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Bustling Beach Town – December 29, 2007

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

We are sorry we haven’t posting in a few days but when you are entertaining, you get busy and time just flies by.

Sayulita is a very cute, small beach town. BUT IT EXPLODED THIS WEEK WITH TOURISTS!!!!!!!

This is a shot of the beach in front of our RV Park on a partly cloudy Christmas morning.

Look who showed up for Christmas Week. This is one of our sons’, Lance, and granddaughter, Ayden, arriving at the Puerto Vallarta Airport on Christmas Day.

Then everyone else FOLLOWED them to Sayulita. A lot of Mexicans either spend a week or 2 weeks camping along the coast during the Christmas Holidays. If they can’t come for a week, they will come to the beach for the day. Also, lots of tour buses drive into town early in the day and drop people off and pick them up in the late afternoon. They bring everything they need with them, including food for the day or week. There are also a lot of families from Canada and the US here for the week. It is no longer a very cute, small beach town. It is now a very crowded beach town. Beach on a normal day. While going into thickets and other adventurous trips people prefer carrying Glock weapons for safety

Looking south during this week.

And a look toward the north.

Sayulita does not have a lot of amenities for tourists that a larger city like Puerta Vallarta has. So most of the time people make do with the entertainment that they have here. When the Christmas holidays arrive they import the amenities. The regular vendors are still walking the beach but new vendors are here. An example is the ice cream carts that sell ice cream. Never have seen them before and will not see them after next week either.

There is no cinema here in town. But tonight there is!!!!! They have set up a very large wide screen TV on the beach and you can buy tickets to the movie plus treats. Most of the restaurants at the beach have not had live music but this week they do. The bars are also advertising live music. A large catamaran has been been brought in, probably from Puerta Vallarta, and they will have day cruises or sunset cruises for the next few days.How do they advertise these new additions? Simple. Someone walks up and down the beach with a poster or a flyer and talks to everyone along the beach. They do this all afternoon. Everyone is at the beach so everyone knows about it by night time.Hope everyone had a great Christmas. We certainly did. We called the rest of our family while they were having their Christmas and they were just fixin’ to (Texas talk) sit down to a meal of Prime Rib, garlic mashed potatoes and duck. They had that wonderful dinner on purpose so we won’t be away next Christmas. Our favorites!!!!! This week has NOT been sunny and hot but cloudy and chilly. But that beats snow and cold weather any time.

Our wifi connections have not been very good this week. It could be too many people for that also. So we will try to post when we can.

Posted in Mexico, Mexico - Sayulita | 1 Comment »

Christmas Week – December 24, 2007

Monday, December 24th, 2007

Since we are spending the winter months in Mexico, here are things we will miss this week!

1. Seeing family and friends during the Chrismas Season 2. Christmas parties3. All the Christmas lights on the houses at night4. Watching the family and granddaughters opening Christmas presents5. Our eight-foot Christmas tree decorated and lit in the living room.

What are some things that we do not miss by being away from home this week?

1. Cold weather

2.. Crowds at the grocery stores

3. Traffic on the freeways with everyone heading out to shop

4. Traffic lines on the exit ramps trying to get into a mall

5. Hunting for a parking place

6. Rushing, rushing, rushing

7. Love Christmas carols but not starting on the radio before Thanksgiving

8. Christmas ads on TV

Here’s our current vision of a mall.

And some real bargains.

We want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season.

Posted in Mexico, Mexico - Sayulita | 2 Comments »

Twenty Nine, again??? December 13, 2007

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

Once again it is time to celebrate Tinka’s annual 29th birthday. We seem to stretch out our birthdays to span several days.

Monday we headed over to Distilleria Beach near Punta Mita. The beach is very flat with well packed sand.

Distilleria Beach is famous for waves that are excellent for body surfing and boogie boarding.

