The Mountains; Day 3

There is absolutely nothing thrilling to me about the prospect of going to a beach. Imagine my excitement when the time had finally come for us to pile into a transit van and take a long and winding ride downhill, with our final destination being more sun and sand.

I sat in a lawn chair and got tossed to and fro in the back of a van for an hour and a half. Whenever the question would be asked from Ray “You guys wanna explore some of the beaches and go try out some swimming holes?” I secretly rolled my eyes to myself. “Uh. It is up to you Ray. I am not too worried about swimming…” My polite replies would make no effect whatsoever.

Ray loves to play tour guide and tell you all sorts of neat info and trivia. It is interesting to have him around. He definitely makes the trip more worthwhile. He drove us through Puerto Vallarta, showing us the old and new town. He would point and tell us of odd facts about this building and that, and what hotels were devastated from the last tsunami. 30 ft. waves hit here a few years back! Amazing.

His tales of Liz Taylor and her time her obviously got the queen worked up. He just could not wait to see where she lived and the abandoned movie set for “Night of the Iguana”. This, of course, leads to the obvious question of ‘where is the gay part of town’? Ray laughed and simply said “What do you mean? You guys are everywhere! There is no gay part!” Andreas just beamed with a smile.

Puerto Vallarta is nothing special to me. It is what one would imagine. A dingy seaside town, serving as a non-stop excuse to get drunk and be retarded to loads of foreigners…mainly Americans. Nothing is more exotic than dirty streets and chunky jocks in flip flops, walking around shopping for Corona t-shirts and cheap eats. Ray parked the car in town so he could buy a few groceries. I stood on the corner and watched the summer fun. I kept a close eye on the grocery store door, because I was definitely the first one ready to get back into the van. I still wonder why so many people like this place.

When we do pile back in, we work our way up hill, one tourist trap after another. It was like a small hotel garden. All of them neatly planted one after another, all facing the sea. “Suckers” was all I could think as we drove past all of them.

Ray’s extensive wanderlust knowledge pays off time and time again. He drives up and up, then turns into some shabby looking driveway, past tacky tourist shops, down a tiny road past two blue porta-potties and parks. “This is it!” he says truly excited. I plop out, obviously radiating my own excitement. As one would expect, Mexicans come at you from all sides offering boat rides, snorkeling, dresses, fake dreads…you name it. I just show them my radiant face and glare. Fending off the hordes, I am immediately reminded of what I left; heat and sun. This was not cool (no pun intended). It wasn’t all bad though. Beside me there was a small gulley with water in it, and a line of boats, waiting to be pushed out to sea. At the end of this gulley was a larger pool of water, with 4 pelicans standing there. I found this very interesting, watching them lounge, primp and eat. Have you ever seen a pelican groom?

The four Pelicans

I have to change out of my shorts into my swimsuit. This is mainly due to Tonya’s insistence. I guess I don’t want to be a complete bore. I have to switch into my fun gear inside the van. This is not thrilling. The others have taken turns changing and now me. I step in to the hot van covered with sand. Truthfully, I see no other way to change but to lie on my back and take my shorts off and quickly switch to my swimsuit. The thought of my bare butt touching all the gritty sand makes my skin crawl. Worse is the fact of having to do so with passing Mexicans and tourists right outside the back windows. All I need is some passerby to glance in and see this tall, lanky naked gringo squirming on the floor of the van as if it pain.

Stepping out of the van, I do a quick look around to make sure no one has seen me change. I cross a small bridge and make my way to where Ray, Lourdes and Andreas are sitting. This is it! A table on the beach, a few umbrellas for shade and a waiter with one completely white eye. You know it is a bad thing when your ‘waiter’ is wearing shorts and sandals. Ray lifts up his plastic coated one sheet menu and says “You guys hungry?” I can’t believe it. We just got here and it is only 11:30 in the morning. “Look Tim, they have eggs”. Seriously? I look at the menu and amidst all the seafood on offer, they do have eggs…and ‘pan cake’. I laugh to myself at the thought of being served only one pancake. I ask Tonya what she is getting, she happily says a shrimp cocktail. Andreas is getting an octopus cocktail. Disgusting. I am so grossed out I put the menu down and just shove my toes in the sand. Tonya insists I get something, so orders me guacamole and a mineral water. Yes, this is to be my combination breakfast and lunch. Tonya’s lunch shows up. A huge glass that looks like it is filled with dirty dish water and shrimp, with all the trashy bits floating on top. Andreas’s looks no better. In fact, his is a little more frightening because of the severed tentacles fading in and out of the brown muck, touching the sides of his glass and then back into the muck. I slowly pick at my guacamole, chip after chip. I noticed that our waiter was being friendlier and had even put on a pair of sunglasses now.

