Tag Archives: #marinas

Viva Mexico!

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Hola amigos. 😉

I’ve been in Mexico since last Saturday night. The plane was only a few hours late arriving. First we had an engine problem, but they managed to fix that and put us back on the same plane in only a couple of hours. No worries. 😉

Next, as we were heading down the runway, they announced some kind of medical emergency onboard. We waited to see if we would need to go back to the gate again, but after conferring with the doctors over the phone it was decided the person could fly after all.

After running the gauntlet of time share sellers on arrival, I took the shuttle in to town. I’ve been staying at Cabo San Lucas. I wanted to be near the marina, shopping, bars and restaurants, etc.

I got settled in to my hotel- the Siesta Suites-where I have a nice big room. It has a big comfortable bed in a separate bedroom and plenty of storage. I hang out on the couch in the living room/kitchen. It has a full size refrigerator which is great for leftovers, but no stove for cooking. I have been heating up water for my morning cup of tea and leftovers in the microwave.

There’s a fantastic Italian restaurant that’s almost part of the hotel, a Mexican BBQ pit across the street, the Fenway bar- Boston centric (“Yankees Suck”)-next to a small crepe place. Next door is a small shop selling souvenirs and also basic groceries. I was able to get one stick of (real) butter and good strawberry jam for my toasted bagels in the morning.

I’ve spent most of my time here just wandering around the marina. I’ll say more about why later. I did go fishing one day, it was OK, but not really what I was looking for. I really wanted to catch a marlin. This is supposed to be the marlin capital of the world. I did see that people were catching them.

My neighbors here at the hotel caught one each! I may try again when I get to Puerto Vallarta. I’m heading that way this afternoon, but since no direct flights from here to there, I will stay tonight in Guadalajara. I will get to explore just a little bit of that city, but hoping it will give me at least some idea of the atmosphere there.

More later…

Lesson learned: don’t go to the local beach on the weekend! The rest of the week, there is no one there. 🙂

Final Week

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Class will finish up this week, so things will be busy around here for a couple of days. Actually, I’ve been fairly busy all along. I haven’t been posting much (and probably won’t be) because the internet has been really bad the last couple of days and I can’t stand sitting here trying to work (and not able to get anything done) while I should be out enjoying Puerto Vallarta.

Saturday I spent the morning taking it easy. I had breakfast at the little cantina downstairs, picked up my laundry, picked up a few things at the store. I took the bus down to the marina after it started cooling off a little bit.

I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t bigger. Other than that, it was about what I expected. Lots of expensive shops and plenty of tourists. A few big yachts but most looked like they were actually used and not just show boats like a lot of them you see in Miami or Houston.

As expected, the gates to the docks were locked. I couldn’t get down to the boats to talk to any crew members. I figured there wasn’t much hope, but still worth a try. I wouldn’t mind working on a private vessel again. It might even be fun for a change.

I wandered around for a while, hoping to find a good sailors bar where I could hang out for a while and get the scoop over a few drinks. Sorry to say, I didn’t find any place that looked likely for real sailors to hang out.

I rode the elevator up to the top of the lighthouse (El Faro). I thought I might have a snack and watch the sunset. It was a gorgeous view. They only had chicken wings and I just wasn’t in the mood for those, so I took a few pictures and headed back down to wander some more.

I met a nice guy from Tennessee. He was a former USCG mariner so we had a pretty good conversation. It was nice talking to someone who ‘gets it’. I really miss being on the water. Most people just don’t understand. It gets in your blood.

I had a nice steak dinner at a place called the Rincon de Buenos Aires (Argentinian Steak House). They had a special offering of green salad, baked potato and skirt steak for 195 pesos. I paid about $15 for dinner and a drink.

The steak was great, cooked perfectly and plenty big. I could hardly finish it. The baked potato was big, but they didn’t put anything on it but butter. I asked for sour cream and they brought some, but it was not the same thing we get at home. The salad was big, but they only had Italian dressing and it wasn’t really very flavorful. They brought out a bread basket with chimichurra sauce, but I didn’t want to fill up on bread.

I did really enjoy my steak, but I wasn’t real impressed with the restaurant other than that. First of all, it was very hot. I was dripping. The hostess tried to help me by pulling my table (which was up against the wall in a dark corner) out so that it was under a ceiling fan. I appreciated the effort, but it didn’t help much.

The waiters were all polite and helpful, but it was very busy so they were slow to come by. A man at the next table flagged them down for me once after I had been waving at them for about 10 minutes.

It was definitely a very popular place. I would go back for the food, but only if I made sure beforehand it was a slow time.

Sunday morning we got to go out sailing with Erica and her friend Memo. He has a beautiful sailboat and kindly offered to take our whole class out sailing for the day. I’ll have more on that later.

Today was Monday. Back to school. I got my last 2 teaching assignments this morning, and so spent some time working on my lesson plans this afternoon. I’ve got early classes tomorrow and Wednesday, and we have another essay due Wednesday too, so I’ll be busy for the next couple of days with school work.

It’s already 2300. I need to get off here and get some sleep. I need to get up EARLY tomorrow! 🙁