20/11/2010

Today was the centenary of the revolution and there was a huge parade in the streets of downtown that Dennis and I checked out after breakfast. It was pretty cool with floats and thousands of people lining the main drag of downtown.

Again we went to the other hostel and picked up Victoria to grab lunch and tried to organize a booze cruise costing $25 US which isn’t really bad because it is all you can drink, with snorkeling, breakfast and lunch. Monday seems to be a good day to do this.

I was only going to stay here in Puerto Vallarta for a couple of days and now it seems it going to be more like a week.

Again I had my siesta in the afternoon for a few hours before waking and partying again.

We again went to the other hostel in Downtown and headed out to the clubs again… to get a drink in the club costs about $5 US, so I drank a lot of tequila before heading out to save money.

Dancing in the club was really good fun with a lot of attention my way because of my hair. I got a little involved with an ok looking Mexican girl but as the dancing sobered me up I decided to bail even though I was invited to her hotel… hey, apparently I do have some standards. Just before leaving the club Monica (the girl from last night) showed up and wanted to dance right in front of the other chick… ohuh… this could have been bad but I gave up and walked back with some of the other guys.

Centenario Festival in Puerto Vallarta

19/11/2010

Again woke up early to get the free breakfast and went straight back to bed to catch up on sleep again and to also try and sleep of my hangover.

I managed to score a free lunch off a Canadian woman who cooked up a chicken soup with vegetables, she traveled around with her son and her sons friend who were my age and after the food the three of us and one other Canadian headed into town to check out the waterfront again. We stopped by the hostel where we grabbed Victoria and went back to the beach to drink a few beers and just chill.

Later the boys and I headed back to the hostel where I went to have my much needed siesta, I wasn’t feeling great today and was nursing a cold – burning the candle at both ends… I need some time to relax.

So much for relaxing in the evening, I instead drank some beers and headed out to party with all the Frenchies that arrived this day at the other hostel where Victoria and Jeremy were staying. The pre-drinks before heading out to the bars lasted till 1 – it’s a good way to save money.

Jeremy who is a young Aussie guy who spoke Spanish quite well can work the crowd very well and introduced me to a Mexican chick who’s English was terrible, but I tried my Spanish and she tried her English and ill admit we got a ways despite how loud the club was.

Everyone I was with decided to leave so I went with them getting some food on the way home and even going for a quick dip in the river. I really should have stayed at the club with the Mexican chick Monica.

18/11/2010

I got up just in time for the omelet breakfast that the hostel offered where I met up with the others from last night and got organized to go on a hike.
When everyone was ready we set off to find somewhere into the mountains to find a trail which we luckily stumbled where walking through someone’s house.
The trail was easy enough through the palm trees forests following a creek where it abruptly ended with a barbwire fence and gate, we could have continued through but it could have put us into a bad situation with perhaps some sort of drug dealers.
We took a group photo and turned back around. It was short but a nice enough hike.
We got back to the hostel and got some food from the rotisserie cooked chicken place down the road getting a very good deal. It was only a few dollars each for a crazy mount of food.
The arvo came about quickly and I went for a siesta to try and sort out the cold I woke up with this morning.
Chris and I got drinking some beers as the sun set and continued this till later into the evening where two others (Victoria and Jeremy) from the other hostel also owned by Giameo joined the group of us drinking before heading out into the town.
It was a good night out with a lot of laughs with Mexican girls and plenty of cheap-ish drinks.
Some of us walked home stopping by a taco stand where I ate some extremely spicy chilis that burnt so bad that I experienced the burn later again the next day (when it came out the other end)

the hike up the small hill

At the 'apparent' top

17/11/2010

The bus journey was much better than those in SE asia and India where they didn’t blast out the air conditioning that froze your balls off. For most of the journey we travelled over flat desert plains but early in the morning the scenery changed and the ride got a bit rougher as the road winded and twisted around lush forest filled mountains.

A few hours later as the sun rose I arrived at the central bus depot where I followed the instructions I got online to get to a hostel, having to stand with all my gear on a local bus that bounced and threw itself around corners was quite a mission but finally I managed to get to the hostel where I was greeted with a cold beer. Yes! Thankyou.

Soon after I had a nap and I woke to meet some of the people staying in the hostel, I met a German guy (Dennis) a group of Finnish girls (Sinika, Johanna and Elana) a Malaysian guy (Chris) and a Canadian (Chris 2) and the group of us headed out after a few drinks at the hostel.

We went for dinner in a small restaurant where the food was expensive, small and bland… seriously I think the Oldel’Paso Mexican kits you can buy in Australia taste better than the shit that I have had here since ive arrived… disappointed to a point where I would put it on par with the street food in India and I think that’s saying too much. I can only hope the food will be better elsewhere.

We wondered the beachfront for a while looking for a place to check out some traditional Mexican music but gave up after a while and headed back to the hostel to drink there.

The beachfront had the usual bars and restaurants with shops offering Tequila and Mexican hats with cheap sunglasses from China that in China cost about $1 but they sold them here for $10.

