Margaret and I have been to the Yucatan three times so thought it’d be good to try the Pacific Coast for a change, so landed in Puerto Vallarta, with a condo reservation in the town of Sayulita, around a 45-minute drive away.  We reserved a car like usual, thinking we’d be exploring little towns in the area.  However thanks to the people at Economy Rental Car acting like scheissters, we said no thanks and took a cab instead.

It was expensive at $75 however after that we realized we would’ve never needed a car again as the local buses are around $2 to $3, and so much easier than negotiating the narrow streets we encountered.  People tool around in golf carts and we ran into a few Mexican Standoffs that would take several minutes to untangle.

The name of our condo complex was Los Almendros and it has the largest pool in Sayulita, and joy of joys, it was heated and beautifully warm.  The condo was lovely inside and out with palapa roofs, large balconies, and each bedroom had a king sized bed.  A maid came every day to clean which we both found disconcerting as we’re the maids.

Somehow we thought Sayulita was a sleepy little fishing town, but it’s actually filled with surfers, tourists, and very loud music wherever you go.  Not sure why they have to blast it at that high of a decibel, but our condo was out of town so whenever our nerves had reached their limits of sound tolerance, we’d head back to our quiet place and warm pool.

We took the bus to the much smaller town of Punta Mita, which hasn’t got much going on except for fancy pants hotels which are guarded so that we ‘povos’ don’t accidentally get in, and then a short strip of hotels and restaurants along the beach.  We had lunch out every day, always on the beach at some new place, a lot of it seafood.

Another town we visited was San Pancho, also called San Francisco which is very adorable.  We thought we should’ve stayed there as it’s very small and quiet, but cute as a button.  However being cultural tourists we wondered where the town square was with the old church given the town was founded around 1500 by the Spanish.

We went into a small clothing store and asked the young girl about it, and she replied in good English no, there’s nothing like that.  This is a new town. So I guess it seemed more interesting to the tourist to tear that history down, put down cobblestones, and line the streets with the most adorable shops.

Our final outing was to the much larger town of Bucerias, and got off in what was ostensibly the centre of town, but didn’t see much except vendors, and hotels and restaurants lining the beach.  It must be a Quebecois Heaven of some kind as they had poutine on the menu, and right in front of us were two couples speaking French.

One moment of tension came when Margaret discovered the Westjet agent she’d spoken to the day prior had accidentally booked her a day early, so she freaked out and had to be on hold.  I said don’t worry, you’re getting the plane, and then as it was dinner time I went straight to a joint nearby called Pineapple Paradise.

I took two giant plastic glasses from the condo, and said can I have two pina coladas to go?  The waitress said sure, but these look really big, do you want doubles? And I said yes please, this is an emergency, and told her what happened.  I ordered two chicken sandwiches to go.

After a few minutes I had the sandies in a bag, and was carrying two very full, heavy cups of four ounces per drink of delicious elixir in each hand. I barely made it into the condo, and laughing and sweating handed one to Margaret who by then had the problem largely solved.  To whit: she got to fly home in First Class to make up for it all.