A cruisers life's for me

I have to admit, this has to be the strangest day I think I ever had. It all started quite normal. After breakfast I did some chores like cleaning the fender covers that kind of thing. The canvas lady, who was coming to do some measurements for hatch covers, was late which was irritating because I was to meet up with Wolfe and Judy (people we met cruising) in Puerto Vallarta at 1:30 for lunch. Did I mention I had to take the bus? By myself?

First let me explain a few things about buses. And then you'll understand my pent up anxiety. They'll stop anywhere any time and the driver never speaks English. The destination is written with a purple or maybe white marker on the passenger side of the wind shield. Some times it's readable, some times it's not. Oh, and there's no schedule, at least none that I can figure out. Ok not a big deal I tell my self. I'll just tell the driver I want to go to Wal-Mart. Well, that's a lot to say in Spanish, so I'll just phrase it as a question "Wal-Mart?"

As I'm getting ready to leave I found myself stalling. I must have used the rest room a half a dozen times within the last 30 minutes. I had no choice; I had no means of calling at the last minute to cancel because you know who has my phone back in the states! So I schlep on my backpack and hoofed it through the little town of La Cruz to the main road, to catch a bus. The bus comes. I ask the driver "Wal-Mart?" he answers "Si". This is going great!

The bus was fairly empty and I found myself starting to relax. Hey, no big deal I tell myself again. The next few stops the bus starts to get crowed. I take this time to look around me. There are no chickens but there is a man sitting across from me, who is bear hugging a 15 gal. fuel can and appears to be asleep. The next stop is in front of a school, a thousand school kids get on the bus. I love kids and ordinarily I would find this fun and maybe take the opportunity to hand out some suckers, but I'm stressing because they are blocking my view and I'm concerned I'll miss my stop. Suddenly I feel this wet thing on my arm, right in front of me is this darling little ten year old girl. Her head is out the window, pony tail flying and I notice there is spit running down her chin! Now, I'm not squeamish about these kinds of things. Lord knows I've had worse body secretions flung my way! I yelled something at her. I'm quite sure it was in English and when she pulled her head in, I was able to reach the window and slam it shut. I mean slide it shut.

Now I know Wal-Mart has to be close or at least I'm hoping it is. Torben said it wasn't far from the airport. Sure enough there it was and the bus just kept on going. So I get up and asked him to stop. He pulls over and points to the Wal-Mart a half mile behind us. I get out and proceed to walk on a dirt path that parallels the road. It was a lot more rural then what I expected.... I came to this cloud of dust from these three work men shoveling dirt from the shoulder onto the path. (Don't ask me why.) I held my breath and quickened my step. The path takes me down from the road. There is swamp to my right. Ahead I see two good size dogs come running of the bushes followed by a man carrying a stick and riding a horse! A real live Ranchero! They are heading in the same direction as me, so I think I'm safe. A minute later, I caught up to them. I got a good look at what they were chasing and they weren't milk cows! I'm wondering how I get myself into these predicaments. Here I always blame Torben!

Well you guessed it. It was the wrong Wal-Mart. That would explain why there were cattle instead of cruise ships. I woke up a man sitting in his car taking a siesta in the Wal-Mart parking lot and asked for help. He did not speak one word of English but we had quite a nice conversation. He explained with a lot of animation, that I had to turn around and walk back down the dirt path to get on the next bus. At this point I'm wondering if I really wanted to do this that bad. But just like when your contemplating quitting a race when the wind craps out, that little voice inside says," you can make it." So I get on the next bus (this one had curtains!) and I meet up with Wolfe and Judy 45 minutes late.

We walked to the harbor and had a wonderful authentic Mexican meal. I'm telling you, a cold beer never tasted so good! There was a bottle of tequila sitting on each table with tiny plastic shot glasses for you to help yourself. After a couple of shots, Wolfe thought it would be a great idea to tell our waiter that it was my birthday! I know, sounds like something I would come up with but he beat me to it! I argued that I didn't even know what the date was today, but there was no stopping him. The next thing I know, five waiters come out, plopped the biggest, colorful sombrero on my head and proceeded to make noises in the tune of happy birthday. (I swear this is where Chevy's got the idea.) Wolfe thought this was great fun and took pictures to prove this really did happen!

On the bus ride home, I was reflecting on the day and I don't think I've ever had quite a day like this before. Or maybe if I have, I just never had the time or maybe took the time to appreciate all that can happen in one day. I guess that means its official, I've become a cruiser.