This little guy is called a social flycatcher. He and his relatives have been visiting our pool for the past two months. Pretty bird with an obnoxious call!
Leslie and I leave tomorrow morning for the next stop in this vagabond lifestyle — Mérida, capital of the state of Yucatan (JOO-kah-tan).
This is Hasta Luego (“see you later”) rather than Adios! because we may very well be back. We like this city. San Miguel de Allende is still at the top of the list, and we still have other places to see. But PV is definitely in the running. We need to spend more time in the centro, the downtown area that’s also called the Romantic Zone.
We can already see a scenario that would have us in San Miguel for the summer and Puerto Vallarta for the winter. Best of both worlds.
The good things about this little slice of heaven include:
Lots of places where you can contribute to the local economy, including U.S.-based big box stores like Costco (where I got new contact lenses this week) and Home Depot, but also many small locally owned places. Leslie came out of one marina-area shop with lots of great-looking lightweight clothing at good prices.
A good Anglican church, Christ Church by the Sea.
The locals are warm and friendly. They don’t mind us gringos being here because we help create jobs. And that’s a good thing.
Many expats here, and our friends Mike and Sara Wise make sure there are several events a month to get people together. We met David and Michelle Webster at a coffee hour several weeks ago, and later had dinner with them. Fun couple, whom we hope to see again.
Lots of great restaurants, and not just Mexican places. Italian, Chinese, Brazilian, seafood, you name it.
A number of interesting places outside PV to explore — such as Magical Cities like San Sebastian.
The downsides are:
It’s big. Maybe too big. Lots of places and lots of people. Puerto Vallarta is several different areas with vastly different vibes.
Walkability is good in the marina but poor if you want to go to other areas, like downtown or the shopping centers — almost essential to have a car here.
Access to farmers markets and local mercados is limited.
Many expats here (once again, that’s a positive and a negative), and they seem a little bit cliquish, although they would say that’s not true.
Not many cultural opportunities here, at least not that we have found. However, we did miss an opportunity to be at a chamber music concert early last month, and last night we attended the second evening of the 11th Festal Vallarta Azteca del Folclor Internacional.
Mexican folk dances, complete with colorful costumes, were a big hit with the crowd of mostly locals at the international folkloric dance festival that opened Wednesday evening. The beach is just behind that stage, so we had a nice view of the sunset, too.We will miss this view.
Next post from Mérida. We’ve heard the daytime high temperatures hover near 100° F. It’s a colonial city, like San Miguel, but a 30-minute bus ride gets you to a great Gulf of Mexico beach! More to come…
A quick update while we are sitting by the pool, enjoying nice breezes and recovering from a couple of journeys with Vallarta Adventures (see “Whale of a Tale”), the tour company Leslie and I really like.
Before I tell you about those trips, another plug for US Global Mail, the Houston company that handles our mail for us, and for shipping service DHL. This week the mail included a new credit card to replace one that expires in May, and a check. Most of our mail gets thrown away or scanned to store on my laptop, but I needed that credit card, as well as the check. DHL got it here in just two days — a day sooner than promised — and at a discount thanks to US Global Mail. DHL makes it easy to track the shipment and their website is user-friendly.
The check is from International Living magazine, the first of many I hope to receive from them and similar publications. IL recently used an article I wrote about our vagabond lifestyle, so I am now a travel writer!
And our daughter Stephanie was here over Easter weekend to celebrate her birthday (April 14), along with her friend Kelly. The two of them often bunk together on group travel excursions, so they appreciated having their own rooms in our three-bedroom condo! We celebrated Steph’s birthday at Puerto Vallarta’s top-rated restaurant, Tintoque, right down the street from our condo. The next night, we took them to Victor’s in the marina. A more casual, fun place known for free tequila shots. Stephanie was aghast when she arrived Friday night to find that her mother’s tan was better than hers. She and Kelly spent much of weekend trying to fix that.
