Puerto Vallarta

 January 24, 2023

It was still dark when I pulled back the curtains and looked out. What was more surprising was that a busy highway was running right past our window! We were already docked in Puerto Vallarta! With our early morning arrival we had considered room service for breakfast but decided to just do our normal routine and get breakfast at the buffet. We are creatures of habit...Bob got his bowl of oatmeal and I had a couple of poached eggs on half of an English muffin.

A beautiful sunrise.

Our neighbor for the day...Navigator of the Seas

We walked right off the ship with no line. A gal from the Mexican department of agriculture was standing at the end of the gangplank checking to make sure no one was bringing food off the ship We had none, but she still asked to search Bob's backpack. I stopped to ask one of the shore excursion staff on the dock where we should go to call an Uber to get into the old town. She suggested walking out of the port area a short distance to a parking lot and call from there. Two other couples were heading the same way and I asked if they planned to get an Uber (hoping they had more of a clue than me!)

Souvenir tents inside the port area. One tent was even a pharmacy!

They said they were going to take a public bus...and at that same instance, one pulled up. Before we had time to ask any more questions, they said "come with us!" We had no Mexican currency but just that fast one of the guys bought us tickets from the driver! The price in U.S. cash would equal 50 cents/person but he refused to let us pay him.

The bus was standing room only and the center aisle was completely filled. Bob wasn't even able to get up the steps by the driver and stood by the door. We hung on for dear life as the bus took off.

The bus was constantly stopping and as a few people got off, more got on. At some point a young gal pointed to an empty seat indicating that I should take it. Bob worked his way further down the aisle, but never had a seat. I tried to keep an eye on our new friends (who now had been shuffled to the back of the bus) because I had no idea where we should get off.

They motioned as our stop was coming up and I quickly tried to get down the steps and out the door before the bus roared off. We were at the Malecon...exactly where I wanted to go. The friends invited us to hang out with them, but at that point I didn't want to impose and I actually felt comfortable on our own having done enough research on what there was to see.

Sand sculpture on the beach.

We strolled along the water front and eventually over the Rio Cuales. Many interesting statues line the walkway and we were entertained by pelicans diving head first into the water from high altitudes. The boardwalk was quite crowded and I tried to distinguish between the locals, the vacationers, the ex-pats, and the cruisers.

The sculpture of the little boy on the seahorse has become the official symbol of Puerto Vallarta. The statue has been washed away by storms into the sea not once, but twice and both times located and returned to the malecon.

The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Inside the church.

Rio Cuale

We walked as far as I intended and on our way back we got to witness the guys who climb the tall poll and then hang by their feet as the ropes spin them round and round all while they go lower and lower until they  reach the ground

On our previous visit to Puerto Vallarta we had taken a walking food tour that stopped at several street food vendors. Bob wanted to see if we could find someplace selling tacos so we walked inland a couple of blocks from the waterfront. Using Google Translate, I asked a lady working in a pharmacy where we could find a street taco place. (I swear every third storefront was a pharmacy advertising all of the drugs they sold OTC that would require a prescription back in the states.)

Her directions were unclear, but we headed in the direction we thought we should go. We passed by two ladies who were speaking in a mixture of Spanish and English so we asked them. One of the women spoke fluent English (I assumed she might have been an ex-pat) and she instructed us to go back one block and around the side of Woolworth's. She said there was a stand that served great tacos and she ate there often.

And we found it! The owner was OK with us paying in USD so we each ordered the daily special advertised on a cardboard sign hanging from a tree ($70 pesos each). At the official bank rate the total price for the two of us would have been $7.45 so when the lady working there (wife of the owner maybe?) said $9, we were fine with the price. Bob gave her a $10 bill and she gave him back $30 pesos (~$1.60 USD) so that actually made the cost about $8.40 USD. I wondered why Bob hadn't given her exactly $9 to avoid getting back pesos in change, but he had a plan.

Each of our meals consisted of 3 tacos, a cup of broth, and a large cup of some type of purple colored drink. Plastic plates were slipped inside of a plastic bag...no waste and easy cleanup! We sat on wooden stools at a counter next to where the man was assembling the tacos. He had a large pot with the meat that had cooked until it was tender. The meat was finely chopped and folded inside of two layers of soft corn tortillas which he then dipped into the grease floating on top of the broth where the meat had cooked. The greasy meat-filled tacos were laid on a griddle until they were crispy. The serving of broth was also dipped from the large stock pot and onions and cilantro was added. We enjoyed both the food and the experience!

All aboard time was 2:30 so when we finished eating around noon we decided we should head back to the ship. Again, I was planninng to take an Uber but Bob was convinced we should attempt the bus...but on our own this time. We found a bus stop sign a block and a half away and knew to watch for a bus with "Walmart" written on the front windshield. The $20 peso bill that Bob got as change for our meal was exactly the price of two bus fares. When we got on the bus we took the only two available seats which gave us a chance to look out the window as we traveled back to the port. (We hadn't seen a thing from our standing positions on the morning bus.) Once we reached Walmart it was an easy walk across the street back to the Zaandam.

This photo was taken from the ship. It is almost as if the ship was docked in the Walmart parking lot!

Back onboard, we sat on the back deck and spent some time catching up with stuff online...T-Mobile has full service in Mexico. The weather was warm enough that I decided to go for a swim and Bob went to walk some laps around the promenade deck. He stopped by the pool later just long enough to say he was going to play pickleball.

When the sail away party started cranking up by the seaview pool, I moved back down to OUR deck to get away from the crowds and was able to watch Puerto Vallarta fade in the distance as we sailed back out to sea.

My view from the lounge chair on OUR deck. (Too lazy to stand up to take the photo!) 

After dinner (Mexican night at the buffet) we went to the show "Humanity" put on by the Step One Dancers on the World Stage. HAL has done away with the traditional production shows of the past and now feature dancers who "interact with technology". In other words, canned music and a lot of wild videos projected on a screen behind the dancers. The same show had been performed on our Alaska cruise last spring and I didn't care for it then. With the Zaandam's small stage and single video screen the show was even less impressive.

From the theater we made our way to the Explorer's Lounge for the classical duo's 8 pm show. I am not a musician, but I can certainly appreciate their talent. Amazing.

Next we moved on to the Mix Bar and listened to Clara Vee on piano. She had been absent the first couple of nights, but was back. I had been worried that she might have had Covid, but she said she had just been "a little under the weather" and apologized that her voice was a little raspy. She was a great entertainer even if she wasn't at her best.

And speaking of Covid...as we were leaving our cabin in the morning there was someone from the medical center at the door of a cabin across the hall from ours. She was masked and gloved and when someone came to the door I heard her ask "how are you feeling?" The reply was "not very well." It appeared she was doing a Covid swab test. I've heard that people who get quarantined on a ship with Covid have a red sticker on their door but we never saw any. Very few people are wearing masks on the ship and only a small percentage of the crew are masked. We will see how things go as the cruise progresses. (Update: I followed a Facebook group for our cruise and did see a couple of people mention they caught Covid at the end of the cruise.)

No need for any wake up call to be set before going to bed. Tomorrow is a sea day.