{"id":680,"date":"2011-12-08T22:52:06","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T04:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2013-06-17T18:26:47","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T18:26:47","slug":"under-the-eyes-of-our-lady-of-guadeloupe-puerto-vallerta-12082011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=680","title":{"rendered":"Under the Eyes of our Lady of Guadeloupe \u2013 Puerto Vallarta \u2013 [12\/08\/2011]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It used to be that I never really thought much about Mexico. It was one of those places that other people went, and it was one of those places that we<\/em> went only on relocation cruises \u2013 never once have I actually worked a mexico run, though I know they exist, and the bigger ships on the line do them on a regular basis \u2013 it\u2019s just that I\u2019ve always been somewhere else during that time of year. For a lot of the crew Puerto Vallarta is a supply stop \u2013 there\u2019s a Wal-Mart directly across the street from where the ship docks, and since we\u2019ve usually come off several sea-days, most of us make a bee-line to stock up on everything from toiletries to air-freshener.<\/p>\n

So until today, I can\u2019t say I\u2019d really seen<\/em> Puerto Vallarta. As it turns out, I had no idea what I was missing. I owe the repair of this vast gap in my knowledge to Nikki, who many years ago was one of my (many) dance teachers, and who moved to Puerto Vallarta some years back. The two other times I\u2019ve ported here I\u2019ve tried to meet up with her, but the timing has never worked out (at one point she<\/em> was back in Canada while I<\/em> was in Mexico, which did neither of us any good). She scooped me up at the ship today and went from there.<\/p>\n

What strikes you first is the colour really. The entire city is so colourful, everything is bright. Nowhere is this more evident than in the La Paroquia de Nuestra senora de Guadalupe. If churches back home looked like this well\u2026I\u2019d probably be tempted to spend more time in their company. I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to see a lot of cathedrals in my travels, from the sweeping arches of Westminster to the ruins of what was once the one that stood on the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey \u2013 but I\u2019d never seen one quite like this. It was \u2026confectionery\u2026and where I\u2019m used to walking into a church and seeing carved heavy stone, the inside of La Paroquia is a brilliant blinding white trimmed with gold. The best I comparison I could make is that it\u2019s\u2026ice cream colours. And I don\u2019t mean that in a disrespectful way at all, it was stunning it was so different from what I was used to! The really wonderful thing about it, is that the statues are wooden, not stone, and they\u2019re painted \u2013 so you get the sense that you\u2019re looking at real people, kind<\/em> people, rather than the \u2018traditional\u2019 imposing edifices. If Bernini had worked in wood instead of marble, perhaps the product would feel something like this…<\/p>\n

From the sublime of course you journey to the ridiculous \u2013 one of the many restaurants along the main boardwalk was selling everything from fried snickers bars to fried butter<\/em> (no I\u2019m not kidding) \u2013 so I can now say I\u2019ve finally had a fried chocolate bar. Terrible for the diet I\u2019m trying to stick to (and probably not so good for the designer bathing suits I bought today either for that matter) but so very definitely worth it. Now the Hibiscus water on the other hand was probably a lot<\/em> better for me\u2026<\/p>\n

I suppose I should also mention the superficiality that is<\/em> shopping for a designer bathing suit. Normally these things would be well out of my price range (the last bikini I bought, which has served me faithfully for the last year and a half, cost me $20 at Bluenotes)\u2026but Nikki\u2019s sister is<\/em> a swimsuit designer, and as such things became a little more attainable. I now actually own a swim suit that fits<\/em> me, and I\u2019m almost afraid to go in the water with it \u2013 but that\u2019s beside the point.<\/p>\n

The main boardwalk itself has just been redone and is truly lovely, statues everywhere \u2013 including of course, the famous seahorse that is the symbol of the city. I once again succeeded in killing my camera\u2019s battery…and along the way I even ran into friends from my last ship, which I have to say was very unexpected indeed.<\/p>\n

And then I flew.<\/p>\n

No really I did!<\/p>\n

Granted, I was wearing a parachute and attached to a very long rope which was attached to a speedboat but still\u2026\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The only part of para-sailing that\u2019s terrifying is the take off, the split second where your feet leave the ground and you realize that there is no going back. Once you get up there it\u2019s wonderfully peaceful (that is, it is as long as you don\u2019t think about how high up you are). There\u2019s no sound at all, no wait, I correct myself, there\u2019s no noise<\/em>. All the day to day background noise that we become used to just disappears when you\u2019re that high up. No whirring engines, no people talking at you, nothing pressing in on you. Just you, and the wind, and the water waaaaaaaaaaaaay below you. I think the reason I wasn\u2019t scared was because I was attached to a parachute, should the rope attaching me to the boat have snapped, I\u2019d still be attached to the parachute…which would likely do a great deal to slow my plummet to the ground.<\/p>\n

So now I\u2019ve zip-lined, para-sailed and gone hot-air ballooning, it\u2019s possible that the next thing might<\/em> just be jumping out of a perfectly good airplane…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It used to be that I never really thought much about Mexico. It was one of those places that other people went, and it was one of those places that we went only on relocation cruises \u2013 never once have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-asiaaustralia-2011","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-aY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2200,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/2200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}