Photo tour of Puerta Vallarta

After a couple of weeks happily anchored at cozy little La Cruz, we finally stepped up to the plate and took the bus (actually, 3 buses) with Rick and Dina of Talaria into the big city about an hour south.

We're here in Puerta Vallarta...and we SAILED here!

Every large Mexican town has a cathedral towering over the town square

Puerta Vallarta reminded us a bit of Laguna Beach, the way the homes jutted
up into the hillside overlooking the waterfront. 

                     

See what I mean? The "malecon" ("waterfront" in Spanish) 

The Malecon glows after sunset

We had lunch in this sweet little open air restaurant. Travel tip: this place at which we ate is frequented by locals, not by tourists, and hence the prices are much cheaper than the waterfront places for the tourists. Ya gotta go a couple of blocks away from the tourist areas, people...it's where the real life is! 

Lovely PV

Captain Chris on the Malecon

There is a charming flea market on the Cuale River, which runs right through downtown PV

Chris' body language says "What am I doing?" as he crosses the suspension bridge over the river

Once again I had the sensation that I was at Disneyland, not actually in "real life."

Down by the river -- right through downtown! Crazy cool!

Happy

The Cuale river runs right down to the beach

Chris with Rick and Deena of Talaria

We ended the day with a trip to the PV Costco

It was so eerily like a Costco in the US, it almost felt like we stepped into the Star Trek transporter back to the states! Here we are having a Costco pizza. Weird. 

You may wonder about the prices at the Puerta Vallarta Costco compared to in the states. Well, we spent 2,000 pesos! But don't worry -- that's less than 200 U.S. dollars. We managed to bypass the gallon jugs of olive oil, as this would take up half of our galley. LOL...