How to Attract a Tourist, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Wednesday, October 24th, 2018)

There are so many gimmicks in Mexico to attract tourists and their money.  Street vendors and shop owners constantly asking the tourists to come in and look around.  Free for you today!

This little fish market has it down.  They never say a word.  Instead, they feed the pelicans their leftovers as they clean their fish, and guess what.  The tourists come!

This is what a begging pelican looks like.



All of their friends just hung out on the roof.

And on the wall.

And in the trees.

And even on the sidewalk.

Never in my life did I think I would ever get close enough to a pelican to see how beautiful their feathers are!

And that's how you get the attention of a tourist!

Street Performers, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Wednesday, October 24th, 2018)

These are definitely not your usual street performers, but they certainly managed to pull in a crowd.

Four men climb to the top of this pole, and begin spinning their platform to wind their ropes.

Then one of the men performs. He stands on top of the tower with out any ropes. I don't enjoy heights so it made me very nervous!

When his musical performance is complete, all four men fall backward off the platform as their ropes slowly begin to unwind.

This performance was definitely worth some pesos!

Choco Museo, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Wednesday, October 24th, 2018)

While we were on the Malecon today, we stopped into one of the chocolate shops that has a small museum about chocolate.  I have always been curious about chocolate, so this sounded fun.  The museum is on the second floor, and when we got up there they had a cooking class going on.

Steve and I wandered through the museum, just enjoying the facts that it had to offer.  I think my pictures can do cacao more justice than I could trying to explain it.

They also had an exhibit on how to make different kinds of chocolate, but I felt like I had to leave something as a surprise when you come visit the museum yourself.

The top of this map show who consumes chocolate, and the bottom shows who grow chocolate.  Very interesting.  Most cacao is grown in Africa, and most is consumed in Europe.  

I guess we Americans are going to have to get busy consuming more chocolate!

Grateful After Hurricane Willa, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Wednesday, October 24th, 2018)

Willa finally made landfall last night, south of Mazatlan as expected.  We are so grateful that Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan were both spared from the brunt of this tremendous storm.  We do feel sorry for those that were effected by the storm.

And this morning we woke to blue skies for the first time in days!

Puerto Vallarta is getting back to normal today after several tense days of waiting.

The boats are coming back to the taxi stand.

The clean up is beginning.

The sandbags are being emptied.

The sidewalks are being cleaned.

Yes there is concrete under there somewhere!

The Rio Cuale is still high, but definitely coming down.  We are now able to see it from the ocean side again.

The boards are coming back down.

The mud is being swept out.

It was fun to walk up the Malecon and see how resilient this town is.  Hurricane Willa was a small inconvenience here in Puerto Vallarta, because the people really didn't let it slow them down.

While we were on the Malecon, we stopped in to the Bar Oceano Restaurant for some traditional green chilaquiles with chicken and coffee for breakfast.  We have been missing it.  And you just can't beat this restaurant for good chilaquiles!  Thanks again for the referral Cyndi and Dennis!

The view from our table isn't bad either.

After a wonderful breakfast, it was time to get back out there and enjoy the beautiful day.

I think the pigeons are even enjoying the day.  There is a pigeon perched on almost every palapa.  It must feel good to dry out and warm up.

And as we return to the hotel, things are looking much more normal again.



We're so grateful that Hurricane Willa was somewhat kind to Mexico!