Margaritas, Bridges and Flesh Eating Fish!

Today I leave Puerto Vallarta Mexico, a place I've been to many times, a place where I met my darling husband, a place that is different enough to be a foreign country but holds familiarity and safety for me.
It's been an incredible trip of touring around, checking out coastal towns, visiting my husband's friends from back in the day and eating amazing food.

Yesterday we traveled away from the coast, following a river, through tiny villages and up into the mountains to a place called Canopy River. It's a collection of palapa roofed buildings up in the jungly mountains and is headquarters for horseback riding, zipling, ATV tours and much much more. We had brunch in a huge palapa restaurant and the food was fantastic! Two women made tortillas at the omelet station, the fruit was fresh and tasty and there was a variety of meats and salads enough to satisfy everyone. I ordered a frozen mango margarita and it was like having dessert! Butterflies are in season. Yellow, small butterflies everywhere, dotting the landscape.


After stuffing ourselves, the three of us walked up the road past a spot where they milk cows in an amphitheater and serve warm milk with alcohol to the audience. We didn't partake but did get out of the way when they moved the longhorn bull out of the theater to the road, following the lactating cow. There's a long suspension bridge across the river to a casita where you can have a drink and lie in a hammock to rest for the walk back across. Gorgeous view! It took at least 12 minutes to cross the bridge.


Canopy River is a business made up of a collection of all the farmers in the valley who formed a co-operative to use what they have to market to tourists. The workers at Canopy River are all local residents who grew up in the area, riding a donkey to the school miles down the road to town.
Then we drove south past Puerto Vallarta to Mismaloya Beach where I camped 35 years ago in my Volkswagen van with my boyfriend for a month. The area is no longer remote and wild jungle but skyscraping hotels and shops and condos. Our tour took us back to PV to walk the Malecon which is now closed off to traffic so the tourists can walk the ocean front line of shops and restaurants. Fun!

Similar to walking the Las Vegas strip but with more to see. I shopped a bit, and we ended up near the bridge at Playa des Muertes at a pedicure place letting little fish eat the dead skin from my feet. It's a new idea and I'm not sold on whether it made my feet more beautiful or feel softer, but it felt weirdly nice while the fish with no teeth were nibbling at my feet. And we got pictures! Then, I sat on a black velvet throne while the woman massaged my calves and feet with lotion, which felt REALLY good after walking all over the Malecon.

We drove around PV, the two men in the car reminiscing about their single days and the clubs and friends and jokes they played and we soon found ourselves back on the 21st floor of Tres Mares for dinner and drinks watching the sun set out one side of the floor to ceiling windows and the lights of Puerto Vallarta come on out the open patio doors overlooking the Vallarta coastline.

Our friend headed out at 10 pm with a group of friends to go search for a suicidal young man in distress who'd escaped from a rehab. This was their third night looking for him along the beaches, the streets and the back alleys of the Bay of Banderas.

There are many facets to life in PV. There's the fairy tale world of being a pampered tourist with days enjoying the sun and beach and there's real life when you live here. Both lives exist in this glorious weather though.

KIM HORNSBY is the bestselling Amazon Author of The Dream Jumper's Promise, Book    1 in a Supernatural Suspense series. She lives in the Seattle area and writes stories for       women about overcoming tragedy, adversity and coming out the other end.

Find her on Amazon Books.

www.twitter.com/kimhornsby
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Mexican Riviera, Old Friends & Pink Dresses

The view north of Marina

Day 2 in Mexico involved driving north from Puerto Vallarta to check out the towns along the coast. After a large Mexican breakfast made by Rosario at our friend's penthouse, (papaya, refrieds, eggs and banana) we took off in our rental Hyundai and joined the long line of traffic heading north, cutting through the mountains to get north quickly. Our plan was to work our way south.

We are big fans of the HGTV show Mexico Life and hope one day to own a place in one of these towns so this was research. Guayabitos was our first stop where we drove around the town and stopped at a beach side cafe for some fish. The beach sand is so hard there that trucks and jeeps drive on it. No regulations there! Someone backed down to the water to trailer their boat. The beach was full of colorful umbrellas and people and the water was full of fishing boats. It's a small town but with lots of flavor and hotels.

