El Orso Regressa

This page has returned from Semana Santa en Puerto Vallarta with a few rhetorical snapshots from a week in Mexico:

-For a country where La Policia ride in the back of a pickup with automatic weapons, Mexico doesn't feel like a police state in the same way Canada and the U.S. do these days. On our return flight, the luggage screener asked me if I would prefer to carry my bottle of tequila on the plane. A flammable and potentially sharp object? The Mexicans must be doing something right, since 9/11, they've had as many airline terror incidents as Canada and the U.S., where we have to shove our trial-size toothpastes into ziploc bags and take off our shoes.

-Semana Santa is a great time to see Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico as opposed to Puerto Vallarta, a division of the American tourism and hospitality industry. Easter in Mexico is a cross between Spring Break and Thanksgiving - everybody takes gets on a bus or fills up their car and hits the road. Carreta 200 was lined with vehicles and people making their way to and from the beach. While this page and Walnut Boat stayed at a hotel which doubled as a timeshare, we spent most our time out and about, mixing it up with locals & nationals from Viejo Vallarta to the town of El Tuito in the Sierra Madre.

-Puerto Vallarta needs to rein in the omnipresent timeshare salespeople who are starting to disturb people's vacations. The tactic that seriously pisses off this page is setting up "Tourist Information" kiosks which direct you to a 'special presentation' where you will receive a 'free gift'... Some tactics to ward off these vultures: tell them you're a travel agent, tell them you don't have a credit card, or act like you don't speak English or Spanish. Qu'est-ce que c'est , "Time... share"? Pardon monsieur...are you coming on to me?

-Unlike their overprogrammed, overparented counterparts in Canada and the United States, Mexican children are allowed to be children. Many of this page's entertaining moments in Puerto Vallarta were watching kids chase each other round, splash around at Playa Los Muertos, or just kicking el futbol with each other. The parents also play with their kids, which I think makes them far more credible figures to relate to than American parents who come off to their kids like dictatorial wanna-be hipster ATM machines.

-Vanilla is a real flavour, not the abscence of flavour. If you're tired of sushi, try out cevice, preferably on a tostada with a little auguacante. Of the four major brands of beer noticed by this page, Pacifico had the most robust flavour. Tecate and Modelo tasted much like American brands (in fact, Modelo appears to be Budweiser trading on a Mexican name), and nothing says Gringo Turista Estupido like opening a Corona.

-Mexicans like beisbol and lucha libre, but nothing compares to futbol. In Jalisco, nothing compares to Chivas. This page made the mistake of asking the locals if they were following Chivas' American branch plant team, Chivas USA of Major League Soccer. Putting the words 'Chivas' and 'USA' together creates a spitting action, since the real Chivas (Chivas Verdad) which plays in Guadalajara (about 4 hours from Puerto Vallarta) only signs Mexican players.

There are photos, but this page is unwilling to subject them to people who don't know what I look like after extended exposure to mariscos, cerveza, and sol.