Vallarta, pt 2: A Farewell to Roby and other puns

I drank too much Sol yesterday and didn't get around to part two. I just got to Guadalajara, but wrote this on the bus ride down. Down? Over? Over. Here's a map of Mexico if you want to connect the dots: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/north-america/mexico/

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - The actress Roby Packer dug into her deep Hollywood pockets and paid for us to get a room at the Hotel Suites Nadia (http://www.hotelsuitesnadia.com/) for five nights. She was tired of my insistence on staying at hostels, and I can't blame her. This is her vacation, she has a job to go back to, she deserves what she can afford, and I'm the moocher who helped her live it up. It's a different story for me, I seem to remember now that I quit my job two months ago, and that's why the comfiest living I'll have on this whole adventure was in this city.

And that went a long way in my enjoyment of this place, but I also found something to like in the streets, in the restaurants and out on the water in the Liza, the private 20-foot boat we rented Saturday. I think it was roughly $90 US to take it out for four hours. We went south along the rim of the Bahia de Banderas to Los Arcos (http://www.vivanatura.org/BanderasBayPhotosPh1.html), some beautiful rock formations/islands with natural arcs under them. They make for great snorkeling, and the bread our captain Ramone was throwing out to the fish would bring nearly a hundred angel fish up to the surface at a time. They would look me right in the face, appear to cock their heads in confusion, then go about snatching up bread crumbs. Small, slender fish with red, gold and black stripes swam in place near the rock walls all shouting "Hello! Hello! Hello!" in their fish language.

After that we hung out at Las Animas, a beach that's far kinder than Playa Camarones, near our hotel, where rough last-second waves come at visitors and pound them out of nowhere when they walk into the surf. I almost died on my first day in Vallarta, not even knee-deep in the water, but that doesn't matter. "We survived!" I once shouted at Moze, a fellow writer, when we were running back into the Gulf of Mexico like mad one night moments after running out of the sea because sharks bit us. I would like to think it was our optimism that instantaneously healed those tooth marks we never saw in the light.

We headed even further out almost to the mouth of the bay where it meets the Pacific and snorkeled some more in a rocky little spot with no one else around. This was maybe 15 or 20 feet deep, and I put the snorkel aside and just dove down again and again with my mask on looking at the bottom feeders scurrying in between the rocks. Roby said I looked like a little boy out there having fun. I wanted to pluck a stone from the bottom to bring back with me but none of them really stuck out. The last thing I saw underwater was looking back at a school of angelfish trailing my toes. I got back in the boat, and thunder rolled over the mountains.

It rained the whole boat ride back, but it really didn't matter. Our excursion beat out the one had by the two-story boats that meandered by us kicking out smoke, the 200 or so passengers all waiting in line for another water taxi to take them to shore. This is the benefit of having the courage to walk up to a line of seemingly shady water taxistas, haggle over prices and come to a good deal on your own boat.

The only friends we made in Vallarta were the hotel staff and the crazed gringos who bought some of the condo rooms there. One was crazed in a good way, a woman in her 50s from Las Vegas who was married back in the States, had a gay best friend in Vallarta and loved to socialize and thought everyone should do what makes them happy. The other was, well, he whistled at all the hotel staffers (who were very nice and considerate and personable with us) and laughed incessantly with the kind of cackle I could only imitate with a mouthful of beer and fried shrimp. "It's Mexico. It's OK to whistle. Ramone? Can I get a drink dude? Ramone, this pool is cold. Ramone, turn the heat up buddy. Ramone?!?!" Fuck you buddy.

The eats were hit or miss, but at least the service was good everywhere we went. I would recommend Las Palomas on the boardwalk if you're down there. Melted cheese with chorizo and steamed flour tortillas, where have you been all my worthless life?

I thought this entry would be a little more poignant, but oh well. A little more than two weeks ago Roby flew from Dallas to Houston to meet me and take a 15-hour Greyhound bus ride to Monterrey. We then rode nine hours to Zacatecas, and another 13 from there to Mazatlan, and another nine from Mazatlan to Vallarta. Roby's flight from Vallarta to Dallas today lasted three and a half hours.

And I keep on getting farther away. Now I'm on my own, with no familiar face to greet me until Granada, where my roommate, hopefully, will be waiting.