The Taco Traveler

I'm back at anchor off La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. Paradise Village was nice, but expensive. The moorage fees weren't bad, but the rest of the resort and resort area was priced for people on a short vacation: 42 pesos for a beer? 35 pesos for a little taco? After months of paying 15-20 pesos for a beer and a max of 15 for a taco, the prices there just put me off too much. And the marina didn't get much breeze, so inside the boat got up to 87 degrees every day, which makes it kinda hard to work. Why not work by the pool? Well... bad battery, shortage of electrical outlets. Am I complaining about heat? Sorry, I realize it's still snowing up north.

One of my least favorite things about the resort, however, was its emptiness. There are so few people around right now that it's just no fun to be alone there (having not yet met the girl from my eponymous blog entry). Empty restaurants, empty bars... it makes people-watching a lot less fun when there are no people. I think I've pretty much determined that I'm a city person. I loved Guadalajara, and I love crowds. I guess I get my fill of solitude on the boat, and when I'm ashore I need to be social. I'll go so far as to say I'll take a crowded airport over an empty luxury resort.

A new group came into the resort yesterday for a conference that runs all next week. I had a chance to talk to one of them yesterday, and they're from the Congress of Quantum Masters. It's some sort of computer program that helps tune peoples energies or something like that. This lady said she had a machine that she could program, for example, to her son's energy levels and heal his health issues from 1000 miles away. Ooooh kaaay. Well, I can probably buy into some of the energy / universe / spiritual vibrations stuff, but I'm definitely skeptical that she could make someone feel better from 1000 miles away by running a computer application on an energy machine. I have no idea how accurate my recollection of any of this is. I haven't checked out their web site and I was drinking my second very strong margarita at the time (happy hour at the hotel is 2-for-one drinks).

So I settled up with the marina this morning and cast off the lines again, exited the harbor and raised the sails for the one-hour beat across Banderas Bay to La Cruz. It was blowing pretty hard, about 20 knots with some decent sized chop, but it was great to feel the motion of the boat again. I hadn't sailed since my trip down to Manzanillo (on the way up from Manzanillo I motored the whole time in zero wind). Chemistry is in need of a bottom scrubbing, which I started this afternoon from the dinghy but I'll need to get in the water and get serious tomorrow. There is so much growth on her that it felt like we were a thousand pounds heavier and a knot slower than we should be. Add to that the fact that the growth got loose a bit on the sail over, and now is clogging the raw water intake for both heads. Doesn't sailing sound fun?

I'm considering yet another change in plans, the eight-hundred and twenty-fifth such change in plans since the plan-changing started a year and a half ago. This time I'm considering leaving the boat in Mexico and living out of my backpack for the summer / hurricane season. I'll be with the boys for much of June, and then to a friend's wedding in Colorado for several days, and then spreading myself around my company's offices in Seattle and San Francisco.... Basically, I've got a lot of visiting and state-side work to do. With all that traveling, it makes little sense to beat the hell out of Chemistry and myself making our way up the coast of Baja against wind, swells and current to pay $800/month to have her sit in L.A. while I roam.

TT

Not a lot has been happening here - mainly work when it's not too hot in the boat. I finally opened up the cockpit enclosure all the way to get just a bit more breeze down below, but marinas are not the place to be if you want to stay cool. I should be out at anchor. La Cruz was a fine anchorage, with plenty of wind all day long, but I left that to come here to Paradise Village Resort and PV-Proper, and I'm not making the use of the property or PV that I should be. I've only gone into PV once, and that was this past Sunday for the Chivas/America match. The rest of my time here I've spent working on the boat or working inside the boat (on real work stuff) when it's cool enough inside, like from 10pm to 3am and whenever I wake up till noon. :-/

My trip into town was a great 24-mile bike ride, round trip. As I rounded the curve from Nuevo Vallarta where it joins Highway 200, I passed another guy on a bike; I was flying. A minute later I felt his presence right on my wheel. He was drafting on me. So I ignored him, but at the next hill I hit it. "Let's see if he can handle me now," I thought. I was flying up that hill in like 12th gear, and he stayed right there. Another mile later, on flat ground, I just turned around and smiled at him, like "I give up," and said "How's it goin'?" because I thought he looked like a gringo. Well, he wasn't; he didn't speak much English, but we ended up riding and talking for the next 20 minutes. He even helped me get a bit more speed by adjusting my seat up a bit to make my legs more efficient. He was a fifty-something Mexican man, a vet, a Doctor de Veterinario. That was a great encounter, but I couldn't understand his name. It wasn't a simple Mexican name, like Francisco Rodriguez. It was a name like an Aztec. Ticho Loquillo Quatl, or something like that. Well, nothing like that, but you get the idea. Anyway, I know where his office is and he told me to stop by if I ever had a sick animal or wanted to just get a beer.

