Leaving the Mountains for a Beach Town

Today is a travel day, but the bus didn’t leave until 1:45 p.m., so we had the morning to have breakfast at La Abuela and then do a final round of the town.

The bus to Puerto Vallarta was right on time, but packed to the gills. Some people stood for the full three hours of the trip. We bought our tickets a day earlier so we were fine. Someone suggested that we get off at Los Juntos as it would save us an extra hour on the bus and would cost less to get to the airport. Great advice.

Pat and Gail’s airplane arrived at 5:15, so we waited for them at the Tacon de Marlin, the same burrito restaurant that we had eaten in 3 weeks earlier. Their first place from Bellingham to Seattle had been cancelled a few hours before they were supposed to leave so their grandson, Patrick, drove them to Seattle and they were able to continue on with their flight from there.

As always, our meetings are great and then eating a big shrimp burrito and drinking a Victoria beer before heading to Chacala, was great. Domingo, the cab driver waited for us and did a great job driving on the busy highway north. The traffic was unbelievable. It was like being on a major highway at rush hour. It is Friday night and the last weekend of Christmas holidays so that explains why there was so much traffic.

It was a lot warmer on the coast and we enjoyed seeing the beautiful red sunset as we travelled.
Chacala is tiny, not far from the bigger town of Las Varas. It doesn’t have an ATM machine, a pharmacy or a bread store, but it does have a beautiful beach and restaurants galore. We can buy almost anything that we need here which is great. Combis (vans) go to Las Varas all the time, if we need special items.

Our apartment is at the edge of town so it is quiet, being a little ways from the action. At the same time, it is a very short walk to the beach and the dock.

We are sharing a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment on the 2nd floor with a very large patio and access to a small swimmming pool on the main level. There are lots of birds and butterflies and we can see the ocean. Thank you P and G for finding this comfy place for us to share. Leonor, the landlady, keeps the place very clean and well equipped.

We are looking forward to a relaxing 3 week stay here, with our old friends, before our 2 month road trip in New Zealand.

Note: I forgot to publish this earlier. But here it is - almost 2 weeks late!Read more