Puerto Vallarta

Mar 10, 11, 12 PV

Tuesday morning we dropped into the Puerto Vallarta Spanish School (www.spanishschoolvallarta.com) during the coffee break and had a quick chat with Melchor, and made arrangements to get in touch later after he had checked with Marta, his wife. We also asked Melchor when his level 3 Spanish courses would be on in the fall. He advised that he had just finished the schedule and would be posting it on his web site shortly. He had it at home and would tell us when he next saw us.

It was also the day for grocery shopping and taking the laundry in. Later that day we ran into Bill and Margaret again as they were in the same park. They are interested in learning Spanish and we gave them the school information. They will probably return for level 1 in the fall. We will come for level 3 if the dated are reasonable. Who knows, we might meet them again.

Next day we called our old Canadian friends Bill and Anita whom we have known for some 25 years. They own Casa Anita ( www.mexdev.com ) vacation suites above the old town which they started building in I think 1964! They now are mostly retired having passed the management on to their daughter Sonya. On the phone Anita told us that it was their Margarita and bring-your-own BBQ night, so a trip back to the grocery store for some steaks, potatoes, cebollitas (very small white onions) and a bottle of wine made our dinner decision easy!

When we arrived we climbed the many stairs to the pool deck and visited with some of the guests, originating from Mexico, the USA and Canada. There was a barrel of Margaritas, the BBQ was hot, then the Mariachis arrived. Even Bill gave us a song which everyone enjoyed. It was good to see Bill and Anita again, they are always a lot of fun and very interesting to pass time with. Before we left we suggested that Bill get together with Melchor to put links on their websites to each other’s site. Unfortunately, Art managed to loose all the pics when trying to down load them from the card reader. Again. (One of our cameras (the "car camera") is broken and won't talk to the computer directly)

Thursday we arranged for Melchor and Marta and their two kids (almost grown kids now!) to join us in our motorhome for a pizza dinner.

To fill the day we went to the Vacas Grill for lunch and internet. While we caught up on our e-mails and checked that there was still money in the bank we had a good Mexican lunch, lemonade and a beer or two.

Art had to make a trip to the Men’s room and fortunately he had remembered the camera. We had visited this bar last year and regretted not taking a picture. The tap and drain are real as is the bucket. The rest of the character is paint on the wall. Art thinks the galvanized bucket has been replaced. It looks a little cleaner than it was a year ago. Imagine trying to get this past the inspectors at home!



Later that evening the family arrived. Yesi and Alex are in school (Preparatoria) until about 8:30 PM but since we always eat late this worked great for us. It was good to visit–we first met Melchor and Marta many years ago, even before they were married. Melchor was our very first Spanish teacher when we took a few hours of lessons during our very first trip to Mexico. We had invited him to the Wednesday Margarita and BBQ night at Casa Anita ( yes it’s a long tradition!) and he had brought his girlfriend Marta. Several years later we met the kids, when they were still babies; they are not really kids any more at 17 and 16 years old. Yesi will be going to University in Morelia next year–Marta I think is not looking forward to that! They are an extremely close and loving family. They all assure me that the kids have never fought or had angry words over anything! We know that Alex will miss his big sister, next year will be hard on them all but even though she will miss her family Yesi is excited about going and her parents are rightly very proud of her.

Melchor advised us that the level three Spanish course starts on November 3rd. We exchanged glances and Gillian said “well I guess that changes our plans for next year”. (We had planned to enter through Chihuahua again and travel more of the Colonial areas.) Within moments we told Melchor to put us on the list for November. Looks like we will be leaving Victoria around mid October again!

We made our goodbyes and quickly tidied up ready to go in the morning. Mazatlan is an all day trip.