I had a few more beers at the hostel and because of the 24 hours of travelling to get here I was well tired so I was the first of the group to crash out.

The Finish girls struggling witha bar trick i know

Puerto Vallarta ocean front

16/11/2010

Money spent for the transportation today: Far too much!

Woke up pretty early this morning as there was a lot of travelling to do!

I munched down the free breakfast that the hostel offered that was coffee and toast and packed my shit.

Mark myself and the Kiwi guy named Dan who reminded me a lot of Jeff (who I cycled with in the States) set off before 10am where we were kindly giving a lift with the guy that ran the hostel. We hopped on the bus to take us back to TJ which is headed back to the North.

When we arrived back at TJ we found out there were no public buses running to the airport and the only option we had was to take a cab… thankfully with Mark’s Spanish we were not ripped off and were able to get to the airport.

The Authorities there had a bit of an issue with me not picking up a Visa when I crossed the border so I had to sort that out that set me back $22 US. Otherwise I would have been fined $32 when exiting the country.

The systematic process of getting checked in and getting through security was no issue although they did take my stove fuel away. That sucks because I think it may be quite difficult to find the fuel again in Mexico if I needed to cook whilst camping at any point.

I got questioned about whether I had any sharp objects in my check-in luggage, to which I answered “no” although I did still have my Chef knives inside but I haven’t had any problems or issues transporting them on planes in the past.

The flight was packed and when we arrived in Culiacan 2 hours after departing TJ we were told that there are no cheap hotels in the city… instead we went to the main bus station where Mark and I parted ways, he went 3 hours to Mazatlan and I hopped on a bus an hour later to get to Puerto Vallarta on a 12 hour journey… errrr!

15/11/2010

Suprisingly I didn’t wake up with a hangover this morning and remembered that I needed to sort out my travel insurance policy that expired a few days ago. I spoke to a sales rep and he rolled back the dates so that that I was still covered if something happened to me. Pfew! Happy days.

Mark and I walked around town checking out what there was to see and ran some errands like replacing my watch battery and trying some fish tacos from a street vender that were really good.

I napped for the arvo sleeping for something like 3 hours and after just lazed around the hostel.

Later in the evening I cooked dinner for Mark and myself, it was chicken with roast potatoes and caramelized carrots. I chilled with some Mexicans that were friends of guy who worked at the hostel and actually for one of the first times in a long time didn’t have anything to drink. Gimme a round of applause!

Birds eating Dog food

THE place to buy fish tacos

Mark

Some Crazy Sculpture

Ensenada Port

14/11/2010

Mexico! Again !

This was the third time to cross the border over to Tijuana although this time I headed further south to a place called Ensenada where there was a hostel I want to go to.

I said an teary farewell to all the staff at the hostel, it had been a fantastic 3 weeks working there, all you guys are awesome.

I hopped on the trolley to the border where at one point they were doing repairs so we were shuffled off the trolley onto a bus that took us to the border.

Again this was the third time I crosses into mexico where there was no need to show passports let alone any type of security other than high barbed fences and two sets of steel rotary gates.

I walked over to the bus stand where there was a bus headed to Ensenada ready to leave, I paid the 140ish Pesos and hopped on.

The journey to Ensenada was incredibly scenic and meanwhile all the people on the bus where watching that terrible film 10,000 BC I watched (for the 100^th time) The sun setting over the Pacific.

For the 1.5hr journey I kept on checking the shoulder of the road thinking how nice it would be if I have my bicycle to cycle down here… but damn it, why did I sell my bike. L

Arriving in Ensenada I had no idea where to go to get to the hostel but thankfully a local who also road on the bus walked me there. He was a nice enough guy who showed me the way around the town and carried his cello about on his back.

Arriving at the hostel was a bit of a let down with only 4 people staying there.

Obviously I quickly met everyone and as I needed to make a plan I talked with Mark, an American guy who was headed in the same direction as me.. we checked out buses through Baja and as it turned out it was much cheaper to get a flight from TJ to Culiacan – the northwest ofMexico (on the mainland).

It came to $160 each to leave in two days meaning I have to go back to TJ for the flight.

Later after I had a shower the 4 of us went out in the town to eat fish tacos that were delicious and to check out the nightlife on this Sunday night.

Good news for us – because it was the pre-party for the Baja mexico rally some bars had promotions – the best we found was a $4 entry and $1 peso beers up until 10pm.

Keep in mind that $1 peso is the equivalent of about $0.08 cents. The only issue was that to get served at the bar you needed to fight your way through the people.

It was a good night out with me being drunk again where some Mexican guys let me help myself to their bucket of beer.

It was difficult to communicate to the people I meet this evening because a lot of the people spoke very little if any English… I did manage to entertain some with some of the party tricks that I have learnt during my travels which was fun but I really need to learn some Spanish.

I walked home by myself as Mark who’s Spanish is excellent and he was using to chat up a girl and the other 2 guys went home earlier, at this point I was pretty drunk and thankfully didn’t get lost on the unfamiliar walk home.

View from Bus to Ensenada