Sitting on a giant Vallarta luxury bus & riding through the twisting mountain roads of estado Jalisco is quite a thing, The mountains and greenery are amazing and the driving terrifying. A yellow sign shows a black bull as a warning to drivers. The country side is predictably like my memory of Costa Rica, lush green Pacific jungle. There’s a remarkable amount of half assed construction, half finished construction, abandoned construction, lots of cinder blocks & tin roofs, then huge rocky mountains and giant flat plains. It's an amazing place
Our last couple of days in Sayulita were, like the rest of our two week stay, fantastic. Thursday we went to the beach all day and I finally got some sun. LuAnn has been chasing me around with 300 proof sunblock but she finally ran out LOL Another great beach day even though it rained a bit the night before.
Once again I was struck by the touts. When you have to say “No, gracias” 5000 times a day it kinda takes some of the fun out of it, plus you feel bad for the little kids pressed into selling this crap. A few of them were nice and funny but mostly that part was a drag. The best was the blonde hippie girl walking down the beach singing, ostensibly to her self, “Wow, have I got some really great weed in this bag for sale. I sure have some great weed for sale.” Hilarious. I wish I had recorded her or caught the tune anyway. Lots of weed smokers around but all very low key. The bands playing in the bars were pretty reliably great on any given night, singing original music in spanish, lots of reggae and latin beats.
The beach musicians (myself and my friends excluded of course, people bought us drinks without being asked) were reliably awful. How many choruses of La Bamaba you gonna sing guys? And can you tune your guitars and get some rhythm please? Jesus. The guy playing trumpet while his kid oompahed a bass drum and snare howling like a monkey was LuAnn’s special favorite hate. Bonus points for the dreadlocked white guy playing his djembe like he was soloing for the grateful dead for hours. Oy.
One exception was this jolly toothless fellow with his pals on violin and guitar. They sang traditional Mexican music and were thoroughly bitchin. I would have kept giving them money but economy forbid.
After the beach we went with some trepidation to the Italian restaurant Mamma Mia, and despite my reservations (ha!) it was great. We both had Seafood stuffed ravioli and a nice montalpucciano and it was delightful. Dinner was capped by an enormous fireworks show and a slow stroll home.
Friday night I had a street burger and LuAnn got a fish burrito at Taco Revolucion (the only place we went to twice) and walking back to the square we saw several large black horses with long manes all done up with their sombrero wearing caballeros getting quite drunk on Corona light cans (which they poured on the horses, evidently to cool them off?). Here is a video from a different daytime session:
At the appointed time a large band of young men played mariachi music and the cowboys got the horses to dance. LuAnn had apparently heard of this but it was new to me. Crazy! There was a female caballera (?) is a white dress and Frieda Kahlo makeup and she was best of all. We watched for about an hour and then walked back up the hill to finish packing,
Saturday morning we rose at 6AM, showered, finished the last packing, rolled down the hill and got a taxi to Bucerias, where Maria at the Vallarta plus terminal complimented my Spanish. That's been happening a lot and I wonder if most Americans they meet are so bad that I seem good or if they are just being nice. Federico at the Guadalajara station said the same thing after a long chat in Spanish about American and Mexican politics. Maybe I'm actually getting it?
Speaking of getting it, I haven't blogged much because from the second we reached San Miguel De Allende I have had the worst stomach flu ever (let's call it Las Turistas) with fever and many trips to the bathroom. 5 straight days. That combined with the mile-high thin air here has made me less than enthusiastic about the place. Therefor the next post concerning San Miguel De Allende will be by LuAnn. Take it away LuAnn.
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