If you can overlook the tourists wandering around and block out the “No way dude…” from the shirtless pink sunburned chubby guys, it is actually kind of pretty. There are two large ‘rocks’ out there in the bay. These odd pieces are very pretty. Some of the original cliffs are still visible too, the rest are being eroded by condos and hotels. The famed set for the Liz Taylor film is literally just yards away from us, to our left . At first, I am miserable, sitting there just sweating. I am not shirtless, I am not sunbathing, I am not excited about sitting here with the ability to eat eggs on a beach. However, the longer I do sit and stare at the big rocks out there, the more I do enjoy it. There are the pelicans flying overhead, nabbing fish out of the ocean. Seagulls and other birds too. I think about how nice the sunsets must be, and even watching storms come in must be very interesting. Ray tells us that in the fall, in this very place, you can sit and watch the whales and dolphins. They come to have their offspring there, and he says you can sit here and watch mother and baby whale pop in and out of the water. Now that sounds exciting to me. Too bad it is not whale season.

View over the bay. Nice.

After breakfast or was it lunch, we start to dip into the Pacific. I can’t believe the predictability of Andreas being the typical gay guy on a beach, and pulling off his shorts to reveal his pot belly atop of a bright colored Speedo. Oh man. Of course, I know I looked like a real native, when my shirt came off and I strode defiantly into the water with my white skin blazing in the sun. It was nice. I walked in, deeper and deeper, and the water got a bit cooler. My feet lifted off and I began to swim. It had been a long time since I was at a beach and went swimming. Tonya and I stayed out for a bit and chatted, floated and just took in the surroundings. She was obviously truly excited. Seeing her float around and talk of how excited she was made me enjoy this whole adventure. The cool water was a welcome change. Maybe it really wasn’t so bad.

We sat at our table for quite a while. Each person taking random swims whenever they felt like it. I was sitting next to a guy in a Speedo. The barrage of pesky vendors is beyond annoying. They just keep coming and coming, offering you carved turtles, scarves, horrible t-shirts (one of a Chihuahua having diarrhea on a toilet, with bright orange neon letters “No More Stinking Tacos”), pipes and even dope! “No”, but they make the rounds and 20 minutes later the same guy is asking if you want friendship bracelets again. Then a lady shows up and blurts out “It’s the pie lady”, and she opens up a plastic container and shows us her wares and points to different slices explaining what they are. I thought eggs on a beach were weird, but pie on a beach is pretty odd too. I thought how easy the sand would cling to a piece of pie. It just seemed so un-doable.

“Oh man, she’s great!” exclaimed Ray. He was beaming with excitement. “You gotta try her pies, they are fantastic!” He talks a bit with her, and asks her to come back later.

“Anyone want to go see Liz’s place” perks up Andreas. No one seemed to care. I took heart and said I would go with him. “It’s just over there, at the end of the rocks” he says enthusiastically.

“You should take your shoes” warns Tonya. “Those rocks get hot”. I look at Andreas and he answers for the both of us, “No. I think we will be ok” and I start to stroll along the seaside with a potbellied gay man in a Speedo to see a Liz Taylor artifact. As we walk he asks if I knew anything about the story behind the film. “Nope” I simply say. “I don’t think I have even seen the film. I started to watch it and got bored after about 10 minutes”. We discuss a few classics, and Andreas confesses that upon his recent re-viewing of ‘Casablanca’, he was bored to death. We agree that many ‘classic’ things we are supposed to be in awe of are really just wank.

It was not long before Andreas starts with “Ouch”, “Ooh”, “Damn”, “Ahhh”. Every few steps he stops and grimaces and lets loose and expletive. “It is literally cooking my feet” he says as the veins are bulging on the brow of his tanned bald head. He says he has to turn back and get his shoes. “Aren’t your feet hot” he asks. Yes, but I just keep walking. The more we stop, the hotter they get. Andreas says he’s really hurting. I tell him to stand in the shade and offer to go back and get our shoes so we can finish the trek. He steps into the shade and grimaces. I hobble back across the hot rocks and back to the table. The others are obviously curious as to where Andreas is. “What a girl” I say as I explain why I am back. I slip mine on, then grab Andreas’s and head back across the rocks. We have to get him to his landmark! He slips his shoes on and we walk the rest of the way until the end of the rocks. The abandoned movie set was fenced off. A downer after suffering the trial of burning feet. Still, we stand at the base and look up. Then out. Then start back. Oh well.

