A local river trip

Part of Pedro's family:  Adolpho -we nicknamed El Toro, Rosacrystal,  Natalie, Sebastian, & Daniel.  Hosea was trying to round up things for the trip to the river.  The kids just crawled in the car with Koa and decided, "let's go."

We had complained to Pedro about the heat and he said to come out to his house and he would take us to the river.  It was out in the country, fairly good unpaved road, and we drove through part of the river in the van to get to where there were swimming holes.  Koa instantly became an idiot, trying to round all the people up in the river, whimpering that they wouldn't cooperate.  While he loved the swimming, he was very frustrated that all his pack were in different directions.  The other Mexicans in the river just ignored his trying to herd them.



Looking upstream:  there was a huge current where  we entered the river, enough so it knocked me down and Pedro had to help me get to safer rocks and the deep spot.  The kids managed just fine, as did Koa - while I crawled the rest of the time.



La Familia - Hosea was divng off the rocks...seems that Vallarta adventures goes out there as there is a zip line overhead.

 The family has very little - yet they are quite happy.  It was wonderful seeing such open, happy kids - though dad works 12 hour days for about $18/day.  He is a great help on the dock and we will miss him when we leave, as well as the joy the kids express.

Tenacatita Dreaming



La Manzanilla - the little town of Tenacatita Bay

We had a great invitation to see Jon &and Lisa and sail south on MollyJ after a few days in Tenacatita Bay.  The priest and his wife  from our church snickered when we told them where we were going, saying, we would be stuck there for years having too much fun.  A week, and not stuck, but a wonderful  fun and a good break from  work  on our boat.  We went up the jungle trip and found a large lagoon, and what looked like a south seas village movie set in front of a beach.  We didn't go ashore as there seems to be some conflict as to who owns the beach, and we turned around and  the current raced us back  2 miles to our magic beach.  The first trip in, a sneaker wave had come up as we were making a gracious landing in the surf and dumped us unceremoniously and upside down  into calf deep water. Koa was so upset, that the whole trip, (had to row as the engine was dead)  back, he cried loudly.  He hates getting caught in waves and that dumping terrified him.  He practically crawled  up the side of  MollyJ in mid air but it was a relief to have the howling stopped.  At times in the jungle trip (second effort) we had to duck our heads to avoid getting hit by the mangrove roots.  No bugs few birds, but what birds we saw were elegant egrets and strange herons.

The Jungle trip:  the mangrove grew so narrow further on  that this tour boat had to turn around



One of five dolphins that entertained us:  one was named Chippy, with an obvious nick out of his fin, and he loved rubbing his body on the anchor chain.  I looked over one morning and he was flirting.



The best anchorage - can't tell the big sneaker waves.  1/2 hour across the bay from La Manzanilla.  This seemed to be a good camp spot for locals during Santa Semana.  The jungle "river" mouth is to the left and has a fast current.  Pangas go betweemn the rocks and carefully drive between waves to get to the river.



We drove down to La Manzanilla and found MollyJ in the bay offshore and arranged for a panga to take us out with all our gear.  The waves didn't appear to be too bad, but it turned out the panga man, bless his heart, was rowing - no engine, and a big wave dunked us.   We arrived onto MollyJ like drowned rats.  Koa was a guest aboard, and having been aboard before, was more than delighted to get the hell out of a boat that appeared safe, but got waves on board.  We had great food, movie nights and a short sail to the magic anchorage across the bay.



Inside our cove in the morning - looking south.  Haze and heat...and the water was so inviting, but there were jellyfish.  I was able to swim our first day there, or try to snorkel, but the water was murky.



We had the best anchorage of any that we have found.  Two boats came in, one named Nero, from Hawaii.  I only mention that as I took a shower on the back deck, and when Nero came into Nuevo, we loaned them gate and shower keys.  Either they are gentlemen, or they were watching the dolphins and didn't see the naked lady on MollyJ.  The watermaker on Mollyj had died so I was using a camp shower- which works great if a husband holds it up.  Robert grabbed the lifeguard and his seadoo and got a ride to shore at La Manzanilla to get the car and drove south to Barra de Navidad.   We sailed and arrived to find sticker shock for fuel and slip rent:  $2.60 a foot.  I don't think  so.   We arranged that MollyJ could stay on the fuel dock as Jon was tearing apart the heads, that had died, but there were rest rooms and a great shower at the top of the ramp.    We drove home, rested, happy and ready for all the work we have to do to get the boat ready before we head north - it is hot, muggy and sometimes buggy in Nuevo, but still one of the loveliest spots on earth.                                                      