Victor welcomed us to his restaurant and gifted Stephanie (left) and Kelly with a bottle of his uncle’s famous tequila. Steph says it will stay at her place, but Kelly expects a shot whenever she visits. Happy Birthday, Stephanie!
It was great to see her again. If we decide on Mexico rather than a European country as our retirement home, it will be easier for Steph to come see us from her home in San Diego, and vice versa.
This week we went on excursions to Yelapa (pronounced gel-AH-pah), a small coastal village accessible only by boat, and to the silver mining town of San Sebastian.
At Yelapa, we saw a neat waterfall, walked through the town, relaxed on the beach and tasted some incredible raicilla, which is made — like tequila — from the agave plant, and is distilled only here in the state of Jalisco. Very smooth.
This waterfall greets you as you complete a climb up Yelapa’s hill. Some in our group took a dip in the pool.
Vallarta Adventures staff, especially the amazing tour director Pablo, kept us entertained all the way there and back on the boat – about 90 minutes each way. Just before lunch, Leslie and I got a chance to paddle a sea kayak around a pretty little cove. First time for both of us! Lunch was a make-your-own sandwich buffet. Leslie pointed to one of the choices and asked a crewman, “What is this?” With a straight face he replied, “Mexican turkey. Brown pelican.” Then he winked. It was just regular turkey, of course. I wonder how many times a week he uses that one!
On the cruise back to PV, Pablo and the staff performed — OK, lip-synced — some old rock ‘n’ roll standards as “The Mexican Rolling Stones,” complete with makeup and props. Having an open bar helped us enjoy it a bit more, but those guys put on a great show. They were very funny!
Got a selfie in as we prepared to board the boat back to Puerto Vallarta. Yes, that’s my Cubs cap — sorry the “C” doesn’t show. I wore it one day on the beach at the PV Marriott and met a guy who said he was once a Cubs bat boy. He knew Ernie Banks! Had fun talking with him.
Yesterday’s excursion was by van, over narrow, winding roads through the Sierra Madre Mountains to the silver mining village of San Sebastian del Oeste. Tour guide Gabriel kept up a running commentary on a variety of topics, including bits of Mexican history. San Sebastian was once home to some 30,000 people while 90 area silver mines were operational. Now the mines are gone and there are only about 600 residents. The town, with its narrow cobblestone streets and whitewashed homes, hasn’t changed much since the 1910 Mexican Revolution drove many people away, primarily the upper classes. It is one of more than 100 places the government has designated as a Magical City, or Pueblos Mágicos.
We visited Hacienda Jalisco, where silver ore was refined in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Hacienda Jalisco. At least one website claims this may have been one place where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton hooked up during filming of “Night of the Iguana.” Our guide didn’t mention it, though.
Once owned by the great film director John Huston, some of it has been restored. You can see the smelters where ore was baked in one of the steps to create pure silver. After a terrific lunch at the Secret Hotel (“secret” because you can only stay or eat there if you know the owner), we saw a family-owned organic coffee roasting operation. The family matriarch, “Mary,” had 21 children. We bought some of the coffee from a gentleman known as “veinte” (Spanish for 20) because he’s the 20th child, and he looked to be close to 70 years old. The video below is the roasting part of the process. Yes, it smelled fantastic!
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The formal walking tour ended at the home of the Encarnación family, which has lived in this house since the 1700s. Part of it is now a museum. Then we spent some time in the beautiful church just off the plaza, and saw a silversmith’s shop. Both our guide and the silversmith admired Leslie’s silver necklace. Her father brought that necklace home from a business trip to Mexico almost 40 years ago. Gabriel said the craftsman who made that style of jewelry passed away a number of years ago, and they don’t see his work very often. Gabriel was impressed.
Last stop, fortunately, was a visit to Hacienda Don Lalin, a local tequila distillery. After a brief introduction by our host, Lalo (who grows his own agave plants), we tasted some very fine tequila, mezcal and raicilla, as well as amaretto- and coffee-flavored tequilas. Once again, we contributed to the local economy and hit the road back to Puerto Vallarta.
