Tina and I took a trip to Puerto Vallarta in June of
2003. After this trip, I can say with some experience that going in June is not recommended. Our plan was to have a nice quiet vacation staying at a villa-like apartment in Boca de Tomatlán, which is a small little village just south of Puerto Vallarta, and off the beaten tourist track.
The first full day that we were there, we went into Puerto Vallarta to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. Basically, there’s really only one sports bar in P.V., called El Torito, and whenever we subsequently mentioned to any local that we had watched the hockey game, they would say, “Oh, you were at El Torito?”
The game itself was pretty good, and they had the
CBC satellite feed, rather than the EPSN coverage, which made for a more enjoyable game. But with about 5 minutes left, the power went out, and after waiting for a few minutes to see if it came back, we
paid for our dinner and tried to leave. However, the reason for the blackout became obvious upon leaving as a torrential rain was falling. We decided to wait it out, and enjoyed watching the
streets flood and people running for cover.
After a while we decided to make a run for it ourselves, and after the rain let up a bit, we made our way back to Boca. It was dark and lightning was flashing as we tried to make our way across the river to our villa. We found the bridge and then lightning would flash once and a while and light up our path. We arrived without too many difficulties, but I can say that it took a day or two for our clothing to dry out.
Mexico has some interesting animal life. We had made a mistake the first night or two of leaving the windows open and having the lights on in the evening. That was a invitation for the bugs to enter our abode, and enter they did. We learned fairly quickly that the best approach was to have very little lighting and close the windows. That keep the bugs out and the local geckos decided that was their cue to come out and visit. They’re quite shy and would scurry behind cover, or up to the ceiling if we approached too close. They also have a very loud chirp and would call at each other, we think. It was quite charming actually and a welcome change from the bugs.
We also ran across an iguana. He was a fairly colorful but had less to say than the geckos.
Finally, the village has a fair number of cats and dogs. One particular dog wanted to adopt us. He was rather insistent, so we nicknamed him Smith, as in Agent Smith from The Matrix, who is fairly persistent himself. He would join us at our beach table and wait patiently for table scraps. Then he would follow us to our villa and we had to basically close the door in his face as he wanted to come in and visit. We gave him some water and he waited outside in vain for us to open the door and let him in. He was a sweet dog.
