San Blas

Above is Julia showing that "Estancia Las Flores" indeed lives up to its name! Yes, we've made it to San Blas in one piece, and we have fallen in love. Okay, so getting here was something of an ordeal, but we'll get to that in a moment. For now, we're happy, full of sun, sand, fish, tequila, and joy.















Yesterday we woke up bright and early, ate some "questionable" looking pork tacos from a rickety street cart. Julia bit the bullet, and we chowed down right there on the sidewalk. (Still no "Tourista"!) We did a tiny bit of strolling and grocery shopping, but we were honestly ready to get out of Puerto Vallarta. The town is crawling with hawkers, beggars, clueless tourists, and an extra helping of Mexican filth. We asked the hotel receptionist when the bus to the bus station comes. She says "Oh, all the time. Every 5 minutes." We camp at the right spot... and 45 minutes later (right when were ready to throw in the towel) here it comes! We rode to the station, purchased tickets to Tepic and got aboard our bus. It was definitely the most comfortable seats we've sat on here, and they had AC. Julia was greatly relieved! It was a twisty, 4 hour bus ride through the jungled mountains. Every 20 minutes or so, the bus would stop and someone would jump on selling food, drinks, and other goods. We finally pulled into Tepic (quite carsick), purchased our tickets to San Blas, and the lady told me it left in two minutes! We ran as fast as we could... but we missed it! So, we bought a ticket for the next one (an hour later), pulled up some stools at a little food booth, and munched the hour away. Delicious quesadillas, "burritos", pepsi and salsa! I also was educucated on what "pierna" and "sincronizadas" are (pork and a combination of pork/chicken). We used the pay-per-use banos and watched little Mexican chiquitos bumbling around.



--Philip


Ok MY turn to write now. :) It has been quite an experience for me these past three days I have to admit. I've pretty much run the gamut of emotions, but I can happily say that now, here in San Blas I am quite at peace. We had a rather interesting ride here, with us confused about which bus we had to take in order to get here from Tepic, and it was an interesting ride in it

self. The bus driver had the most interesting side-kick, a man who looked about 30ish with swinging arms, a bit of a belly and a nasty cold. He would just stand at the front of the bus chatting it up with the driver, at one point actually stopping the bus in order to hit on a lady just standing on the side of the road as well as breaking out a little mini tv to get a signal in the bus.


After a rather bumpy and winding road, passing little colonies of towns with little dirty children and chickens and pigs, we finally arrived in San Blas. We got out of the bus, grabbed our luggage that of course had migrated to the very back of the holding cell under the bus, and stepped into the street. We had not a single clue where we were, I start feeling the panic creep up on my face and there across the street we see the zocalo (the middle square of the town) and I see a rather white, middle aged woman looking at us from across the street with the look of pity on her face. She comes up to us and directs us to a group of three people sitting in the zocalo on a bench, one, we are told, is "Norm" and will be able to answer all our questions. Lo and behold Norm and his wife Janet are ex-pats who hacve lived here for 42 years. With them was the sweetest little Canadian lady, Inge. We chatted it up abit with them, and they not only pointed us to our little hotel, but also directed us as to where was best to eat and so forth. We went to our hotel to clean up and also buy some new bug spray, because apparently the OFF we brought with us actually ATTRACTS the bugs. This was the discussion that brought us to this conclusion. As follows:

Janet- You got bug spray? Us-Yeah Janet-I'd put it on right now Us-Oh ok ::shuffle in bag to get out the OFF and start spraying it:: Janet-Is that OFF? Us-Um, yeah Janet-That actually attracts the bugs ::stop spraying::

I thought it was rather humorous. We then learned MUCH to my delight that the rumors we had heard in Puerto Vallarta were true, Humpback Whales are here right now off the coast mating and having little (ok, not that little) babies. If you know anything about me, you know that I about fainted with delight at the prospect of going whalewatching. Norm offered to help put us in contact with someone who can take us out. I will update you on how that turns out. Mark my words, I will make this happen.


So after we chatted with them, we headed off to a nice dinner, then to bed. This morning we woke up around 7:30 and headed to the local market that Inge had mentioned to us for morning grub. Boy were we excited, we made off with two huge drinks of fresh (as in just squeezed in front of us) orange quice mixed with blended whole bananas, papaya, strawberries and pineaple. De-LISH. We also had a yummy "torta" basically a chicken or pork mixture topped with lettuce and tomato on a bollilo. With our tummies full, we bid Inge farewell and headed to the beach.

It was about a mile walk from our hotel down to the beach. Playa de Borrega. It's just beautiful, not only was it almost deserted, but right when we got there I spotted a pod of dolphins hanging out just like a quarter of a mile into the ocean. Naturally I thought they were whales at first and almost had a fit, but Philip calmed me down with "they're dolphins" and I could breathe again. They were way fun to watch, as were the couple of young mexican kids out surfing. Philip was pretty much green with envy as we watched them catch every wave coming in and out. They aren't big, but fun looking enough. I am sure Philip will want to try this as soon as possible. And I am also sure I'll get some good pictures out of it. We walked a long way down the beach and back. We had no towel so we mostly just waded and then sat in the sand for a while. For lunch...oh boy...a whole fried fish served with tortillas and fixins, along with a fish torta, a Corona for Philip, a freshly macheted Coconut for me and a cocktail glass full of oysters for Philip. And it was all about 10 dollars, thats Mexico my freinds.

So in all, we are quite happy here in San Blas, where the bikes outnumber the cars and yummy food a plenty. We go to our farm on Tuesday, but I am sure more adventures await us here in San Blas.



Until next time,

Julia