Lalo is a third-generation tequila distiller, and his products are very tasty. The labels say “Don Lalin,” who was Lalo’s grandfather.
One more week here in this bustling Mexican beach town. Then Leslie and I move on to Mérida, capital of the state of Yucatan. It’s 10- to 20-degrees hotter there, but we’ve heard great things from a number of people about that colonial city.
I know it’s been too long since the last post. I do have several excellent excuses, but that will have to wait until the end because we had a great adventure this week.
Yesterday morning, Leslie and I got (relatively) up close and personal with some humpback whales, courtesy of Vallarta Adventures and expert guide Nikki from the U.K. Whale watching is one of Puerto Vallarta’s biggest winter tourist attractions. The humpbacks arrive in early December every year and by the end of March they migrate north again to their feeding grounds.
Northern Pacific humpback whales – we learned from marine biology Ph.D.candidate Nikki – come to Puerto Vallarta for the winter. Good choice. We did the same thing! Mexico and Hawaii are their two main winter breeding grounds.
This is about as close as we got to the whales. Vallarta Adventures has a plane that searches for whales and let the Zodiac captain know where they are.
Our group of about 25 made the trip from the Puerto Vallarta maritime terminal to the mouth of the Bay of Banderas in a fast Zodiac (400 hp). On the way, I got a chance to see some boobies! Blue-footed boobies, that is. A kind of waterfowl. Since we were in the middle of the bay, we saw them in flight and couldn’t see their blue feet. Two of them flew right beside our Zodiac for at least a minute (see the brief video below), pacing us perfectly. Then they zoomed ahead and cut us off!
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But the main event was the humpbacks. We saw several groups of two or three whales in the Bay of Banderas and just outside the mouth of the bay in the Pacific Ocean. Nikki told us humpbacks rarely travel in groups. But we saw several groups of two or three, and it was amazing!
She was excited to see the whales feeding, since they normally don’t feed in the breeding grounds. They feed like crazy on their way to the Bay of Banderas, but they usually fast during mating season. Nikki spotted a krill floating in the water and was able to scoop it up for us to see. This is what whales eat – like a shrimp and a little smaller than a honeybee. Sorry I didn’t get a photo of the krill, but I will show you – in the series of three photos below – what it looks like when the whale dives. Once you see the tail go under the water, it will be awhile before Leviathan comes back up, gathering krill as it rises. Nikki said, “The biggest part of whale watching is whale waiting.”
You can’t see markings on this fluke, but each whale has unique markings on the underside of its tail. Nikki said the markings are like human fingerprints. Researchers can identify each whale they see.
The highlight of the morning, though, was seeing a baby whale – a calf – with its mother. “Couldn’t be more than three months old,” Nikki said. Later she added, “We believe humpbacks may live 100 years or more. So we hope this newborn will migrate with its mother, and come back to these waters next winter. And we hope he or she keeps doing that even after all of us in this boat are gone.”
Baby humpback was breeching like crazy. “It’s very playful,” Nikki said. See the video below, and turn up the sound to hear Nikki’s commentary in English and Spanish.
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There was a third whale, a male, along with the mother-calf pair. But Nikki said we “should not assume that’s Daddy because that’s not how humpbacks live. That’s probably a male that wants to mate with this calf’s mother.” Humpbacks can be quite solitary, she said, noting that if we see two whales together they could be a male-female pair or more likely two males. She said researchers almost never see two females together during mating season.
If you’re ever in Puerto Vallarta, be sure to do your touristy-type stuff with Vallarta Adventures. They do a great job. The marketing people that sell for them, though, can be very aggressive. We’ve learned to say, “Vivimos aqui, amigo” (We live here, buddy. We ain’t tourists.) They leave us alone when they hear that.
