Wanderlets

Since my mother was alone in the hotel and without meals other than breakfast we were kept busy picking her up each morning, going places, and returning her to the hotel each evening.  I sure did learn the laterals between the RV park and the marina area though. The highway in that area is terribly congested and so the laterals are the way to go for short distances.  I do not like driving in Puerto Vallarta. Repeat. Repeat. However, being a passenger when Steve is driving is worse. My nine lives are gone. If it weren’t for other defensive drivers who have repeatedly saved us, you would not be reading this now.  Did you hear the big cheers coming across the Pacific when we left Australia and New Zealand and their roundabouts?

The first full day we walked over to the marina area to a tour office to straighten out ticketing for a little trip booked for later in the week. The company had charged our credit card for the three of us and then turned around and charged for five more tickets. We lost a little on the exchange rate but I was just glad to get our overcharge refunded. There are shops, restaurants, and condo’s on a boardwalk by the marina but I like looking at the boats best of all. After that we brought my mother to our RV and I prepared a meal while my mother enjoyed sitting outside in the warmth.

The next day we took a drive into the high sierras. There is a highway, that if you look at a map, appears to be a more direct route to Guadalajara than going via Tepic.  Evidently it is slower due to all the mountain driving because there are not too many vehicles on the road. We only drove an hour but had already climbed 5,000 feet in elevation.  It was still warm but the high humidity of the coast was gone.

Drying corn

Mom

There are dozens of Pueblos Magicos (Magic Villages) in Mexico, so designated because of their cultural, historical, or natural treasures.  One such village is San Sebastian del Oeste, founded in 1605 as a mining town for gold, silver, and lead. It is a small town of less than 1,000 people. The town is known for its four fiestas each year for religious holidays. We were lucky and visited the day after one of the holidays and so the celebration flags were still up and we didn’t have to negotiate our way through parades and whatever else they had. All the streets are very narrow and cobblestoned and in fact the road into San Sebastian is cobblestoned for several miles.

Cozy cobblestoned lane in San Sebastian

The Church of San Sebastian, constructed in 1608, has Corinthian columns and vaulted ceilings with frescos.

Mom, digging for change for the woman and her baby. My mother has a disease called “Wallet-itis” which many benefit from, including me. Some people make a big issue out of not giving money to beggars because they will otherwise never get out of their cycle of poverty; or so they think. These poor people still have to eat and what is a woman with a baby and no job and no welfare like we have in the US going to do?

Many bouquets of fresh and fragrant flowers from the festival were in the church.

Most of the buildings are white with tile roofs

This would be a fun town to explore from one end to the other on foot. I have seen some pretty cool pictures of San Sebastian online, particularly from the distance overlooking the town. However, my mother cannot walk more than two blocks without pain so we had lunch and left in the car after a short time there.

The Mexicans love their town squares and gazebos.

Hacienda San Sebastian, a small boutique tequila factory

There are three kinds of tequila and the most expensive is $70 US a bottle. Instead we bought some tequila liqueur pictured on the right that is made in several flavors. We bought the chocolate-coffee one and another that is orange flavored. They are delicious! Now I wish we had bought more as supposedly these cannot be purchased in stores due to the very limited supply.