The Only Gringos in Town!

One and all,

I do believe we might be the only gringos in town! It's true! Look!

Yesterday we visited to our our favorite, popular haunts and we were the only ones there! Truly!

The town is dead and everyone is complaining. On the north side of the Rio Cuale there are nearly no Americans or Canadians walking along the Malécon. It is all Mexican. Now, I will admit to a certain charm in that. We are very much absorbed into the culture, or, perhaps, the culture is simply washing over us! We are sort of "token" gringos. The downside of this is, of course, that every Time-Share huckster, every beach-side vendor, and every cafe seducer targets Polley and me. We are their only choice! So, the old "No, Gracias" and "Ya heimos comida" (We have already eaten) is nearly constantlhy falling out of our mouths, whether it's true or not!

Apart from being the most popular couple in town, we spend of kind of regular day. It was after 7 when we got up. For those who know us, we immediately felt the day was wasted! However, we tried to make the best of the little time that remained - like 14 more hours! I did get a good walk in and it was fun to familiarize myself with the town. It is obviously early in the season. Places that we enjoy are not scheduled to open until the middle of the month - and from the vast number of vacant tables, it is with good reason.

I did enjoy my initial foré to the Lay grocery store. It is always fun to fumble my way around, looking for items and trying to figure out how to ask for them in Spanish. Yesterday, it was granulated sugar (azucar). Finally, it came up with " Donde esta el azucar por café" (where is the sugar for coffee? and we communicated! Of course, there was the required ceviche and frijoles that helped to make up feel we were not in Oregon any more.

There was, of course, the requisite time spent settling in. We had left a large tub of things from our visit last spring. However, we had not made a list of what we had left behind. So, if was a surprise to see what we had brought down that was, indeed, already here. The apartment, however, was in good shape and fred, our landlord, had made some improvements in terms of furnishings. We did discover, much to our surprise, that the last tenants had disassembled the shower head for some obscure reason and instead of a comforting blast of water for our morning ritual, we were greated with a narrow stream of water that reminded me of one of those cherubs often seen peeing in a fountain!

Following the first efforts at making the place home, we headed to see our good friends at La Fuente del Puente, Jose, Fatima, Angie and others. While from a business stand point it was not good that they were totally empty, it was nice to have a block of time to catch up. We plan to help them tomorrow by having lunch there, if for nothing more to keep the kitchen in practice. Right now, they are only cooking for each other!

After 3 margaritas (one each and one shared) it was a sweltering stagger up the hill. I have no mentioned the heat and humidity. It is pretty punishing. Yesterday, at some point, I checked the temperature: it was 86, but just to help you realize how miserable you are, it said it felt like 93! You will get no argument from us. However, we do have a nice ceiling fan over the bed and our place is quite comfortable and there is no problem sleeping at night. We even managed a good siesta in the warmest part of the day. Our place sits quite high so there is nearly always a breeze.

Last evening, we made our way to the beach to meet up with a couple of other waiters, Ricardo and his brother, Arturo. Both were on duty, although, again, there was no one there but us. We enjoyed our time with them. The little beach-side cafe has been sold, but the brothers were very pleased with the new owners. They are great guys and deserve the best. Here is Polley with Ricardo (an no one else!).

We stayed for our first official PV sunset (AFGPVS) and had a chance to meet both Ricardo's wife and his new baby daughter, born just before we left last April. She is achubby little thing, but Mom and Dad are very proud.

From there, it was on to La Palapa to see our hippie flute friend, Bobby. Wednesdays have become our regular times to sit on the beach under the stars and listen to Bobby and Raul. Great, relaxing and so civilized. We had not eaten since lunch, so we enjoyed a couple of bowls of soup and some wine. I had the tortilla soup, which was fine, but Polley had a spectacular corn and mussel soup that was to die for. You understand why La Palapa has remained a favorite in PV for 50 years. They still do it right.

Caught a cab home and enjoyed a "Tequila Sunset" (straight tequila drunk anytime after dark!) and fell into bed. A good first day, but we were also aware of how much travel and the heat had taken out of us. However, we are both confident that our schedule will provide us time to catch up. More tomorrow!

 

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