Yes, it’s been awhile since the last post. I hope you think this was worth the wait. I did mention some excellent excuses.The biggest one is that the patio and small pool we have are actually magnets that attract us and keep us in place! See what you think!
Hasta luego!
Wouldn’t you hang out here as much as possible? With an adult beverage in hand? Thought so.
We have arrived in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and the difference between this city and San Miguel de Allende – where we lived for the past six weeks – is amazing. It’s bigger. More than 300,000 in the metropolitan area, with lots more traffic. It’s a beach town at sea level, with high temps and moderate-to-high humidities. Even more Americans and Canadians.
Leslie and I were able to rent a modern three-bedroom condo in Marina Vallarta that backs up to a golf course. We have a small pool in a huge outdoor space with lots of tables and chairs. We’ve already had one visitor (see photo below)! And we’re seeing (and hearing) a number of birds I can’t easily identify. A sparrow-sized cutie with a reddish-pink head and chest, a larger bird with yellow on its chest and a streak from its eye backward along its head, and a woodpecker. And what I think may have been a goldfinch – not sure.
Saw this small iguana joining us on our first day in the sun! I didn’t have a snack to offer, so he left!
Hal, our Canadian landlord for the next two months, has a local administrator for his property. Rosanna picked us up at the airport on Wednesday and gave us some pointers on the marina area.
“It’s very safe here,” she said. “You can walk all around the area any time of day or night and you’ll be safe. Just one thing that you must never do: Never, ever, walk across the golf course at night.”
I was having a difficult time figuring out why. Would we be attacked by banditos lurking the links after hours? Bopped on the head by golf balls from blind golfers playing in the dark to avoid crowds? No and no.
“Crocodiles,” she said. “In the dark, you might step on one, and they don’t like it when you step on them.”
Right. What’s now a huge marina with lots of boats and tons of shops and restaurants, not to mention a plethora of condos, was once a swamp. There are still crocs here. It’s their habitat. So the danger is from wildlife, not from a wild life.
In English: Danger. Crocodiles. No Swimming.
Rosanna has been very helpful. On Friday, she took us on a tour of Vallarta, showing us a bit of the old city and pointing out areas we will need to explore in depth over the next two months. She also took us to a local mercado for fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as seafood and meat.
There’s also a Wal-Mart and a Costco, in addition to Mexican grocery stores very much like the one we patronized in San Miguel. More on cost of living next time, but at first glance it appears prices are slightly higher here than in San Miguel.
We attended our first Vallarta ex-pats dinner on our second day in town. A number of them live here in the marina area, including Mike and Sara, the group leaders. There’s a social event almost every week.
We also attended Sunday morning services at Iglesia Cristo del Mar, or Christ Church by the Sea. But…it’s not really by the sea, more like on a really busy street close to the airport! I dressed as I would for any summer Sunday at Grace United Methodist Church in Naperville. Boy, was I overdressed! Shorts and t-shirts are not out of place here. It’s another outpost of the Anglican Church in Mexico, like the one we attended in SMA, and we enjoyed the service in what is essentially a big open-air palapa. Nice people. We will be back.
We’re really excited that John and Anne Mixen, friends from Grace UMC, are right here in Vallarta this week for a well-deserved vacation. We’re meeting them this evening to watch the sunset and enjoy dinner and conversation.
I’ll leave you with the view from our patio toward the golf course. We planned to do things today but we’re still on the patio because of a comment I made during lunch, “This is just about perfect, and you don’t often get perfect.” Maybe more often here in Vallarta. We’ll let you know.
Hasta luego!
Looks great, doesn’t it? Behind these lounge chairs is a round table with four chairs where we’ve been having lunch almost every day. The only down side to this space is watching the golfers on what appears to be the 18th fairway. I don’t play golf, but know a lousy swing when I see one. Have to keep myself from yelling, “follow through, dude!” or “Hey, your stance is too wide!”
