A Trip to Puerta Vallarta

WHERE ARE WE? La Penita, Mexico

Today I got a call from Kenia wondering if we might want to take her to Puerta Vallarta for supplies for the cafecito.  Every once in a while she has to stock up on the bulk items that she needs from Costco and Sam's Club.  Because we only have 2 seats in the Jeep and we would need the whole back area to put the supplies in, I volunteered to drive her there.  

We headed out about 8 am and with the top down, the wind was blowing through our hair and the traffic was quite light.  Sometimes this road can get crazy especially if there are lots of trucks chugging up the mountain hills.  Not this morning.

After seeing this picture, it is evident that I am eating way too many taco's!!!

Much of the road is hilly and windy and the maximum speed is posted at 60 kms.  When there is not much traffic the speed limit gets ignored a bit.  A lot of the road is like travelling in a tunnel because the lush rainforest type vegetation grows very thick.  

They are in the process of building a new cuota that will stretch from Tepic to PV.  It is a slow process because a lot of it is mountains with canyons.  They actually opened a 9 km section the other day that takes you around the communities of Rincon Guayabitos and La Penita.  It costs 100 peso's to travel on it so not many people use it yet.  When the highway is done it will be a fast route to travel to PV.  Some of the construction involves big big bridges.  We went under one of them today.

After about 45 minutes of driving we were in Bucerius.  You have to be very careful as soon as you arrive because there is always a radar trap there.  

We were hungry, so we stopped for Breakfast at a nice little restaurant.  We had a nice breakfast before we headed out to shop.  Kenia has grown into a wonderful young lady, but every once in a while, the kid in her comes out.  lol

Kenia was the navigator and with a few language goofs we managed to see some parts of PV that not many gringo's have had the opportunity to see.  Curvy little narrow streets going in absolutely the opposite direction of where we needed to go.  I'm glad we were not in the motorhome.  Finally after a half hour or so we arrived at Sam's Club, which we had obviously driven by a few times.  Another stop at Costco and we were on our way home.

Its apparent that the cruise lines are up and running again because there were a couple of them docked in town.  I'm glad to see the world slowly returning to normal.  

We managed to get the back of the jeep loaded up before heading out.

The trip home was a little slower in the afternoon.  There were a few slow trucks slowing the whole road down.  I'm guessing it took us an hour and a half to get home.  Oh well, I had nothing to do anyway.

We got home and Kenia and Josie asked us out to supper.  We went to one of our favourite places, Las Koritas.  Sergio runs this restaurant with his family and serves delicious food.  We had a nice supper and conversation with Kenia and Josie.  We are finding that we are communicating much better in Spanish without even realizing it.  There wasn't a lot of dead air at the table tonight.  Josie knows quite a bit of English as well, so that helped in the translation.

Sergio posed for a picture to show off the T-shirts they have.  I may have to buy one.

Another day in Mexico.  I am watching our weather at home and feeling for everyone there.  It is -38C there at nights right now.  All I can say is "Sorry"   Goodnight.