Our Lady of Guadalupe and RBC'ers!

Today was the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is just about the largest religious celebration that the Mexican people have next to Christmas and Easter. Lots of things were disrupted, especially the buses because of the huge progressions to the cathedral in town.

It was quite amazing, seeing literally thousands of people, many dressed in traditional costumes (lots of Aztec style-nothing to do with Christianity!) marching and singing on their way to the cathedral. This cathedral is beautiful but not large. I have seen much larger in small towns in Canada so I can only assume that as people marched in the front door, others were marching out on the sides! All the while, the bell tower had people visible who were ringing the bells by hand. I think they must all be deaf tonight lol!

We were in the area because we had arranged to meet Carol and Shannon (for those who do not know-we worked with them at the Royal Bank) for the day. They are in town staying at the Royal Decameron in Nuevo Vallarta. We were just walking towards the hotel where we had arranged to meet when we saw them walking on the other side of the street!

We had a great day, showing them "our neighborhood" and stopping at our favorite bars and restaurants. Just a few hours in the middle of the day in not enough to do justice to this great area of Vallarta.

Beach and Tequila Tasting

Monday we took a beach tour with a group of Canadians/Americans who are just here for a short 2 week holiday. It was with a private driver in a van-only 11 of us including Tony the driver/tour guide . Tony brought a cooler and we were able to bring along our own, ahem, refreshments.

We met a couple of fun ladies (Cheryl and Laurel) from Kamloops. Cheryl was on her first trip to Mexico. She does not drink beer and had discovered "rum and coke in a can". I swear to God it's true!

Tony took us north to a wonderful practically deserted beach called Destiladeras. The ocean was pretty shallow very far out but the waves were incredible. Because we were just about the only people there, we were able to all go into the ocean together. This was a treat because usually one of us has to stay on shore to “guard our stuff”! Now, anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a newbie beach baby. This mainly means hanging out on the sand, not the surf but I went all the way out past the breakers and was hammered and tumbled into the ocean. It was exhilarating and scary and fun all at the same time. I had sand in between every crease and fold I own lol!!! Gail was just as proud of me as I was of her zip lining!!!

After that we went to a hillside restaurant overlooking the Bay of Banderas for lunch. There was a fabulous view of the entire curve of the bay and steps to a very pretty beach just below us.

On the drive back towards Vallarta we made a stop at the flea market in Bucerias. This was not so important to us as we will be staying just a couple of blocks from the market starting next week, however, the others really wanted to go. We decided to spend the hour walking the beach instead. We could see the Decameron in the distance and headed that way but didn’t have enough time to get there and back. We stayed at the Decameron in November 2006.

Finally we went to a family run tequila farm/factory/tasting tour. It was very interesting to see the entire process starting at seeing the agave plants growing in a field, the harvest, the smoking underground, the boiling, pressing and distilling all the way to the bottles in the shop. The pulp left over after the pressing is considered a candy delicacy in Jalisco (which is the state in Mexico we are in and is where tequila is made.) The guide gave us each a piece of sticky, very sweet pulp to chew. It's a lot like sugar cane and is surprisingly good! We were also given four different samples but our favorite by far was the coffee flavored, which tasted like a less sweet version of Kahlua.

I am writing this at 3:30 am because today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The celebrations on our street started about an hour ago (YES INDEED, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!) with rockets, music, bugles and shouting! I expect the church bells to start shortly. There is no way I can sleep through it! It’s going to be a LONNNNNNGGGGG day!