Mexican Easter

Talent for a few pennies a day - Good Friday with two disciples yet to be carved



Jesus before the stations - he was actually being whipped but the red is paint



Our beach - usually only has one or two families on this end of the beach - this is the other end of the spectrum on holy Saturday

 We met the two very serious young seminarians at Maundy Thursday, and they did blink when I told them to sit down so I could wash their feet.  That wasn't scripted, but the priest laughed - and the congregation except for Robert and me didn't join in.  An invitation to join the procession along the malecon the next day saw us joining them, (the priest and his wife), who also fed us breakfast.  The crowd yelled the things that were in the Bible, the guards whipped Jesus, the horses pooped  as the "centurions" let the way along the malecon.  The street was shut down and the crowd was serious and intense.  We lasted three or four stations and took a cab back to our car.  Too much reality - strange.  It was moving, difficult, and out of whack - but that was what happened, according to the Bible.  All the words we have read in services over the years, being shouted in Spanish, with whips slashing at Jesus and the cross - too much.
Saturday we joined the priest, wife and the two seminarians, who don't speak much English for hamburger dinners at the condo where we will store our boat for the summer.  We got a load of San Diego Diocese church politics, which were astonishing and sad for a church that is inclusive and open.  Unh huh.  I asked the seminarians, who by now have loosened up, if it was the same down here.  Yep.  Sunday's service was lovely in the palapa, with a baptism and feast afterwards and then the beach.  Ah yes, the sand so hot you can't walk on it without zoris and the water full of kids, boogie boards and screaming and yelling and people jammed next to each other as if they were all relation. Who knows, they might be.  Good fun.

More Yelapa

A bit of paradise



The little restaurant alongside the little falls



Koa being the waterdog



When we go back in the fall, we will rent horses and ride an hour and a half to the big waterfall.  Three hours on horseback, ai yi yi.  The water is full of minerals and isn't dirty and it was refreshing to sit underneath the fall to rinse of the Yelapa salt.  Koa decided to do some exploring and climbed up to the little restaurant with me trailing behind when the worst attack cat, the cat from hell, the hellfire from Siam decided to chase him up the stairs, hissing and snarling.  Poor Koa, who likes cats, had white eyeballs and tried to climb a wall straight up. I thought the cat would just go back to where it was hiding, but it kept trying to take on Koa, who didn't want a thing to do with it - we were laughing so hard, and the Mexicans were delighted with the machismo of their animal.  I finally hissed back at the cat and he just looked at me, ready to take me on.  It was a very subdued and confused shepherd that walked back down the hill to the beach.

Yo yos to Yelapa



This deserves to be full size - always flowers everywhere

 A fast run back to Yelapa (we didn't learn our rock and roll lesson last time) and were moored with El Buly's help. Koa barked a warning as we left Nuevo, that we did not have his buddy on board.
 We spent a quiet evening, deciding with Jon and Lisa of MollyJ, what to do the next day.  It would be a trip to the waterfall, an uphill hike - as the town is built around the bay. Two rivers, one large, one small cut the sand to the cove, and the tourist thing to do is to go to the waterfall.  Dogs run free here and escort the tourists up the hill to the small waterfall.  We would not have been able to let the guys off the leash if Sha'ash was with us, but Koa made friends.  A yellow lab mama followed us all the way up to the cascada and decided that Koa was her new best friend.   I swam in the waterfall - which was a small one, but dropped from a cliff with ferns and a place to swim with dog.  Everything is hauled up the hill either in wheel barrows, on horseback or human back.  We are more than impressed with the hardworking locals and wonder how they got the image of being lazy.  Laid back, yes, in many ways, but we haven't seen such hardworking people in our lives.



He thought Koa would help haul stuff up

 This fellow gave me the eagle stink eye, probably thinking that he would have to haul another damn tourist up the hill.  After about 3pm, the town settles down to tranquility as all the tourists have been pangaed (is that a word?) back to their tour boats. Robert and I kayaked ashore -  tried to  read the waves but I got dumped.  Below is MollyJ, who would head south the next morning, early, to get to Chamela.  We had planned to stop at Ipala, but got as far as half way to Cabo Corrientes, fighting the current and our  sick auto pilot.  We tried to reprogram it in pretty big waves, fighting sea sick attitudes - surprise.  We had been doing so well that we got cocky about lurching around in beam seas.