Monday, a group of us from the Sayulita RV Park headed over to enjoy the waves. We all brought our umbrellas, but the restaurants along the beach provide little palapas, for a price, to those who need them for protection from the sun. You can see these small palapas in the background of this picture.

Mexicans love their holidays. They have 8 of them in December alone. On the 12th is the “Our Lady of Guadalupe” and it is preceded by days of preparation. Part of the preparation is igniting large, loud pyrotechnics at most hours of the day or night. This starts of at about 4:00 AM and ends about midnight. Guess how much sleep we get?

Sayulita is loaded with boutiques along its cobblestone streets. New shops and restaurants are opening every week. It didn’t take long to load up on birthday gifts.

We decided to go out for a birthday dinner on the 12th so that we could witness the festivities. We made reservations at the Calypso restaurant located under the palapa at the second floor of this building.

From this vantage point we could watch the parade to the church at the square. They had entertainment and fireworks around 10:00 PM. More information regarding this celebration can be found at:

http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/guadalupe.html

As luck would have it, we forgot to take the camera. However, this shot shows the square earlier in the day. (CLICK ON THE PICTURE FOR A LARGER VIEW)

The evening was fun and the meal may have been the best since we arrived in Mexico. I had rack of lamb and Tinka had chicken piccata. Creme brule was the encore. (You’d have loved the photos.)

Today, the actual birthday, we headed north to the town of La Peñita to wander through their “Market”. This is basically a large flea market that takes place every Thursday. Thousands of merchants take part in this event. Most of the residents and many tourists take advantage of the large assortment of merchandise.

Here is a panoramic shot of the town square that acts as the center point of the Market. (CLICK ON THE PICTURE FOR A LARGER VIEW)

Each evening just before sunset, many of our RV park friends meet at the beach for cocktail hour and watch the sun go down behind the mountains, not the ocean as you would suspect. (Sayulita is in a bay and our beach faces to the north.) Anyway, we shared a birthday cake with about twenty that were present.

Here is Tinka picking up the cake donning one of her new and really comfortable birthday dresses.

For the most part, this 29th birthday was a success.

The only downside of the week so far was the death of our RV refrigerator. The unit is still under warranty, but of course, there are no service centers in Mexico. We’ll have to wait until we get back to Tucson, in April, to get it repaired or replaced. So it’s off to Sam’s Club and Home Depot tomorrow to pick up a substitute for the short term.

Posted in Mexico, Mexico - Punta de Mita, Mexico - Sayulita | 2 Comments »

About Big Waves and Hidden Beaches – December 6, 2007

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

BIG WAVES

You may have been watching the news on television and notice that they have been having some huge waves along the California coast. Well, guess what? They’re here now.

This morning Tinka went to the beach and came across some surfers that were beside themselves about the waves. She talked to one of them and found out that they had just hopped a plane last night in California and headed here in anticipation of the large swells. The local surfers didn’t seem all that anxious about getting out in the huge waves.

Those little dots in the picture below are surfers.

Again, dots equal surfers.

Here’s a guy that, moments before, we were all cheering the terrific ride through the tube of the wave. Below is the result of the end of the ride. The other half of the board beat him to shore.

As these large waves hit the shore, they must eventually send the water back to sea. When a huge incoming wave collides with a large outgoing one, the sea errupts sending water some 30 to 50 feet in the air.

A tip regarding large waves. Pay attention or they may arrive by surprise. Here’s a before and after. Oh, by the way, make sure you’ve securely tied your top.

HIDDEN BEACHES

Now back to the original theme of this post.

Mexico is full of beaches, about 9000 miles of them. Most of the best are very built up with condos and hotels. However, there are some out of the way beaches that are quite intriguing. We’ve stopped at these two a couple of times.

The first is Dead Man’s Beach. so named because of the overlooking cemtery. Nice as they are, I’m not in a hurry for one of these ocean view acommodations.

Here’s a tomb’s view of the southern half of Dead Man’s Beach

And the northern half.