The pie lady showed back up and Lourdes starts to order this and that. Ray starts in too, and tells her which are the best. The order changes a few times and we end up with a slice of coconut, chocolate and cheese(?!). “Oh man!” Ray says, as if it were Christmas. “You gotta get some of this. You are not going to believe it.” Lourdes follows up, basically taking the words out of my mouth. “You would never imagine buying pie on a beach” she says, “…but hers are truly amazing”. Ray busts out the thick slice of coconut pie and breaks off a piece like a knight on a bawdy binge. He passes it around as crumbs are falling off. It is good, and so moist. “It’s still warm…” mumbles Ray with a mouthful of pie. I look at him as I am breaking my piece off and he smiles and continues “…from the sun!” and he starts laughing. Ray is always up for a laugh, and usually gets one out of whoever is around. It definitely worked on me!

We decide it is time to head back. There is that constant fear of not getting back up in the mountains before the fog rolls in. Ray says we’ll pack it up and head back, stopping off to buy some groceries for dinner. We get to the van to find ourselves blocked in behind triple parked cars. The tourists had definitely shown up in droves since we’d began our day. Ray does a miracle, and manages to get the van out of the mess, and backs it up at least ¼ mile, dodging parked cars and tourists on his way out. No small feat. Even tourists cheer him on for his magnificent backing abilities. Once we get turned around, we’re off.

We manage to beat the fog. As we enter in to town, Ray says he wants to show us the coffee lady. “This is the stuff the lady serves in town at the little restaurant” he says. “You’ll love it”. He pulls up in front of a simple, nondescript place. “C’mon” he says. As we walk up, he starts to chat with the lady who runs the place. Ray is always the charmer, and can talk with anyone. I always feel very comfortable with him around, as he can introduce anyone to anyone. Right now, he is introducing us to the ‘coffee lady’. As we walk into the doorway of her place, the smell of coffee is in the air. We walk into a dimly lit room. There is a long table there, a few shelves, and bags of coffee laid out. It was done by weight, big bags, small bags and local sweets. It is all grown on premise, and all organic…and all smells so good. The lady stands over her goods and shows us what she has. We opt for the coffee ground with cocoa. It smells delicious. After we pay, Ray tells us to go into her garden. She shows us to some coffee plants. She stands and tells us of how you harvest the coffee, when to pick the beans and how much a harvest yields. I was fascinated. She grows other herbs too. This was undoubtedly the highpoint of the day for me. I thought this was the best thing! Seeing the way coffee is grown, smelling it, having a simple town lady show us how she makes her living was a precious moment for me. She welcomed us in and showed us her world.

We got home and said we would meet up later for dinner. Andreas was to be on duty as chef, and I was ready to eat a real meal.

Andreas in charge (thankfully, not in his Speedo!)

Tonya, another helping hand

It was around 8 when we walked up Lourdes’ path and into their place. Andreas was already cooking. Lourdes, smiling, welcomes us in and offers up drinks. For the next hour or so we sit and talk and drink wine. Tonya helps out Andreas and Ray gives them a hard time. As Andreas’ tomato sauce is nearing readiness, the cooks discover that there is no pot big enough to boil the pasta. A debate ensues as if it is better to cook the pasta in two separate bowls or in one odd, low wok looking thing. After the deliberation, the low slung pot wins and more time is added on the clock. Ray sees the opportunity for some more ribbing, and lets loose.

With much fanfare the pasta is finished, and presented to the table at 10:30. We were all starving, and by now, had had enough tequila or wine to be perfectly relaxed. It is fantastic! There is a cool breeze, good food and friends around the table. Lourdes explains how she doesn’t think of this place as solely hers, because when she is here, she likes everyone to be able to cook. I agree with her that having friends together and being able to mingle, cook and talk is the recipe for a great evening. This is a prime example. I sit and take it all in and am truly grateful for the hospitality Ray and Lourdes have shown and continue to show. They are excellent hosts and travel guides, and once again tonight, they are the best hosts in the world. Dinner could not be better.