Mexico -- Exploring Puerto Vallarta

I loved every minute of driving through the streets of Puerto Vallarta.  I wanted to photograph the colorful buildings, the people,  the bikes, the dogs, the barefoot kids, the sheep, the intersection performers and beggars, the palm trees...  But I settled for taking a few pictures from the window of the mini van that don’t seem to do the scene justice.  It’s a fascinating place and culture.

We picked up a little food from Costco and then decided to wander a little and found a town square we wanted to explore.  We found a back alley we could park it and as soon as we opened the van door hear a commotion and looked right beside as a dog caught a big iguana and held it in it’s jaws.  It was the coolest thing and we inched forward to get a better view. 

The pitbull kept looking at us and finally just put the iguana down and walked off.   We continued to stare at it until Doug said, “Look, it just twiched.  It’s alive.”  No sooner did he finish his observation and the iguanan darted full speed towards us.  I screamed and ran across the street.  Chris’ video camera recorded my scream as he himself jolted backwards.  The iguana ran up a tree that was right between the four of us.  The Mexican man watching nearby grinned at us and pointed out four more large iguanas in the trees above us.  It was pretty funny – and pretty awesome.  Definitely a highlight of our trip.

Highlights of walking around the town square was the town church, the ‘American clothes’ market, a truckload of sweet potatoes, a large piñata in the gazebo, and the man in the middle of a junk shop quietly working on fixing something. 

We picked up Jared and Geneva from the airport at 2:00 and headed straight to a nearby Walmart.  Jared and Geneva had missed their second flight due to weather and were stranded in San Francisco overnight.  Then when they arrived, they didn’t have any bags. Over to Walmart for a few necessities and then out to dinner for really good guacamole, shrimp tacos and shrimp ceveca.