The bus journey from Guadalajara to PV was surprisingly luxurious and comfortable. I had imagined bus travel in Mexico to be more on the lines of bouncing around on a wooden chair in the aisle hugging chickens, and while I am sure this method of travel is possible, the buses are so cheap anyway that we took the nice one. The scenery is stunning – you travel through a lush mountain range & then slowly meander down towards the coast. On arrival in PV, we were picked up by one of the school reps and taken to our hotel.
PV is hot – high humidity and scorching sunshine, which actually is very pleasant when you can jump in the sea/pool. The school was in a beautiful old casa, with open space, a huge terrace, white washed walls and rustic furniture. The atmosphere was relaxed, with all the staff being seriously friendly and helpful. The school is located in the old town, which comprises of cobbled streets, old buildings and lots of rustic cars around, mainly in the form of old VW Beatles. It was great to be able to walk to the school, especially along the Malecon, which is a long promenade along the sea front with lots of very interesting sculptures.
Mark and I were put in a Spanish class with Myla, who was great fun & full of beans. It was just the two of us, which gave a good opportunity for lots of conversation practice and learning. Classes normally finished at midday giving time for extra study/beach/pool/walking around the town. I joined a gym for the week and did that some evenings, which was fun. Oli arrived on the Monday, so we went out for a few beers with him to swap travel stories. On Wednesday night the school organized drinks at ‘Japanice’ – a great restaurant which served free margaritas for females – lucky me. We met some great people at the dinner – particularly Joelle, Diana and Nancy, arranging to meet them the following night.
Thursday afternoon involved a cooking lesson in the school, which was interesting – Chicaquiles were on the menu, and despite the large number of chiles put into the dish, it was surprisingly mild. In the evening, we got a taxi to Joelle’s apartment, which is gorgeous & has a large pool, of which we took advantage. Oli kindly shared his fish that he caught earlier in the day and cooked us a great cerviche/grilled fish and salad.
On Friday, we convened back at Joelle’s apartment to finish off the rest of the fish Oli caught – we had some lovely cold white wine with the fish and sitting on Joelle’s balcony watching the sun set having fun with new and old friends was very special.
On Saturday we chartered a little boat & went to Yalapa, which is a beach only accessible by boat about 45mins from PV. The ride was stunning and the beach itself also very impressive. We had a very easy day, swimming in the sea, reading, playing with the very boisterous black lab who I had great fun racing into the sea to get the thrown plastic bottle & of course, eating yummy Mexican food. On the way back, the skipper stopped at Los Arches where we jumped into the water and snorkeled with the very colourful fish. Oli had fun throwing the bread just in front of my face, so I had swarms of chomping fish around – very funny. In the evening, we went to a gorgeous restaurant on the Malecon with Diana and Joelle. We were sitting outside but covered & the tropical storm that came in before the sunset was impressive – the sky was so dark with fog, it looked like the world was going to end. The food was amazing – I had an octopus & chorizo salad and red snapper, which was cooked to perfection. Oli chose the fine wine and did a good job as usual. After the meal, we wandered up and down the Malecon, then went to a bar for what I would describe as the biggest margarita in the world. I managed to drink about 1/8 of it before throwing it away – you could actually get one to share between 5 people and you would have plenty! Delicious.
On Sunday, we got the bus back to Guadalajara and stayed for one night before getting the bus to Mexico City. We met up with our Dutch friend Gergo again, which was fun, especially as he took us to his girlfriend’s architectural project, which was very interesting. JG
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