Puerto Vallarta - Part 1

My time in Puerto Vallarta can be divided into three parts;

1. What I did before the Inter Americas Hash 2007 (IAH07)
2. What I did on the IAH07
3. What I did after the IAH07

This blog entry covers the first part, what I did before the IAH07. I am consulting my lawyers about what I can and can't say about parts 2 and 3.

First of all, I can here you saying "Where is Puerto Vallarta?" Well it is in Mexico, or to be precise in the state of Jalisco on the Pacific coast. Click here to see a map of where it is.

I flew in from Dallas Fort Worth on Sunday 26th August 2007. The flight was only a little over 2 hours, but American Airlines extended their meanness from having to pay for booze to having to pay for food too - I had bought sandwiches in DFW so I wasn't too upset by this.

When we landed I was about the last off the plane so the queue at immigration was short and my bag was on the carousel when I came through to the booking hall. Beyond customs it was pretty chaotic with hundreds of people trying to attract my attention to sell me tours, hire cars, hotel rooms, taxis and god knows what else.

Fortunately I had read about this on the internet and using my experience of Manilla and Bangkok Airports I kept my eyes front and marched purposely to the end of the hall to change some travellers cheques and then turned round and gave P$220 (£11) to the taxi lady for a registered taxi ride to my hotel.

My first impressions were that this place was incredibly similar to the Philippines and that was enforced by the state of the road and the chaos on it. The drive took me past the venue (the Krystal) of the IAH07 and took about 25 minutes right along the promenade through the centre of PV to my hotel, the Emperador which was one of the last in the town.

and was shown to my room (Room 4) which is on the ground floor. To get to it you leave the hotel turn left through a gate, down a short corridor and there you are. It is large and pretty much as described but a little run down all the same. Considering I am only paying $62 a night I don’t suppose I can complain. It is certainly large with a huge bed, large sofa, table 4 chairs, fridge, cooker and sink, small bathroom




and a large balcony overlooking the busy beach. There is a little pier just up to the right from where the locals where fishing, taking tour boats and generally hanging out in their hundreds.



I unpacked a little and then, realising that the room hadn’t got a safe took, my valuables to reception. They then took me across the road to yet another part of the hotel where I could put the valuables in a safety deposit box.

Back in the room I then set up my p.c. and discovered that there was no internet access. I eventually discovered that, bizarrely enough, the wireless internet only works in the lobby, which is a mere 5 metres away. I tried everything to get it to work in the room, but nothing, a short walk of about 10 paces and it works fine with lots of power.

When I had finally unpacked and got everything safely put away, or in the case of my p.c. bolted down I decided to go for a bit of an explore and hit the beach and strolled along it getting hotter and hotter (I was still in my jeans). I liked the beach; it was full of Mexicans enjoying the sea and lined with small hotels like mine and there were some interesting looking bars and restaurants on it too.

I was just about to turn round when to my amazement I spotted to of my friends from Brussels EZ Over (Jude) and Spare Rib (Kevin) walking along the pavement not 10 metres from me. I rushed over and frightened them half to death by greeting them with such vigour, but I was amazed to see them. I knew they were in town, as they are on the IAH07 mismanagement committee, but to run into them in such a large place after only about 40 minutes in the town was incredible. They told me they had just flown in from Mexico City and were going for something to eat and drink. They invited me to tag along. We walked back into the centre of the ‘Downtown’ district and went to ‘Bubba Gumps’ which turned out to be Forrest Gump themed sea food restaurant (part of a chain).


The food was excellent. I was rather hot, so I was glad of the a/c, but both Jude and Kevin thought it was a bit strong despite the fact we were sitting by the open front of the restaurant. We had a load of beer and cocktails as well as some excellent shrimps. We chatted for hours. Eventually at about 10pm we decided it was time to go having got there at about 5pm.

We walked back through PV together past some of the amazing statues that line the seafront






and through the old centre of town.


It turned out that EZ and Spare were living just a block or two away from my hotel, but they were moving to the Krystal the next day.

I slept well that night though I was aware of it pouring with rain in the night and that an overflow pours directly onto my balcony making an impressive splashing sound audible over the a/c.

