Our trip takes us though a number of villages and over many Topes. We now have a record of 22 Topes in a row about 10 metres apart. We find that on the mainland we can only average 30k/hr on the highways due to these damn Topes. So it takes a long time to get anywhere.
08/12/2008. Puerto Vallarta. It was an 8 hour drive to Puerto Vallarta, along many a winding road which was a little bit stressful for all on board and whilst we are driving to Puerto Vallarta Dave and I are congratulating each other on the way we have been able to get around Mexico without any damage to Stubbie, or getting lost – bad move. Whilst travelling along the highway passing through one of the small villages we find out that they have closed the highway for a festival. We now understand that the children waving to us on the street were trying to tell us that we couldn’t get through; we just waved to everyone and kept on going. As the festival is in full swing cars have been parked on both sides of the road, the only way out was to reverse Stubbie about 300 metres before we could even attempt a 10 point turn – we head on. We made the turn without leaving any of Stubbie on the overhanging street fronts, poles, wires or trees.
We arrive into Puerto Vallarta and decide that we will purchase some groceries prior to checking into the campground – mistake no. 1. So we drive past a shopping centre and try and negotiate our way back, of course we have arrived around peak hour – mistake no. 2. We haven’t had a chance to check out the entrance and exits of the shopping centre – we have started to get a bit lazy with this as there have not been any problems previously – mistake no. 3. So we find the entrance and we start to turn in – Dave asks me if we are okay and I say yes – mistake no. 4. I was only looking at the front of Stubbie on my side and not at the back wheels – mistake no. 5. Of course there are no signs that vehicles over a certain length can not enter (in Spanish or English), next minute crunch – we have caught the corner edge of a steel girder – ouch – we now have a flat tire and damaged wheel trim - mistake no. 6. I then get out of Stubbie to try and get a ticket to let us through the parking gates so we can park and have a look at the damage. No such luck the parking attendant comes over and informs us that large vehicles do not fit in this car park – really. I ask her if we can come in and turn around and she says no “a vehicle our size is not allowed in the cark park”, so by this time we have a dozen or so cars behind us – all honking to get in to the car park. A good Samaritan comes along and assess the situation and tries to convince the car park attendant (in Spanish) to let us in so we could turn around and let the other vehicles banking up behind us into the car park – she stood her ground and would not allow us in. So here I am now out on the edge of the main highway – trying to get the cars behind us to back-up so we can reverse our poor injured Stubbie out. So after these cars have gone – I am now out in the middle of the two-lane highway stopping traffic so Dave (with the help of our Good Samaritan) can reverse Stubbie out – after about 5 minutes of manoeuvring Stubbie we are back on the highway – limping along looking for a Tyre place. Of course we decide that we will purchase two new tyres and we will keep one of the used tyres for a spare. We will need to stay in Puerto Vallarta a couple of days whilst the second tyre is delivered, so now we have one new tyre on Stubbie, it is starting to get dark so we decide not to worry about the groceries and instead start looking for our camp ground. Well we were only about two blocks away from it – but with the help of the wrong directions in our campground book it took us about an hour to find it – by this time Dave and I were just looking for a place to sit down and relax. As yet our most stressful day on the road – but hey we survived and the next day we could at least (okay I could) have a good laugh.
09/12/2008 – 11/12/2008. Puerto Vallarta. The next morning we wake up and find that our neighbour’s two doors down are from Kaleden (Canada) – we just couldn’t believe it. The campground host offers to give us a lift into the Centro (it is only about 2 kilometres from the campground). Whilst looking around we decide to get something to eat at one of their hole in the wall cafes (we needed to see if our Hepatitis and Tetanus shots were working) - for our $10 we received a whole BBQ chicken, some tortilla’s, some tacquitos, some chillies and a very large bottle of soft drink – what a bargain and neither of us got sick…. 
08/12/2008. Puerto Vallarta. It was an 8 hour drive to Puerto Vallarta, along many a winding road which was a little bit stressful for all on board and whilst we are driving to Puerto Vallarta Dave and I are congratulating each other on the way we have been able to get around Mexico without any damage to Stubbie, or getting lost – bad move. Whilst travelling along the highway passing through one of the small villages we find out that they have closed the highway for a festival. We now understand that the children waving to us on the street were trying to tell us that we couldn’t get through; we just waved to everyone and kept on going. As the festival is in full swing cars have been parked on both sides of the road, the only way out was to reverse Stubbie about 300 metres before we could even attempt a 10 point turn – we head on. We made the turn without leaving any of Stubbie on the overhanging street fronts, poles, wires or trees.
