Saturday, January 24, 2009

Greetings from Puerto Vallarta

We’re more settled now. This park has cats and rabbits roaming around and, of course, the ever-present motor home dogs of all sizes and shapes. The smallest rig has 2 people and a Great Dane living in it.

I was going to get a bicycle to ride to my school on but there’s a big problem with that – big cobblestones. This entire neighborhood is paved with old, big, uneven cobblestones. So I walked to the school this morning and discovered it is only a 10-minute walk. Turns out that our location, the only one available in this town, is perfect.

Today we plan on taking the public bus to the harbor and tourist end of town to see the mercados (markets), malecon (sea walk), vendors, cafes (tarot readings?), and whatever else is there. This is not a town that you would want to drive in, unless absolutely necessary. The main highway goes through town and the driving is mucho loco. To make a left turn you need to be in the extreme right hand lane! Yep, that’s the way it works, folks. The lights are set for that and when they say “turn left”, there’s a mad dash to the left. Especially the taxis. Some pass the oncoming left-turners on the right, some pass on the left, some weave in and out, and somehow it works. People do the whackiest moves in their cars here and nobody seems to think it unusual. I guess when we were heading into town at 5mph that’s why we didn’t get stopped. Of course when we were too slow getting out of the left turn lane we got honked at frequently.

We were walking and saw a poster on the lamppost that advertised, “Learn how to drive in 7 days”. Explains a lot.

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