The Journey Begins

November 8-13, 2000 -- Spent a few very fine days with my parents in Boise before returning to Portland November 6 to fly out the next morning. Got my parents hooked up to the net with email accounts, even got my mom the start of a new webpage for her interior design business. Great visit with them, miss you guys!

Puerto Vallarta

My flight stopped over in San Francisco where they made everyone deboard the plane. It was a bit odd, but apparently at the last port of departure out of the country, customs comes on and inspects the plane for drugs or whatever. If you leave anything in the overhead bins, its confiscated. Ended up switching seats in the process and met a cool guy named Jonathan. He was going down to rent a van and go out in the back country and offered to give me a ride into town, which I gladly accepted.

At customs, I broke the golden rule by opening my mouth in Spanish and asking for 180 days (the maximum allowable) on my tourist card. This begged the question in rapid fire Spanish from a stern customs official, Why do you want to stay here so long buddy? I just smiled, babbled politely a bit, chilled while he looked stern, talked on the phone, rustled some stuff, and eventually stamped me through 5 minutes later with the 180 days. I found out shortly after that they usually give you 180 anyways, so I quickly filed that away for future reference. Next is the place where they inspect your bags. You press a button on a traffic signal, supposedly randomly it either comes up red or green. I got green, and thus, my bags didn�t get inspected.

Jonathan, the man who offered me a ride, had to rent a van. We got into it and took off, and it was making horrible noises, seemed like the shocks were busted or something, and the check engine light stared palely back from the dashboard. While he went inside to get that resolved, I got into an interesting exchange with a taxi driver who had locked his keys in the trunk. He wanted a screw driver and / or help, neither of which I would have been the best choice to provide. I had only been in the country 20 minutes and things were already pretty surreal. He disassembled half the back seat, took out the speakers, and finally the day was saved by two kids on a scooter who picked his lock. Safely in our new van now, we made our way into town.

Puerto Vallarta is definitely a place of contrasts. I think it is lovely for those who enjoy the touristy places, and it definitely has some character. I love the back streets of old PV, and the people are very kind and helpful there. Spent the first night sitting on the Malecon (boardwalk) talking to passing people and watching the pirate ship cruise by with drunken tourists, blaring out a message to us poor saps sitting there enjoying the breathtaking sunset to get our acts together and come on board where the real action was. Just to punctuate his point, he blew off a bunch of fireworks in rapid succession. I checked into a fair hotel for 20 bucks and called it a night.

Had some interesting discussions with the kids who are there in swarms trying to get people to take a tour of fancy hotels in return for a commission. Apparently there are 1000 of them there right now, and they don�t get a dime unless they get you to take the tour. They all humored me quite a bit with my spanish, and I had some great talks with some of them. I actually took the tour the next morning cause I wanted to help one of them out. These hotels have sprung up north of the city, and are as mega as mega gets. Truly amazing, but you are looking at 150 US minimum a night. They want you to buy into the thing on some time share deal. Overall, I found it interesting and am glad I did it. I didn�t take them up on any of their free promotions (horse back rides and jeep rides, etc), as I wanted to get to a small beach town ASAP. The word on the street was that I would enjoy Sayulita, north of town about 1 hour, so I hopped a bus and away I went.

Sayulita

Sayulita is a surfers nirvana. It is at the mouth of a little stream with a small headland to the south, causing a very nice right break when the swells come through. Even on small days, the waves seem to break pretty nicely, and you can see people out there surfing at just about any time. I stayed at the Hotel Diamante for 10 bucks a night which my Lonely Planet guide mentioned. After it got dark, I went out walking a bit and met some people from Southern Oregon, Delana and Eric. I ended up walking around on the beach with her, and she took me to this amazing rock outcropping where we watched shooting stars and green phosphorescence in the crashing waves. Truly surreal. Nice to shoot the breeze with someone, and we talked a lot about spiritual kind of stuff, place energy, people energy, how all that is swirling around, and how we interact with it. There has definitely been a theme of spiritual stuff with people I�ve met. A lot of people are on some type of journey or another down here.

Delana introduced me to a lot of the other wonderful surfers hanging out down there. I took two surfing lessons from Ian, a nice web guy from Seattle who just moved down there with his girlfriend and dog Cages to help his dad open a restaurant. He is a great teacher, and I managed to get up, however briefly, on a long board.

As far as fishing goes, I broke my reel by falling the first day on some rocks. Not being able to find a handle for it, I bought a replacement reel in Bucerias for 50 bucks. The best I did was hook a ladyfish on a silver spoon, but that was about it. Every time I went fishing, I would see men and boys combing the rocks for various shellfish for sopa de mariscos (seafood soup). One guy handed me a baby lobster to hook on, and even though I knew it would be deadly, I couldn�t bring myself to impale the little guy, so I subtly flipped him back in the water while he wasn�t looking.

The second day, I checked into the Hideaway Cabanas, built and owned by a young Mexican couple named Edouardo and Liliana. I ended up staying there 4 nights, and it was amazing. Edouardo created the most amazing, magical bungalows, I definitely recommend staying there, as the price was ridiculously low at 10 bucks a night. Mine had a ladder to the upper deck where I slept, perfect lighting, beautiful art. So nice I can hardly tell you. Great people, talked to me about lots of things, and their small restaurant and bar is wonderful too.

My second to last day I met a channeler witch woman named Jaia. I was just sitting in a cafe, enjoying tea, nursing my slightly rebellious stomach, when she approached and started talking. I invited her to sit down, and it was the start of an amazing few hours that I spent with her. Her mother was a concentration camp survivor, and her father was an abusive drunk. She grew up in Holland, and had been living in the San Francisco for the past 20 years. We had an amazing talk about spirituality, auras, energy, and how to keep yourself happy. It was really just the stuff I needed to hear. When she spoke, it actually seemed that her eyes changed colors on two occasions. I know I�m a bit weird for saying it, but that�s my story and I�m sticking to it. One of the best things she told me was some words of the Dalai Lama, which were, when you breathe in, cherish yourself, when you breathe out, cherish others. Cherish is the key word, and as I tried it, I found myself feeling really peaceful. As I spent more time with her, it became clear that she may have been slightly mentally ill, but I believe that is part of what made her such a beautiful, special person. I�m still pondering some of the things she told me.

After five days at Sayulita, I decided to head out. I could spend most of my days speaking English and completely vegging out there, so I was itching to get a move on. Two other surfers wanted to go to Guadalajara, so we caught a ride into town on Monday and took off.

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