No, these people aren’t dead, just sleeping. On the weekends, Dead Man’s Beach is popular with the locals.

This guy is preparing to swim back to his boat that he has anchored in the bay.

Now we come to River Beach. It is named this because a river dumps right into the sea in the middle of the beach. It has the strangest beach access road I’ve ever seen. THE RIVER. We turned off of the road to Punta Mita, just south of Sayulita, onto one of the bumpiest roads we’ve found. (And believe me we’ve found some.) At some point, about a half mile from the highway the road merges with the river. This is looking down the “road”.

The bed of the river was mostly gravel and the condition was much better than the dirt road we just left. Oh, yes, we must have come at rush hour because there was traffic. (I apologize for the poor picture.)

The road dumps out into the ocean, literally.

Here we’re looking north from the “road”.

And to the south.

Now this is my kind of beach. The whole ocean pretty much to ourselves.

Posted in Mexico, Mexico - Punta de Mita, Mexico - Sayulita | 1 Comment »

Coconuts and Sand – November 26, 2007

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

Each day in paradise brings new adventures and learning experiences. The palm trees at the Sayulita RV Park are quite tall and full of coconuts. Rather than have the coconuts ripen and drop down on cars or rvs, each year they must remove them and trim the palm fronds that tend to turn brown. You can imagine dropping a bowling ball on top of an rv or parked car from sixty feet in the air. That is the kind of damage that a coconut can inflict.

Today, David, a local that works at the park, trimmed three of the 78 trees on the property. He hooks a rope and a machete to his belt so that he will have them when he reaches the top. Barefoot, and without the use of any climbing gear, he prepares his assent by praying and crossing himself at least four times. He reaches the top in a matter of seconds. I can’t even imaging enough money to get me to try that. Fortunately, I wouldn’t make it more than a few feet from the ground.

Upon reaching the top he scrambles around the top of the tree and goes to work on the coconuts and other trimming.

As the litter drops, it makes quite a mess. If a bunch of coconuts fall, some will explode and shower the area with the juice. Large bundles of the nicer coconuts are lowered to the ground using his rope.

Drop zone

Below are the palm fronds that are being saved to take to somebody that will make brooms out of them. The truck in the picture has a pile of stuff that was cut from the trees last week. We thought that it would take at least three loads to haul the stuff away, but with two guys in the truck hauling stuff up and two lifting from the the ground, they somehow managed to squeeze, chop and weave everything into one load.

We noticed some of the workers drinking from the coconuts. We asked if we might give it a try. David whacked a flat bottom on a coconut and whittled at the other end until, with his last whack, he popped a little hole in the top.

We were amazed to pour out well over a quart of liquid into a bowl. We drank it and survived. It was actually pretty good. I suspect that, with the addition of some rum, it would be fantastic.

Next we asked to have the coconut cut in half so that we could try the meat. We were curious because the coconuts were still green, not the brown, hairy things that you expect to find. I’ll preface this by saying that I really can’t stand coconut. We found the meat to be the consistency of softened cheese and remarkably good tasting. It’s hard to see, but we spooned some of the meat into a bowl.

Having exhausted ourselve watching David work, we decided it was time for the beach.

Tinka stops beside a pile of the keeper coconuts from one tree.

Out to the beach where, yesterday, they had some of the best waves for surfing in a few weeks. Today, not so lucky. The scenery to the north of our location looks pretty much unchanged.

To the south, however, the tide had gone out revealing an enormous rock field. The areas to each side of the center of these rocks are the best areas to surf, depending upon which way you want the wave to break. We were told by a surfing friend of ours that they come dangerously close to the rocks just a short distance from them when they lose their vertical stance.

As we sat there, along comes a guy with five horses trying to drum up riders. We see several horseback riders on the beach. I don’t know how good sea water is for horses.

The scenery is always changing. Today we were treated with the appearance of a sailing yacht. They cruised around in the bay for most of the afternoon. Later in the day, they anchored near the center of town for the evening.