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Sunset
Sunset and Happy Hour on the beach After our first week at the school we decided to use our (first) long bank-holiday weekend to head to the beach and my first Mexican sea-side experience at the small town, now BIG tourist attraction, Puerto Vallarta. It is the first time I´ve been back to the Pacific since I left it at Tierra del Fuego in January, and it was sort of reassuring that it was still there, just as big as ever. The weather was perfect and Anne and I spent lots of time topping up our tans, swimming in the perfect-temperature water, and fending off the literally hundreds of beach hawkers selling hairbrades, henna tattoos, dresses, shirts, sarongs, necklaces, earings, personalised bracelets, cheap sunglasses, fruit, stolen watches, wooden animals, hammocks, rugs, and my own personal favourite - and the cause of my failure to lose weight and success in losing money - fish on a stick: a barbequed kabab of malin basted in chilli and served with lemon. Yummy! All of which is sold in English: "Hey dudes, what up? you want to buy ..., I give you good price, almost free, where in USA you from?" Very annoying! On a more positive note, as we sat on
Me beach
I can see the sea! the beach we could see the pelicans fishing, flying along then suddenly diving into the water for some lunch, fascinating.
On Sunday we joined a snorkling trip which was amazing. It is supposed to be one of the best places in teh Pacific for swimming because the dolphins which breed here all year round keep the sharks out of the bay. I just lay there on the surface of the water while below me swam fish in all sorts of shapes and colours. Some amazing bright bluey purple ones which changed colour with the light and had bright yellow fins were my favourite and there were also big fish which looked like exactly like stones. Unfortunetaly I never found out what these fish actually were - we were given an identification card but in a futile attempt to keep in my breakfast I abandonned trying to read it and so may never know, but on the grounds that none of you can correct me I shall call them Angel fish and Stone fish. We also saw eels and some really intesresting rocks with little red coral / anenome typey things growing on them and as I swam over the
Snorkle
Preparing to swim with the fishes (and feed them) rocks you could feel the temperature of the water change with depth. Pleasingly, I wasn´t the only one feeding the fishes as the boat sat in the bay and did what I hate all boats doing: bobbed. Anne was not well either, but neither of us matched the incredible display of projectile vomitting from our snorkling companion, the American fitness instructor, who much to the delight of the boat´s crew, threw up continuously for about an hour, barely got off the boat to swim, and then demanded to be taken to the nearest shore - about 3 miles from the centre of town.... and that´s why you shouldn´t stay in places with all you can eat breakfasts and open bars!
From the boat we also saw huge Manter-Rays, about 2-3m in ´wing-span´, just floating over the surface of the water - amazing!
We watched the sunsets from a bar on the beach where we could see the mock Spanish galleon doing its thing, with a beautiful silluette against the sky, including a small firework display afterwards every night. The evenings along the sea front are jam-packed with people (one of the downsides of this lovely town is that the
flying men
Those magnificent men on the end of their flying ropes once Mexican-tourist-orientated industry is now drowned out by some of the loudest Americans you´ve ever heard), and all the people bring out all the entertainment. Clowns perform for the children while patient (and strong) men try to build towers of upright-balenced stones. We listened to a violin-piano duo with their own electronic sound blaring out classics such as Robbie´s Angels, and groups of people made religious sand carvings. The best display though had to be the men on the end of the ropes. A traditional Mexican dance, I guess you could call it, in which 4 men spin around and around a pole to which they are attached by ropes while a 5th man stands at the top of the pole playing a flute. All very impressive. This was also the time for more dogey Mexican street food, in the form of pancakeswith chocolate sauce , corn on the cob and more food on a stick, this time a mango. Again, Yummy!
When we left the beach we felt like we´d had the best break ever. By the time we´d got back home to Guadalajara 10 hours and 4 buses later it felt like we needed a holiday. Mmm,
Mango
Mango on a stick great, another 5.30am start!
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Kate Grimes
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vallarta
Hey charlotte! Oh my word i am SO jealous of all your adventures! Glad to hear you are having such a fantastic time... Have been reading all your entries with v green eyes as i sit chained to my desk here back in cam! Make the most of it all. And keep writing - it is all bringing back v fond memories for me! love Kate xxxx