Back when I was working, my good friend and colleague John Peterson and I always made it through depressing pro football and basketball seasons in Chicago by saying, “How long until spring training?” (OK, the Blackhawks are winners, but neither of us understands hockey!) Well, spring training has begun anew. And this year, the Cubs are defending World Series Champions!!!
The Cubs are Number One, and apparently so is San Miguel de Allende. No, we haven’t reached a final decision, but if we had to choose today our retirement home would be SMA. Will we be here when the Cubs win the 2017 World Series? Can’t answer that one yet. We’ve still got several places to see.
We’re both a little surprised that we like Mexico so much. I always felt that our primary focus for a retirement home would be Europe, probably Spain, and it might still be that. So why is San Miguel the leading contender right now?
The iconic Parroquia, the beautiful parish church that dominates SMA’s “skyline.” As the sun shifts during the day, the colors change. So it looks different in the afternoon than in the morning.
The climate here is just great — warm and dry. It’s been as low as 69º F. and as high as 81º F. for daily highs, with humidities usually below 50 percent. And there’s very little rain this time of year. In the six weeks we’ve lived here it has rained twice, both times at night and only briefly. Local expats tell us that during the “rainy season” it either rains at night or for an hour or two in the afternoon. All-day rain or thunderstorms — very rare. Yes, it gets cool at night, but it rarely gets into the 40s until the wee hours, like 4 or 5 a.m. We’re snug in bed then. And in the dead of summer, daytime highs are slightly higher but nothing excessive because we’re at 6,200 feet altitude. Those who have been here awhile say to expect highs in the mid to upper 80s and lows around 60º F. We can handle that!
San Miguel, as noted in earlier posts, has an extensive arts scene with concerts, plays, operas, ballets, films, lectures and tons of art galleries. Many restaurants have live music on the weekends. One of our friends at St. Paul’s Anglican Church — and a long-time expat — put it best when he said, “I try to limit cultural events to one per day.” St. Paul’s is yet another reason to choose SMA. Good group of people there, and we like the rector, a retired Episcopal bishop from the States. There are also a number of charities here with many opportunities to volunteer. So we could stay pretty busy if we lived here. Or not.
Another person from St. Paul’s told us she has a good friend in the real estate business and can help us find a long-term rental. Lots of people come down here for six to nine months and rent their homes when they’re not here.
This is a boveda ceiling in one of SMA’s many churches. Lots of buildings have this unique brick work ceiling. It’s even in some homes. Go here to see a two-minute video showing how they do it.
Then there’s the food. We love the fresh local produce we get at the mercados, and the meat we get at the carnicieras. But SMA also has a ton of great restaurants, from hole-in-the-wall chicken joints with locals lined up out the door, to high-end places with top-flight international chefs and stunning views. One could never go hungry in San Miguel.
International Living magazine touts Mexico as 2017’s top retirement country. Last year, I think, it was Panama. There are a lot of positives about San Miguel, and about Mexico in general:
Mexico boasts one of the strongest economies in the western hemisphere right now.
It’s close to the U.S., so we can get back relatively quickly and without great expense in case there’s a family emergency.
Health care here is excellent, as we noted with Leslie’s visit to the podiatrist. And we have friends who always see a dentist while they’re here to get crowns and root canals — just as good as in Chicago at one-third the cost, they say.
There are many creature comforts in Mexico, like theaters, shopping centers, good cell phone and internet coverage. In the cities, even the small ones, there’s nothing third-world about this country.
The cost of living in general is low, especially if you pay in pesos. Friday morning we met another couple at a popular breakfast spot and had a lovely meal for a little over $500 pesos — about $25 USD. For FOUR people.
There are a lot of other expats here, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, but some from the U.K. and other countries.
OK, what are the downsides:
There are a lot of other expats here, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, but some from the U.K. and other countries. No, that’s not a mistake. Too many gringos is a problem. It tends to drive prices, especially home prices, higher.
We will need to learn more Spanish. We’re getting by OK with limited knowledge, but if we’re going to live here we need better command. And we would have to do that if we chose Spain, too.
