Another Year Bites the Dust...

Another year draws to a close. Once again I am away from home, this time in sunny, sunny Mexico.  Ironically, today has been the warmest day since our arrival – blue skies, burning sun, and crashing surf all the way.  Delicious.

 

2008 has been a difficult year – for everyone, I think.  It’s been a year of significant global economic change, not for the better; a year of significant loss in the entertainment industry – many famous faces and fond memories of days gone by passing into history; and a year of environmental unpredictability – storms, floods, fires and other disasters that seem to edge us ever closer to the edge of chaos.  2008 was a time to grab yourself a life raft and a beverage, and try to ride out the worst while working to make the best come your way.

Most of my friends are eager to usher the new year in…and assist the old one out, with a boot to the rear if necessary.  I can’t say that 2008 has been all that great to me, but I am grateful that I survived it, and optimistic about what the next 12 months will bring.  I think 2009 will be a banner year – those of us in America are beginning auspiciously with our new President, and I’m pretty excited.  Hallelujah!

We spent the end of 2008 in downtown Puerto Vallarta, and though it’s a bit different than the last time we were here, it’s really not much different.  We did hardly any shopping (except for cold medicine for Mom at the pharmacy, where I got to see the Ugly American in action…eek), but mostly just walked around the Malecón, which is the Boardwalk of downtown PV.  One of the things that actually surprised me this time was the sheer number of pelicans.  They are EVERYWHERE.  I don’t know if it’s because of the time of year, or because they finally got a hold of some Barry White CDs and are breeding like crazy every time the sun goes down, but there are crazy numbers of these big ass brown birds everywhere you look. 

I saw them on the bronze sculpture that begins the Malecón (and it looked like the nymph was offering the bird up as a gift, which I thought was groovy)…

…I saw them gathering on the roof of the fish market (my estimation of these bird’s intelligence keeps going up…)…

…and on the beach itself, moseying amongst the tourists. (Ok, so maybe they’re not that smart, after all.)

One of the things I like most about the Malecón is that is filled with art – there are over a dozen permanent bronze sculptures on display there, there are always painters (albeit mediocre ones catering to tourists) lined up on the sidewalk with their wares, and the middle section of the beach is often sculpted into fantastic figures 10 or 12 feet high.

Though one of my favorite super famous Mexican artists, Sergio Bustamante, has a very cool bronze ladder statue on the Malecón, which really foolish tourists insist on climbing, his contribution to the boardwalk is not my favorite.  I love this one – though I have no idea who it’s by or what the “deeper meaning” is behind it (did you ever notice all Art has a “deeper meaning”?  Why can’t it just be beautiful?), but I like the way it looks.

I also like that enough people have given in to the temptation to sit with them that they have worn the patina off their laps.  (Not surprisingly, the bare breasted mermaid on the other end of the Malecón also has her patina worn off…and no, it’s not her scales that are shiny.)

My other favorite is Fr. Pascual, who has a long and varied history, which culminates in him being the favored saint of chefs.  I love to eat, ergo I like chefs, ergo I like the guy they pray to in order to make their food yummy.  Although it surprises me a little that he’s skinny – “Never trust a skinny cook” does have some value…

The sand sculptures this time were a bit of a departure from the usual lizards and such (though not totally), with nativity scenes and the Three Kings that are a large part of the Mexican Christmas tradition – the 12 days of Christmas end here on January 6th, “Three Kings Day.”

Funnily enough, there were also a few rock formations up and down the beach that were really cool – very Easter Island.  They didn’t appear to have any purpose, and several had a spraypainted redhead on a rock – WEIRD.

I wondered about it, asked a couple locals about it, and got no answers, but a few hours later on the marina… mystery solved.  Two little boys that were playing balancing games!  Funnily enough, the rocks were still standing like that several hours later on a windy day, so they were pretty good at it!

I thought that we would stroll around some of the original Puerto Vallarta today, but instead we spent quite a while looking for the tattoo shop where Mom had her first tattoo done when she was here with Jody.  Do you know how HARD it is to find a tattoo shop that has no awning, is unmarked, has no posted hours and where no one seems to remember the address?  We walked around and around and around (oh my God and around) looking for this tattoo shop, and finally (thank God I speak Spanish or we would have been walking until I’m old) we found a taxi driver that knew Pinky (the tattoo artist) and told us that he had moved to Cancún.  Mom was still determined to have her tattoo, so we found another tattoo shop, and a heavily tattooed man named Pepe drew out my nephew’s initials for my mom’s ink.  It was a bit of a wait, since there was a couple from the Carnival Prince cruise ship getting their ink done, so Mom went next door to get herself a pedicure, and I went out to walk around and look at the shops nearby. 