I'm having more and more of those interactions - Mexicans who speak very little or no English, and we sit there for an hour and have a conversation with my horrible Spanish - which must be getting better if I can have 20-minute bike-riding conversation along a busy Mexican highway, or an hour-long conversation with a waiter. Last night I met Samuel. He served me at the Brazil Churrascaria. It was my second visit there this week, and they turned on the democratic debate for me. After I ate lots of meat and had a couple beers, Samuel and I started talking about futbol, boats, fishing, tequila... and he brought me a nice tequila "en la casa." Obviously, the restaurant wasn't crowded. This whole place is pretty empty.

I leave here Saturday am and will probably head back to La Cruz just to sit at anchor and use the better wifi there to continue working until Monday. Then I'll head more north, my exact direction again depending on the winds. If it makes sense to cross to Cabo, I'll do that. Or, if the wind isn't favorable, I'll just motor north along the shore to Jaltemba, Chacala, San Blas, Isla Isabela and maybe Mazatlan before hopping across to La Paz or Cabo.

TT

After waking up this morning in the La Cruz anchorage, I got a hail on the VHF from Dick Markie, the dockmaster at Paradise Village Marina. After switching off the hailing channel he told me to come on in - they had a spot for me. So I motored over, saw a mamma whale and her calf lounging around (ho-hum) and entered the Nuevo Vallarta breakwater. Docking was a piece of cake with experienced dock hands. You'd be amazed how crazy it can get docking a boat when there are dock hands who don't know what they're doing. So often they just pull and pull, and can really screw things up. In La Cruz, the guy who took my bow line pulled so hard that the stern nearly went into my neighbor's boat. Luckily I got him to stop pulling long enough to get a stern line on, but sheesh. I've single-handed myself into enough slips, and seen enough overzealous help from inexperienced boaters or dock hands, that often I'd rather do it myself. Anyway... these guys were perfect. They were relaxed; they let me do the work with the engine, then they tied the bow and stern lines perfectly while I hopped off and tied the spring. It also helped that this slip is hideously large. It's a 51-foot slip and extremely wide.

I didn't do much today as I'm still getting used to the heat. I walked around a bit, and had lunch at the yacht club, worked a bit, then laid down for a nap. I'm a great napper when it's 85 degrees out. Tonight I went up to the shopping center after reading some reviews of local restaurants. I had a very good coffee (triple espresso macchiato) and then went upstairs to a churrascaria, which was very good. If you haven't eaten at a churrascaria yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. It's a Brazilian thing. You get yourself a salad and some sides, and then these guys walk by with skewers of all sorts of meat and carve some off onto your plate. The one in San Francisco kicks ass, but I can't remember its name. This one was okay. The meat was good but didn't stand on its own, flavor-wise; it definitely needed the hot sauces the leave on the table. They also need better salad and sides. But for 180 pesos, it's not bad.

The rest of tonight I've spent working and checking prices on the Internet in preparation for my next visit to the boys. I'm still trying to figure out a plan for the next 90 days, as I have until June 1 to get north of 27 degrees latitude (out of the Tropical Storm Zone) for boat insurance purposes. I even toyed with the idea of keeping the boat in the Sea of Cortez, in Guaymas or sailing around even farther north, but the bus trip from Guaymas to Phoenix/Tucson or El Paso is $100 round trip, and the plane fare to Panama City isn't any different than from San Diego or LAX. So yeah, I'm still on track to head north towards San Diego / LA in a week or so, though I could be stuck in Cabo for a couple weeks waiting for weather. There are worse places to be stuck.

Tomorrow I'm going to ride my bike into downtown PV. I've experienced enough busses and I need the exercise. Here's hoping I survive PV traffic. I think I'll wear my helmet. The Mexican Superclasico (Chivas of Guadalajara vs. Club America of Mexico City) is tomorrow at 5pm, so I'll be looking for a crazy Mexican sports bar with paper streamers and fireworks to watch that. Ole!

TT