Paradise Revisited, February 2016 Puerto Vallarta

What can I say new about Paradise, when we go each year?  We both love Puerto Vallarta.  The relaxed, care-free and laid-back environment, as well as the beautiful weather.  February is the perfect time to go….. we made it through the holidays, the bills in January because of the holidays, and as we settle in to the new year we are facing the cold, rain, yucky Pacific NW weather. What better way to rejuvenate ourselves, come back refreshed and ready for Spring.

Once again we booked the Sheraton Bougainvillea’s Resort through SFX, trading in our existing Mayan Palace Timeshare weeks.  The Sheraton is close to town, about a 10 minute walk.    We arrived on Saturday, February 6^th.  We were at the hotel by 4:30 pm or so, and settled right in.  Of course my first order of business was the pool, as always.  Dinner was at the hotel that night.

This year we tried a few new restaurants and took a bus ride to La Cruz, which is just past Bucerias, and before Suyulita.  And the rest of the time I spent by the pool, reading and otherwise just relaxing, while Doug spent his days working for awhile, leisurely walking around town, then joining me at the pool in the afternoon.   Most days we were back to our room by 5pm, then heading to dinner by 6:30-7 when the weather cooled down.  It was in the mid 80's during the day which was too hot for me to walk around.
 

La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, (La Cruz for short) – I had read that it was a great little area to check out, and have lunch.  Unfortunately, there is always a communication breakdown when we don’t really know the area or speak the language.  You would think that we would both be fluent in Spanish by now, however so many people speak English since it's a resort town, so we have never gotten fluent.  We managed to get on the right bus, and asked the driver to make sure to let us off at La Cruz.  When he indicated that we were at our stop, we got off along with another couple who seemed to know exactly where they were going.  We crossed the street, walked down hill to the marina, and looked around and discovered “nothing”.  La Cruz is a fishing village and there were fisherman cleaning fish, but that was it.  The one restaurant did not look even open.  We saw no sign of the town square or the city center.  We walked back up the hill, and tried to figure out where to go.  We finally saw a couple guys talking in the street so I asked where “Centro” was. 

Although neither one of us spoke each other’s language, we were able to communicate somewhat, and we learned that we needed to walk several blocks to find the town center.  In the heat. Up and down hills.  As we walked I made a mental note to remember to ask the bus driver to drop us off at “Centro” next time, if we came back. About the time we were deciding to give up, one of the gentleman we had talked to drove up and opened his door and motioned for us to get in.  By then we were ready for the ride and willingly got in his truck.  He drove several more blocks and there we were! Right in the middle of town.  He pointed out a couple little restaurants and we thanked him (gave him a few dollars) and jumped out.   So, we had lunch at a little street front café, and though we waited a little longer than we expected to the food was really good.  So, once again we had an adventure.  I made a note on our way back to the main highway that we need to get off at the “car wash” on the main highway, and or make sure we ask for the “centro” exit if we ever venture that way again.

This year we ate dinner at some of our favorite places, including Sr. Frogs, El Barracuda, Victor’s and D' Rock and Roll Diner at the Marina, Archie’sWok in Old Town, Joe Jack’s Fish Shack, and Margarita Grill as well as lunch at Derby City Burgers and breakfast at Las Palomas at the Marina on our last morning.  We also had nachos and drinks at Andale’s and met up with Kim and Mike at Langostino’s on the beach for their ExPat gathering.  The new restaurants we tried were Layla’s which I liked, and Doug thought was nothing special; LaDolce Vita for Italian food

 which of course I loved and Doug thought was just “ok”; Melissa’s a hidden gem which was great; Salsa Grill where I had the best steak skewer; and Casa Isabel which was above the city to the south and had a beautiful view and good food.   

I managed to get through one book this time – Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen, and caught up on a few magazines and TV shows.  

Once again it was all about the R and R before heading back to work… can’t wait to retire and spend more time in our favorite paradise.