We really enjoyed walking around Puerto Vallarta, and seeing some of the sights. The beachfront area is really pretty. The Puerto Vallarta harbour was previously a volcano that has sunk into the sea – after about 10 metres out from the waterline it gets extremely deep and now has depths of around 1800 metres, which is great for when the whales come down apparently they come right into the harbour. On our way home we stop and finally get those groceries.
13/12/2008 – 09/01/2008 . Barra De Potosi. (So much has happened in Barra De Potosi that I’m not even going to try and get everything into date order – so this section will be a bit over the shop).
After a 12 hour day we are finally getting close to our destination. We were going to take two days to travel from Melaque to Barra De Potosi but we decided to push on. Probably not another one of our brightest ideas, it is starting to get dark and now we can’t even see those bl**dy Topes on the roads. We eventually see a small sign saying De Potosi so I ask the Big Fella to take a turn. The street (ok it looks more like a laneway, even by Mexican standards) leads into a small village and continues on through – it is now pitch black, there is no street lighting at all (one of the
reasons you don’t travel at night), and continues for a couple of kilometres. At this stage Dave is really unsure and is concerned as it is difficult to see all the overhanging trees etc without any street lighting. I tell him that I’m sure we are on the right road (my fingers are crossed) and to just keep going for a little bit longer. After about another 15 minutes we finally arrive. The place we are staying is a really lovely little B&B which has turned the front yard into a small camping area. So after a bit of manoeuvring we finally park Stubbie and have a good night sleep. Of course I wake up the next morning and decide that if we are going to spend a couple of weeks here that it would be best to drive Stubbie in rather than reverse her in – luckily I married a very patient man.
The next morning we have a chance to have a look around at where we will be spending the next couple of weeks. We are only about 500 metres from the fishing village either by road or by beach. The fishing village is small, but has many restaurants a couple of small little shops – so we are very happy, we are hoping to be able to mingle with locals and experience their culture. Later in the afternoon we decide to try and find the Howards (our wonderful friends from Canada) who are also spending two weeks here. The Big Fella had been on Google Earth previously trying to work out the distance between the two of us, it appears to be about 6 kilometres. So after chatting to our new hosts we ask if it would be possible to borrow / hire their quad bike to go and see if we could find the Howard clan. Karen and Cecil (our new hosts) said that it was no problem to borrow the quad and if we would just put some gas in that would be fine. So after a few instructions from Cecil on how to drive the Quad, (we do find out that it has no brakes) the Big Fella is a little bit worried about driving any sort of vehicle that doesn’t have brakes, we head off – to start off it was a bit like teaching a learner to drive a manual car for the first time.
Time with the Howard Clan – 14/12/2008 – 27/12/2008. It was really great to see all the Howards’ and to realise that whilst we are not going to be with our family over the Christmas / New Years holiday we still have some very special people in our lives to share this period of time with. This is the time that we really do miss spending time with family and friends.The Howards also have another friend in the area – Mark. Mark is a really easy going person and has offered to take us all (yep that’s 9 of us – plus himself)
23/12/2008 – Dave, Cecil and I were taking it easy under the Palapa when it looked like the ocean was starting to boil. We had an area about 100m by 50m alive with very excited fish. Cecil was up out of his chair running to get his fishing line. Of course this scene cleared the water of all swimmers, I was up to by ankles and I couldn’t stand it at as the sardines (which are more like a small whiting over here) just kept hitting my feet. At one stage Dave was out there up to his knees trying to catch the Horrell with his hands, but all he got was a bruised ankle where one of the Horrell
ran into him and nearly knocked him flying. He has had a bruise on his ankle for a week now. The sardines were actually beaching themselves to get away from the larger fish chasing them. Of course there were many people on the beach eager to get the smaller fish back into the water (I was one of them). Whilst many others were out there with whatever they could get their hands on to try and catch them, some of the villagers were using bait nets, some were using hand lines, some T shirts and the more wealthy Tourists were using rods. I couldn’t believe it I have never seen anything like this. After it was all over you could look up the beach and see many a Horrell on the beach. We caught two Horrell but both were given away one to Karen and Cecil’s maid and the other to a large family on the beach. Horrell is a really dark strong tasting fish; we had just had some the previous night. Great fighting fish to catch.