Guayabitos Beach

Next was Los Ayala, just around the corner. The beach there is very similar and the town is much smaller. We met some nice Canadians who've lived there in the hills in a gorgeous house for 9 years and over those years have rescued 6 dogs and 8 cats!

Downtown Sayulita

On to Lo Marcos which was a cute town with a deep sandy beach. San Pancho too. We liked the charming town of San Pancho! Very colorful and clean and lots of fun restaurants and attractions. It was late by this time but I insisted my hubby head the car into Sayulita. I LOVED this town. Very touristy, which for some reason I am drawn to. Cute little shops, strings of flags over the streets, a lovely open ocean beach, perfect for surfing and pretty little colorful buildings lining the clean downtown streets. My favorite so far.

Sayulita Beach

After a quick stop at the grocery store we arrived back at the penthouse for a glass of vino, some work on our respective laptops and when our benevolent friend Ramon came home from a huge search for a missing escaped from rehab young man we took him out to dinner at a fun streetside restaurant nearby. La Barra, I think it was called. Great atmosphere and food in the Vallarta Marina. I walked home from the restaurant and left two friends reminiscing about the old days when they were single men in P.V.. I leashed the chihuahuas and took them for a lovely stroll outside, something they only do every few days because they have a plot of turf on the balcony for their "business." The female, Cici, has a pink dress in her bed that she dragged from a bag of clothes to be donated to less fortunate children and claimed it as her own. When Ramon tried to take it from her bed, she growled, knowing that little girls sometimes need a pink frilly dress when living with two men.

Cici on the left, Mancha on the right

Last night a chihuahua slept with me, like a little stuffed toy all curled up by my shoulder, his tiny pink tongue sticking out of his mouth. So sweet.

Chihuahuas, Vultures and Corona!

Our friend's balcony

I'm in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and feeling like I won the lottery.
I know I just got back from Maui and if I could have spaced out these amazing vacations with a few months, I would have gone to Maui in November or early January but...

My husband has business here and I decided to tag along. I think my exact words were "You're not going to Puerto Vallarta without me."

There's my plane out there

His buddy of 30 years has a penthouse on the beach overlooking the ocean with Puerto Vallarta in the distance. We are blessed to have run of the house. And it comes with two Chihuahua dogs who are cute as a button. Tiny Mexican buttons.

I flew from cold SeaTac yesterday on a flight with lots of families headed out of the unusually cold Seattle winter and had a window seat. My seat mates were two boys who'd never been on a plane and were enjoying every minute of it. Free apple juice and movies! I watched The Wife, with Glenn Close and found it extremely interesting, as a writer!!!! Wow. I had no idea what it was about so everything was a big surprise, just the way it should be when watching a movie.

Can you find me swimming?

After customs, I found Roland in the waiting group of people beyond baggage claim. We jumped in our rental car, drove around the P.V. Marina where we first met in 1990. (I talked about putting this marina in The Dream Jumper's Pursuit) and then off we drove to this exclusive high rise on the beach where my husband has spent many a night with his buddy over the last decade without me. I usually go to Maui, where I once lived and have many friends, Roland goes to P.V. . But this year it worked out that we can both get away at the same time and our timing couldn't be better. Apparently it's snowing again in Seattle!
Our friend wasn't home yet and after a swim in the pool, we watched pelicans and frigate birds fly by the balcony, soaring on the coastal breeze. A few vultures even flew by and my husband joked about putting one of the coveted stuffed crabs in the fridge on a stick to get a shot of a vulture.
The beloved housekeeper had left beef stew that was to die for, along with a salad full of veggies and spinach. I had a few Coronas with dinner on the balcony and we talked late into the night with our friend when he arrived home.

Swimming in the complex pool

So far this morning I've had 2 cups of coffee, have watched whales jumping in the ocean off the balcony and have contemplated what to do on our adventure up north to Sayulita today.
No work today unless you call adventuring around the Riviera Nayarit research!

KIM HORNSBY is the bestselling Amazon Author of The Dream Jumper's Promise, Book    1 in a Supernatural Suspense series. She lives in the Seattle area and writes stories for       women about overcoming tragedy, adversity and coming out the other end.

Find her on Amazon Books.

www.twitter.com/kimhornsby
  www.facebook.com/kimhornsbyauthor