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2013 February 21 Off to Our Desert Isle

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So, we were all sitting around one day and Bob mentioned that a buddy of his said that you could rent a boat in Punta Perula and they'd take you out to some really good snorkling.  One thing led to another, and pretty soon Deb and Jacquie and Bob and I were in Bob's car headed for Punta Perula!     Another busy day on the beach at Punta Perula Punta Perula is a big hour north of Melaque, and about 2 hours south of Puerto Vallarta.  We were there last month with Kelly and Cheryl to visit our friends Rich and Evelyn, who have their 5th-wheeler pulled up beside a huge palapa right beside the beach.  Of course we had to stop off for beers and an extended chat, and then it was off to find The Boat Guy.  You may imagine that this would be easy, but in small-town Mexico often not so much.  First, we went to where all the boats were, but of course there was nobody around as the typical Mexican fisherman, when he is not actually in his boat on the water, is eat...
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2013 January 31 Guadalajara Three

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After our first 2 days here it was pretty apparent that we weren't going to even be able to skim the surface of this place in 3 days, so we extended our stay for another day in order to take a walking tour of the historical section.  But first, it's Shopping Day!  Wait a minute, wasn't that yesterday?  Cancel that thought, EVERY day in Guadalajara is Shopping Day!  Off we went on a shopping tour of Tonala and Tlaquepacque.  (That's "toe-naw-LAW and t-lacky-PACK-y").  These are nearby towns that have been eaten by Guadalajara and now form part of the city, but they are still cultural and artisan centres in their own right.   Tonala is definitely an experience, it's basically a sidewalk under-the-tarps market on the side of a very busy main thoroughfare, but all of the business places behind it are in on the action and the whole thing is I don't know how big.  Our tour bus was a double-decker so of course we rode in the open top which was very nice....
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2013 February 17 Not Dead Yet

Hi, I'm back.  That was an interesting 2-week hiatus.   My fancy-shmancy Nexus 7 woke up dead the morning we went to Guadalajara, which is about 2-3 weeks ago.  I thought it might be in a coma, but now I'm pretty sure it's stone dead.  Either the charging-thing inside the machine is hooped, or all the magic drained out of one of the slots overnight.  That puts us down to one machine, and Deb is hooked on a new game.....  grrr.  The Nexus is still on warranty, so no worries.  It quickly became apparent that I was going to have to call (on the telephone) to get anything started on a replacement.  That's always fun for me, but with just one hearing aid it's absolute bliss.  Eventually I got Omar from Iran, who is the warranty guy for the Chinese tablet sold by an American company to a hapless Canadian.  After I finished explaining my situation to Omar he said 'no worries, just give me the serial number off the box that the tablet was s...
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2013 January 30 Guadalajara Two

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Some general notes about the city for those who haven't been here.  Guadalajara is Mexico's second-largest city, located in the Central Valley which is in the mountains at 5,200 feet.  This gives it a terrific climate, with 9 months of the year in the mid-20s and 3 months around 30; overnight lows vary from 10-15 degrees.  In other words, it's spring/summer pretty much all year.   It was founded just under 500 years ago, and has a magnificent historical section and is loaded to the gunnels with art and culture, which of course is pretty much wasted on me.  But the buildings are cool.   The scale of this place is also pretty daunting.  If you took all of the people living in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Yukon, the NWT, and Nunavut, you could put them into Guadalajara and have room left over.  Of course you'd have to take all the Mexicans out first, but you get what I mean.  It's big.   Today was Shopping Day, as Deb had h...
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2013 January 29 Guadalajara One

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Well, the last week has been extremely eventful and not without its stresses.   Last Monday night I was off with my buddy Bob playing Texas Holdem with 9 other like-minded snowbirds.  Bob won, again, but that's another story.  Whilst I was there my left hearing aid started acting up, with the sound cutting in and out.  By Tuesday morning it was completely verlumpt.  This is bad, as I have a tough enough time with TWO hearing aids, so getting it fixed became the immediate priority.  No problem, I thought; I'll just get someone in Manzanillo to fix it.  Not!  OK, how about Puerto Vallarta, which is a mere 4 hours away by bus.  After a day or so of searching, it turns out that there are two places there and they both send their stuff out of town to be fixed.  OK, how about Colima, which is 2.5 hours out past Manzanillo?  I found a guy, but he sends his stuff out of town too.  So, where do these folks all send their stuff to? ...
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2013 January 16 In The Trenches

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Humanitarian aid is a pretty big deal amongst the long-stay snowbirds (is that a redundancy?) in most places, and that's certainly the case here!  Our friends Cheryl and Kelly have been doing work down here for 3-4 years, and this year Deb and I brought down 3 - 50 lb bags of food, clothing, shoes, etc whilst Cheryl brought down 10 bags!  The target for all this largesse is the Indios, the Mexican first nations.  They are truly a breed apart down here; the adults are often under 5' tall, they are very poorly educated, and their only employment options are stoop labour in the fields and perhaps selling trinkets on the street or the beach.  With the ongoing lack of education, future generations are pretty much screwed as well.   Our friend Chuck, who is from Indio, California (rather droll, don't you think?  From Indio, working with the Indios?  Sigh.  Never mind then.), is a Rotary Person and he raised a bunch of money up north and brought it ...
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2013 January 12 La Manzanilla

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Deb and I were muttering to each other a few days ago that we were long overdue for an adventure.  We were chatting idly about taking a bus to La Manzanilla, which is a pretty little town about 30 minutes up the coast, when our friends Cheryl and Kelly overheard us and said 'hey, we haven't been there for a while either!'  So of course next morning Cheryl and Kelly showed up in their trusty jeep, and of we went to La Manzanilla.   One would be tempted to think that it's just another Mexican beach resort with cheap food, cold beer, and miles of pristine beach.  Well, yeah, it has those too.... (perhaps the best beach in Mexico!) but La Manzanilla has crocodiles!  When we were here 8 years ago there was a bayou (river that is turned into a lake because of a sand bar at the beach) that was just full of honking big crocodiles and caymans.  There was a 3-foot chainlink fence keeping them off the street, but they could still wander onto the beach and spoil y...
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