We’ll have to adjust to time here, and how things are done. This is Mexico, things don’t always go as smoothly and perfectly as in the States. Even though they don’t do siesta here in San Miguel, mañana is a way of life. You have to be patient sometimes.
Traffic can be a problem in SMA, but drivers are much more courteous here than in the U.S.
So we have a lot to think about. But now it’s on to the beach town of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast. We have already connected with the expat community there, and we’ve signed up for a dinner on Thursday night after we arrive Wednesday afternoon. This group has lots of social events like dinners and happy hours — every week!
The condo we’ve rented from a Canadian guy named Hal is very different from all the places we’ve lived in on this trip. It’s a modern townhouse in a gated community called Marina Vallarta. It’s on a fairly busy street, but it backs up to a golf course. We have three bedrooms and a huge outdoor area with a plunge pool. It’s nowhere close to the historic centro. We will be able to walk to the marina area and to the beach, but we’re unsure about how to access the local produce in farmers markets, as were able to do in Spain and to a lesser extent in Malta. Hal says taxis and buses are plentiful and cheap. We’ll be in Vallarta for two months — all of March and April.
So we bid farewell to the island nation of Malta. (The Maltese say “ciao” for goodbye. Their language borrows heavily from Italian as well as Arabic.) Lacking any temporary-residence visas, we can only stay in the Schengen Zone for 90 days. Tomorrow is the 90th day since we boarded a train in London and headed for Spain.
So we’re headed back to the New World to check out more possible retirement homes. First stop, later this week, is San Miguel de Allende in the mountains of Mexico’s Guanajuato province, about a three-hour drive north of Mexico City. It’s over 6,000 feet above sea level. Since we’ve been living for the past month at about six feet above sea level, this will take some getting used to!
We’re excited about being warm again. Malta is in the Mediterranean Sea, just about as far south as you can get and still be in Europe. But this winter has been unusually cold. It’s been that way all over Europe. The mountain air of San Miguel promises to be drier. While at night it’s in the low 40s F. right now, daytime temperatures are in the mid 70s. Can’t wait to have a margarita on the rooftop terrace of our apartment!
Right now, the plan is to be in San Miguel until March 1, then move on to Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast. Both towns have huge expat populations. Puerto Vallarta’s expat community is active and vibrant. We’ve already gotten a ton of emails inviting us to their social events. After about six weeks in PV, we plan to try Mèrida, at the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, then possibly Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. We’re back in the Chicago area, probably by mid-July. Hope to see many of you then.
International Living magazine rates Mexico as the Number One retirement destination in the world for 2017. It’s partly the warm climate, partly the warm people. We’re hearing lots of great things about Mexico. Now, I know somebody is saying, “Gee, isn’t Mexico dangerous?” Well, it’s not nearly as dangerous as Chicago! Seriously, there are places in Mexico you should not go, like the Mexican states along the U.S. border and the state of Sinaloa. The drug cartels aren’t active in the areas we plan to visit. If they were, the tourists and expats would leave, taking their money with them. Then lots of good folks would lose their jobs. Where we’re going, it’s very safe. More on that later.
I leave you with a photo I took in Teatro Manoel in Valletta. It’s the third oldest theater in Europe, and the oldest in the former British Commonwealth. The concert we attended was titled, “Gallic Music for Cello and Piano.” The cellist was a young French artist, Sébastien Hurtaud. He was accompanied by Italian pianist Bruno Canino. We heard works by DeBussy, Fauré and Saint-Saëns. Leslie and I both enjoyed the performance, but spent the whole time thinking of our dear friend and outstanding cellist, Jo-Jo Murphy.
Next post from Mexico!
Sorry, it’s a little dark at intermission of a concert we attended in the very small Teatro Manoel, built in 1731 by the Portuguese Grand Master Antonio Manoel de Vilhena of the Knights of St. John.
Ex-pats in Mexico 