I was awoken by the alarm at 8:30am on Monday and I got dressed and went out in search of somewhere to eat breakfast. It soon occurred to me that I had very little cash on me, so I had to return to the hotel and get two more travellers cheques and a cash-point card out before setting off again. I stopped at a nearby HSBC cashpoint and withdrew P$1000 (about £50) and then found a nice looking place for breakfast nearby where I had orange juice, fruit with yoghurt and coffee. The waitress was very apologetic about the orange juice she said it was green, not orange, I said that wasn’t a problem for me. When she brought it, it was in fact yellow, but tasted fine. The regular tourists obviously complain about their orange juice not looking orange enough!

After breakfast I went back to the hotel where I phoned Vallarta Adventures (the tour company recommended on the IAH07 website) to book a PADI Open Water certification course (the prime reason for coming to PV early). All went well until I suggested that I was entitled to a discount because I was on the IAH07. After a little confusion I was handed over to a girl called Jessie who I had seen emails from on the IAH Email Group. She was extremely helpful and told me I had to book the course over the internet to qualify for the discount. We agreed I should do that immediately and she would phone me back. I did the booking as suggested and within 20 minutes had a confirmation email from Jessie asking me to phone her again. She confirmed everything and told me to start reading the PADI book I had brought with me, as I had to have finished it before the course started which was a surprise. After the call she emailed me the full programme.

• Monday (today) to read the PADI diving manual and do all the exercises in it,
  
• Tuesday the pool based training with George (Jorge, “Horgay”) at the Dreams resort and
• Boat trips for open water dives on Wednesday and Thursday

Wow, that put me under the gun.

Having done all this and got all the emails etc sorted out I went out again with my PADI book to cash the travellers cheques and to see if I could find (a) somewhere to study and (b) a supermarket. I found a bank quite quickly and cashed the travellers cheques and then wandered almost the full length of the Downtown drag looking for somewhere suitable to study. I eventually settled on a restaurant on the beach not too far from the hotel having walked a fair distance without seeing anywhere else suitable i.e. quiet, shady with cheap beer and good food, or a supermarket.



I settled down in the shade with a bucket of 3 Pacifico beers and an order of shrimp chivichi(?) which is raw shrimp marinated in lime juice with chilli and chopped salad. I decided to start from the beginning of the book again as Jessie had told me I had to answer all the questions at the back of each chapter before tomorrow.


I read and read and read and did all the exercises and ploughed my way through 2 very complex chapters. Eventually after about two and half hours with only 2 chapters to go decided go back to the room. I didn’t stay there long as I reread my email from Jessie and discovered that I needed a printed copy of it too get on the tours and I couldn’t print from the hotel.

I found a local cyber café and printed it off there and then went off to find a supermarket. This time I followed the back road and in just about the centre of the downtown district I eventually found what I was looking for.

The supermarket was large and chaotic, but it had what I wanted, some coffee, milk, grapefruit juice, beer, yoghurt, bananas and peaches. In the fruit and vegetable section there was an amazing array of different types of chillies for sale as well as some fruit and vegetables I couldn’t identify including a large green fruit that looked like a very squashed green grapefruit, though felt very hard and a rather odd looking pale brown root vegetable a bit like a swede.

It was great to see something typically Mexican rather than put on for the tourists. I was very much the odd man out there, but loved being there all the same. The walk back to the room seemed endless with the heavy bags. I would have got a taxi, but all the ones I saw were empty standing by the side of the road or full when they drove past.

Once back in the room I congratulated myself for the success of the shopping expedition with a beer and then studied for another hour. During that time the weather, which wasn’t great deteriorated and it started to pour down. Despite that I took some photos of some large squabbling seabirds (frigate birds?).


By 8pm I was shagged out with all the studying and I decided to leave the last chapter to the morning. I had a shower, changed and went out in my rain jacket with a novel to find somewhere to eat. I had decided I wanted spare ribs, and I wandered around until the strength of the rain made me take Hobson’s choice as it started coming down in stair-rods. To my surprise the restaurant I took cover in had today’s special as BBQ’ed Spare Ribs! Excellent value at P$110 with a pudding of banana pancakes throw in. Could they read my mind? I had a great meal and relaxed totally.

Back at the room I pottered around until 11:30pm and then went to bed and slept like a log – despite the rain once again pounding away all night.

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