MollyJ moored in Yelapa - rock and roll paradise

 The view across the cove, showing I'O in the distance - we prepared the boat for the night, thinking that we could put out the flopper stopper - whoever named that had a sense of humor.  We found a pin missing and spent a pretty horrible night flopping and not stopping.  Robert had to take some seasick herbal stuff to get through the night so staying to repair the auto pilot in Yelapa, was not an option.  We went back to our slip in Nuevo and slept the afternoon away.



The small stream at  the shoreline- across is great hotel



Goodbye Sha'ash Ginee

He left us yesterday and took parts of our hearts with him.  He was able to withstand tumors and the horrible medication just so far, and as our friends told us, would tell us when it was time to go.  He told us and we didn't believe, second guessing all the time, but then we had to let him go.
This was a dog that had loyalty down to a fine art, allowing Robert to carry him up the steps and onto the boat when he couldn't do it himself.  He didn't complain of pain, being too busy being the best guard dog and best friend anyone could have.  From the time he lept into my lap as a baby to yesterday, this dog was on point.  He had a way of looking at you with his wolves' eyes, measuring whether or not to take a large bite of your body or allow you in the same room with his owner's. 
As a puppy,  he strutted into our house in Arizona, letting three other dogs know he was there with a huge voice. We didn't realize that his huge ego was going to capture our lives.  He was the boss and yet, he would giggle in submission.  Jake immediately bit him on the nose and then ignored him, and Bailey decided he was going to be his best friend, but Koa had that position, after a long sulk.
The wrestling matches on the lawn were motions of beauty with the two shepherds.
When Koa jumped off the boat at Lake Saguaro,  Sha'ash followed, submerged and rose back up thrashing his puppy legs,  but if Koa could do it, then he could do it.  But the expression on his face was more, "what the hell just happened".  From that day on, he loved the water, didn't really mind waves like wussy Koa and went underwater to collect rocks. Chasing rocks in a river brought him to ecstacy of more, more, more until we had to hold him calmly to rest.  His great heart drove him.
A man at the vet's  office here in PV told us of how his wife would fall apart when one of their farm animals would die.  He brought her around to to another way of thinking in telling her, and us, with the story, that animals were gifts for a short while and we were to live and love them for that time of the gift.  He said he could see us suffering with Sha'ash and later came over to the car to wish us luck.  He was right, as Sha'ash was a givt for the seven plus years we had him and a gift that right now br us heartbreak, but when the grieving ends, a gift that will remind us of the joy he brought us in the past.  He was a giant spirit of a dog and at times a real pain in the butt, but he was our pain in the butt.  And we loved him fiercely.

Punta de Mita and the Boooongalow



How can you not want to eat Mango off a stick?  More of the  colorful, elegant  way to present food. 

The Bungalow we rented way back when - after we had been in an elegant house  in Bucerias for a week.  We had another reservation above the town in a place that was huge with a view, but dirty - so Linda suggested we leave and find a bungalow on the beach.  We drove right to this place and parked under the tree.  It was a horror.  Concrete everything, roosters crowing all night, drunks in the street.  We loved it. Robert had to repair the hot water heater so we could have a shower.  There was a beach bar in front and huge ocean waves that we kayaked, screaming out heads off.  This day it was calm, a new breakwater with no waves and no place to swim except the new pool where the the beach bar used to be.  Elegance had also arrived in the form of the new restuarant along side.  The chef kept sending out little amusee bouches ( a snobby way of saying pupus) for free - and at the end of a lovely meal, kahlua poured over ice cream. The problem with this uber exotic place was the fact that we were alongside the beach, yes under some swaying palms - too wonderful for words, and all the  vendors came along to see what we were having for lunch and to try to sell us stuff.  We bought some stuff - that is part of the experience.

The hotel had expanded, now with an upstairs and rooms sort of nice - Motel 6 is isn't, but the whole ambience, from the hammocks hung in the courtyard to the lovely pool to the same old dirty stream next door was, of course, very Mexican.  And delightful.  We tried to remember where we had eaten when we were here before - but this place was a find.

Punta de Mita has gone touristy - when we were here it was sort of spooky to walk the streets at night, and now it is a full fledged surfer's paradise as well as being  surrounded by condos.  But what fun to find the boongalow - good memories.