By the time we get around to sending this e-mail I suspect we will already be home. We fly back to California this afternoon (Jan 5). At the moment we are sitting in a quiet bar next to the Marina Vallarta toasting our ”last beers in Mexico” (unless, of course, the airport has a bar). We have hauled the boat, stowed all of our gear, stripped off the sails and running rigging, and put Mañana away for the winter. Four months of work ahead of us before we return in May to continue our trip south.
Christmas week in Mexico was a kick. We had a pot luck dinner at Philo’s bar in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. Philo provided 170 lbs of turkey and about 160 guests brought appetizers, desserts, casseroles, salads, etc. The guests were cruisers like us, expatriates living in La Cruz, tourists who had wandered into La Cruz for the holidays, and various bar flies. We sat with a couple from Canada who lived in a RV in the surf town of Sayulita, about 15 miles north of La Cruz. Entertainment was the house band led by aging rocker Philo, a spoon player, an aging and humorous washboard musician, a great Mexican saxophonist, and many “guest musicians”. The real holiday treat occurred after dinner, however. At about 7PM kids from all over town lined up at the door and Santa distributed gifts to every kid ( toddlers to teens) who came in. Kids lined up down the block with their parents waiting to see Santa. Over 400 Christmas gifts were distributed absolutely free, compliments of Philo and his friends. A very nice Christmas indeed. Not that we are creatures of habit, but we also found our way back to Philo’s for our New Years Eve celebration a week later.
Putting the boat away in Puerto Vallarta gave us a chance to explore still another marina. We sailed down to Puerto Vallarta from La Cruz to haul on January 2, and since we weren’t flying out until January 5 we got a hotel room for our last 3 days in Mexico. (Attached photo is view from hotel room). Each morning and evening we got to take a pleasant walk past all of the shops, restaurants, and bars on our way to and from the boatyard. We have a favorite place that we will recommend highly. Victor’s Café offers $1.50 beers that include a shot of tequila with every beer you order. The food is good, and Victor works the place morning, noon and night (frequently buying additional shots for the guests so he can drink a toast with them). This quickly became our favorite after work spot (the work being stowing and cleaning the boat) when we had dinner with 7 free shots of tequila AND free desserts.
This trip has taken us from San Diego to Cabo to La Paz to Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta with some stops in between. Warm weather, sunshine, relaxing evenings, new friends, new places, a new culture. We got remote anchorages as well as the larger tourist meccas of Mexico and we enjoyed both. Our Spanish is improving (although I can’t actually say that in Spanish) and we are becoming very comfortable in Mexico. Still we want to keep moving towards the Panama Canal and the trip east to the Caribbean and the Bahamas. May cannot come soon enough, but between now and then it will be home for work. How will we survive the bitter cold of Santa Cruz, CA?
