Well Hmmm,

We took a detour. We wanted to visit our friends Cat and Ron in La Manzanilla on the southern shore of Bahia Tenacatita on the mainland about 80 miles south of Puerto Vallarta. It's a small fishing village that also hosts quite a few gringo homes and tourists. It is still "unspoiled" by the invasion. By that I mean the people are warm and friendly in that amazing Mexican way.

We had wanted to sail here but time was running out and it is lots of miles - like 600 or something. And the return trip to La Paz would most likely take a long time because of the northers coming down the sea like a freight train. Sooooo, to get here we were given a ride to the La Paz airport at 8:00 am by our friends, Marilyn and Will, THEN - took a 30 passenger plane to Mazatlan (very nice airport and plane), THEN - took a taxi to the bus station (Central de autobus), THEN - once we had our next bus tickets we walked to the beach front where Carnival was happening along the malecon, to have some lunch (very noisy, especially for two very tired hombres), THEN - we took a VW Thing (remember them?) taxi back to the bus station and waited a zillion hours for our 11:15 pm autobus. While waiting we met a wonderful 14 year old girl and her mom. We now have new friends in Mazatlan, THEN - we boarded the "comfort" bus for an eight hour bus ride (thinking we could sleep - right?...NOT!), THEN - we arrived in Puerto Vallarta bus station and found another bus heading south toward our eventual destination, (alas -there was no time to check out PV), THEN - about 4-1/2 hours into our latest bus ride, Sergio gets on the bus at one of the many many many stops and we start talking with him (he's very good with the English). It turns out he is heading where we are and there is in fact a bus stop near the town (previously we were told there wasn't one by the people running the counter at the bus station) and he even knows "Catalina and Ronaldo" (Catalina and Ronaldo are very popular with the Mexicans. Cat and Ron love the Mexican people and their culture and the locals know it) and Sergio knows that near the bus stop is a little store that will call a taxi for us AND he will ride with us to show us the way even though he has to go back to the store!, THEN - we arrive at Cat and Ron's beautiful casa and live happily ever after.....