We have been asking around to find out what time their Church services are on Christmas Eve and we have been told that there will be one at 8:00pm. So Bobbie, Brant, Dave and myself all head down to the village after 7:00 and have a wander around the streets, it really is amazing they way they all decorate their houses etc. So we wander past the church at around 7:30pm but nothing is happening so we decide to go for another walk we have another look at the church around 8:00 it still doesn’t look like there is going to be any service, so we decided to go and get a drink and a small bite to eat. As we are sitting outside the restaurant, what looks like all of the children from the village, come singing around the corner, some of the children are carrying lighting and are heading towards the church – this makes me feel like it’s Christmas (oh I forgot to mention we have been listing to Christmas Carols in Spanish in Stubbie). So we finish eating / drinking and go wandering back down to the Church, unfortunately everyone is coming out – so it looks like we have missed out on the Church service. But the festivities for the kids is still going on, they now have about 4 Piñatas for differing age groups to smash and scramble for their candy – this was really great to see. Whilst the smashing of the Piñatas is going on the Village folk are handing out food and drinks – this makes me feel like it is Christmas time. To see the children’s faces when they have grabbed some candy is really priceless.
New Years Eve –Our hosts have invited us out to dinner at the Las Palmas Hotel for New Years Eve (We went their one night with both Bobbie and Brant and Karen and Cecil – and had an excellent evening). In the morning we are scraping and preparing the fence for painting, when I hear Dave yelp – yep there goes the back. Karen has also invited one of her neighbours Pat (a really lovely lady) over for dinner so it is now only 4 of us that will be going to dinner – I do make Dave a Vegemite sandwich before I go. We had a good evening, with a bonfire and the toasting of marshmallows on the beach, we then went and had a drive around the village to see everyone in the streets and then we went home – and I know it’s sad but I didn’t make it to see the New Year in. And it was great to wake up on New Years Day with no hangover – I saved that for the next day – it was Pat’s birthday. Karen and Cecil’s maid’s son and wife (Titto and Carmen) had invited us all for lunch. Carmen has made a terrific Prawn Ceviche (similar to a cold soup –absolutely delicious) and then Chicken with a Molè sauce – what a great feed. It is interesting to experience some of their cultures first hand, whilst Carmen had done all the cooking, it was Titto that did the serving and the cleaning up – I could enjoy this culture. So after lunch the girls ended up sitting around the table having a great chat and I for one had too many vodka tonic’s (Karen was mixing them for me). So at about 10:30 that night Pat said it was time to go home, I’m glad that someone was there to send me home. Of course from what I can remember I had a great night, and I don’t know if Karen and Pat were just being polite but said that I had no need to apologise and they also had a great fun night. (Pat is currently on her own waiting for some friends and her husband to come down and join her in the next couple of days – so I think she had a great birthday and one she won’t forget in a hurry.)Our time in Barra De Potosi has been just wonderful (made extra special by seeing the Howards’ and also by our hosts Karen and Cecil) we were planning on spending just over two weeks here, but the Big Fella has another tooth problem so off to the Dentist and after $80 over an hour in the office he is told that he will need to come back on the 6th for either an extraction or root canal – it is amazing how quickly Dave can look up the Spanish / English dictionary and learn Spanish for no extraction. It looks like we will need to wait and see.
Dave has spent the last couple of days resting his mouth and back. We went back to the dentist and she conducted a root canal on the tooth. If that settles down over the next couple of days he will get a crown put on next week and then he will probably need to go back three days after that. (In Mexico you have a choice of crowns porcelain or metal…..Metal is very cheap and very shiny…) So it looks like we will be spending some more time in Barra De Potosi.
I’ve come to the realisation that The Big Fella is not going to be able to help me out with the painting, so I’ve decided to just get in and get it done. The first solo day I spend just cutting in and preparing the fence for the roller painting. The next day I get the roller out and off I go – I can’t say I’ve done much painting before, but I’ve actually enjoyed it, of course the Big Fella has been able to get out of bed and let me now the spots that I’ve missed or if I’m doing something wrong. He hasn’t lost his touch at being able to Manage people.
Karen and Cecil’s neighbours (Bob and Pat) invited us all over for dinner one morning, as Bob had caught a large fish that morning – so of course I said yes, as we were sitting under the Palapa, you could see another boil over starting to approach us, so the Big Fella who has hardly been able to get out of bed is down the beach throwing a line in – he his successful within a matters of minutes and has caught another Horrell (it really was a great battle). After awhile he decides to let me have a go – but unfortunately the only fish I can talk about was the one that got away. Bob and Pat’s maid cooked us all a lovely dinner that night and we ended up having a few Margarita’s to finish the night off - another great night at De Potosi.
We are Here....

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