Strangers in Paradise

No discharge sign in Chacala

12-31-2010 in La Cruz

Wow, what an adventure!!..Alex and Kaitlyn arrived Dec.29th as planned. But NO RONELLE!!!..Seems she had a passport meltdown and required 3 trips to LAX to finally board the plane Dec. 30th. She IS persistant!! I had moved the boat to Marina Vallarta a few days prior so as to be close the airport.


After we picked up Ronelle at the airport we went shopping at Wal-Mart. Yep, this is the best place to provision. The girls went wild in the produce section while Alex and I exchanged knowing glances. A taxi full of groceries and back to the boat we went. After a fantasic Italian dinner overlooking the marina we all crashed.


The next morning, New Years Eve, we motored the five miles north to La Cruz where I got us a slip for the day/night so we could go into the small town there for some celebration. We had dinner at a local joint called Philo's. The owner is an Ex-pat that sailed into town one day and never left. La Cruz is very rustic, with cobble stone streets, friendly locals and sever nice restaurants. Philo also plays in the house band and Alex was interested in one of the players banging on a washboard. Complete with cymbols and cow bells. I expect he'll have one of his own soon enough. Philo's was packed with Ex-Pats that made even me feel young. We stayed till about 10-30 then walked back to the boat. We stayed up long enough to do the Happy New Year thing, then hit the sack so we could leave the next morning for Chacala.


Chacala is a small village about 60 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. It's name means " where there are Shrimp" in Nahuatl. In the 1980's Dr. Laura del Valle,  a Zen Buddhist,  built a lodge for medical
students to come and stay while helping the poor. It retains the rustic flavor, with cobblestone streets and open markets. We were there during the holidays, so it was packed with Mexican tourists. We explored the town a bit and Ronelle made an appointment at a spa for a massage at a place we had seen from the boat. Alex found some interesting photo opportunities (see pix).


Ronelle and Kaitlyn, being the more adventerous ones went snorkling several times. The water was a bit murky, about 73 F and calm for the most part. Alex threw iron at the local fish and caught a nice Bonita, which I quickly turned into Ceveche'.MMMMM!!!

Iguanas in love....

Crocs

Paradise Village Pool

Underwater grotto

Girls in the hot tub

After 3 beautiful days in Chacala we un-glued the anchor from the bottom and headed back south for Puerto Vallarta. As we had been to two different marinas already, I took the crew to Paradise Village. This place has everything a fine resport shoold have. Fine marina, shopping malls, hotels, pool and a beautiful beach. If you were taken there blindfolded, you might not even know you were in Mexico. We did, however, have time to take a long dingy ride up the estuary up from the Marina, on a jungle cruise. It goes on for a few miles. We were looking for crocadilles. As we can around one sharp bend, we saw two sitting on a bank. As we neared them, they both were spooked and took off into the water, straight at us!!!   Everybody screamed for a second till we realized they were more afraid of us than we were of them. Ronelle, ever the perpared one, caught it all on video.  We also saw many giant iguanas of different colors. Even two that we caught doing the wild thing, LOL

Everybody had a great time taking pictures poolside ( and underwater, thanks to Ronelle), walking on the beach, having our last supper at sunset, beachside. All quite serene and romantic. We all seemed to avoid talking about time running out.........

And then , suddenly it seemed, they were gone.................