a last visit to our favorite restaurant for our traditional buffet breakfast at le Gilmar. The waitresses were lovely, the food was excellent, many options and the price was incredibly sweet at about $8.50 for two. You just can't beat that, our best price yet for breakfast.
The road to Melaque is another one of those sinuous roads that can make you road sick if you suffer at all from motion sickness. Happily neither of us are afflicted or we would have thrown up our cookies a long time ago. As you get away from P.V. the houses become grander and grander, lavish dome like constructions overhanging the ocean, lots of trees and flowers fill the mountain side and precipices which drop down to the ocean. There are very posh hotels as well along the way and possibly a few all inclusives tucked away here and there. The road leads to a pretty little cove called Mismaloya. Mismaloya is famous for having provided the set to John Houston's film Night of the Iguana. The film is notorious for sparking the torrid love affair between co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Few have heard of this film nowadays although if you're at all a film aficionado you will surely know of it. Not a masterpiece but definitely worth a peek.
We didn't stop at Mismaloya and continued on our journey to Puerto Vallarta's botanical garden which was just along the way.
We were the first visitors at the garden on that day. It's not a huge garden but it does have some interesting varieties of palms, like the Bismarck palm (took a picture), vanilla, coffee
bougainvila and some species of orchids.
Since there are over 10,000 species of orchids this was not a representative sample, there were only about 20 or so varieties but they were pretty nonetheless. The botanical garden we visited in Quito/Ecuador had hundreds of different varieties by contrast.
We had never actually seen a vanilla plant. It's a vine like plant and the vine looks like a very thick rope quite large in diameter, smooth and green. It wasn't flowering and we didn't see any pods. Vanilla is the most labour intensive spice in the world which explains and justifies its premium price.
The coffee plants didn't have any berries which are red before being harvested to be roasted.
Mexico no longer produces a lot of coffee, most of it is grown in the Chiapas area of Mexico.
Colombia is now one of the largest exporter of coffee in the world and coffee is the second highest traded commodity after oil, no wonder it's called liquid gold.
We continued on our route along this winding highway,the sun was high in the sky, it was very hot and our air conditioning started acting up or not acting at all. It blew some vapour through the vents and then nada. We contemplated the rest of our trip driving with no air condition and it wasn't a pretty picture. Yes we're spoiled gringos!
In any case we opened the windows, shut the air down and about 30 minutes later tried it again.
It worked just fine. It must have been having a moment.
Listened to some good music along the way. There's something to be said for listening to early Stones blasting Sympathy for the devil as you're rocketing down a Mexican highway. A good play list is a must. We have Bob Marley for a little reggae, Neil Young and Van Morrison for the nostalgia factor and their great music to sing along to. Los Super Seven is a great album filled with wonderful Spanish tunes. Stan wanted Cat Stevens, at times too sugary for my taste, although he does have a few classics. Some CD's I mixed as well we brought along, my tastes are pretty eclectic there's a bit of everything. Still listening to Nouvelle Vague, Nissa made that CD for me. We bought some latin mixes, the best of radio 2010.
Shakira is number 1 with Loca, it's a great tune. Camila is THE rock group of the moment in Mexico, their tune Besame is really good too, check it out on you tube. Lady Gaga is huge with Alejandro. We love sampling new music in Mexico. Bought Los Tigres Del Norte I've been wanting one of their CD's for a while and they're hard to find.
Regarding the violence in Mexico, it's definitely real although it mostly affects some border towns with the violence seeping into other parts of Mexico. Recently there was a huge stand off near the town of Morelia in Michoacan with buses and cars burned by the narcos to prevent the federales from entering the city. They did kill the main head of that particular cartel but it was pretty brutal, some innocent people were killed or injured in the crossfire.
The tabloid newspapers are always filled with lurid photos of violent incidents. That's typical of this kind of reporting which is the same all over Latin america.
The town of Melaque is pretty quiet in that respect, it's too small to matter. The town has been improved since our last visit two years ago. It's cleaner, they have a recycling program for plastic, they've leveled off the road in front of the bungalows, taken care of the swamp all in all it looks pretty good.
Bungalow Itzal where we will be staying for the next 3 weeks comes with a kitchen, bathroom, living room/eating area, 2 big bedrooms and a nice big bathroom. There's a little pool at the back. It will cost $550.00 for 3 weeks, really cheap. All the bungalows are occupied by Canadians mostly from B.C. and one young mother from Quebec with her two daughters. It's a nice ambiance. Our friend Max is the on site manager. His wife Carol had to go back to Quesnel to take care of her mom who is ill. She should be back around the first week of January.
That's it for now. I don't think I'll be updating my blog that much for the next three weeks or so unless something momentous needs reporting, reflecting on.
From Melaque Feliz Navidad y Propero Ano Nuevo a todo.

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.