I was only gone a half an hour, but I am SO GLAD that I went out – it was only about another ten minutes after I got back that I sat with Mom while she finished her pedicure, but the woman who ran the “spa” was very chatty, and while the conversation we had about how materialism affects parenting values and the future of children both in the US and in Mexico was interesting, it was a bit too heavy for early afternoon on a Wednesday.  She did tell me that I had a beautiful nose, though, and I loved the compliment – even when it started another conversation about pop stars and plastic surgery.  o_O

In any event, we went back to the tattoo place after Mom’s feet were done, and the Carnival couple was still there.  The wife had finished her tattoo (also on her wrist, like Mom’s) and had been indulging in tequila shots downstairs in the café with some of the local guys, so she was a leeetle beeet happy, and also very chatty.  (Luckily, she focused on Mom, who didn’t mind at all, but started to happily chat about tattoos and the pain of childbirth vs. the pain of tattooing. Oy vey.)

So after a few hours of searching, a manhunt for Pinky, a spiritual pedicure and two American drunks in a tattoo shop, Mom now has her grandson’s initials tattooed on her wrist. 

I feel like the only thing missing to turn this into a fantastic joke is a Franciscan priest, a Rabbi, and a bar.  Although the tattoo shop WAS right in front of the cathedral and there was a soda shop downstairs with a couple of cases of Dos Equis in the cooler…and my mom IS Jewish…

Lunch was even more fun – I had some FANTASTIC panela with guajillo, which is a delicious fried cheese with spicy sauce that I am super glad they don’t have in the States because I would be fat as a HOUSE.  They served it in a hockey puck sized wedge, and I, uh…ate the whole thing.  Really.  It was that good.  Mom was also thrilled with her shrimp tacos (ew) but she WAS not thrilled when the traveling mariachis came to sing for us (see what happens when you make eye contact with strangers?) and I had them sing her an old Spanish love song, “Sabor a Mi.”  The lead guitar player had really long fingernails, which was a bit gross to look at, but he played guitar beautifully, and they were so dapper looking in their perfectly pressed white pants and dark blue shirts!  The guys were good singers, great sports about me trying to videotape it, and perfect gentlemen, since we ran into them later on in the afternoon and they thanked us for giving them a tip for singing. 

We finished up our walk after lunch – but took a little time to observe all of the work being done to prepare the Malecón for the festivities later in the evening.  There were piles of fireworks EVERYWHERE, around the fountains, near the statues, on the promenade…

…by the arches…

…even on the beach!

I also noted the presence of the PV fire department everywhere – I thought it was funny that their helmets and gear were the same as ours back home, even down to the stickers that say “Firefighter” on the helmets, though “firefighter” in Spanish is bombero. 

I also like their notion of “drafting” a water source – using a historic fountain for drafting when there is a giant pool of water (AKA the ocean) only a hundred yards away. (Just kidding – I know that ocean water is buoyant and too hard to filter – I gotcha – I just got a kick out of seeing them draft out of a fountain.)
 

Mom got really tired from walking around in the sun all day, so even though it was still early, we decided against staying downtown for New Year’s – according to the locals there are usually a gazillion drunk people on the boardwalk and the local bars charge an arm and a leg for drinks it takes four hours to get.  So, we decided to head back to the resort and catch the fireworks from the beach.

It didn’t quite turn out that way – Mom didn’t feel well and fell asleep, and I ended up out on the beach taking pictures of about a million fireworks while an 8 year old Mexican boy flirted with me and told me all about the dangers of the crocodiles who wander the beach at night.  He was super cute, very serious, and quite solemn when I told him that I was glad he was there to protect me from the crocodiles.  (Of course, if there were such a thing as giant saltwater crocodiles that dragged people into ocean and ate them, I’m not sure they’d want to eat a bunch of drunks covered in sand. Who knows? It could be their version of flossing.)

The resort is in the middle of the bay, so I had the pleasure of seeing all of the fireworks in the entire bay – the ones in the front of the hotel were too close to get any great pictures – the smoke obscured everything.  The night was gorgeous though – the sky was clear, the stars in Orion’s belt were crystalline above me, and the tide was fully in, so the fireworks reflected off the water for the whole show.

Another year has ended, and the new one has begun.  I’m glad the old is through, and though I am looking forward to the new – I saw something today while I was downtown that stuck with me.  Someone had painted the side of a building in one of the residential areas that fronted an abandoned lot – and it’s actually great advice:

[No matter what has passed or what is to come] “Remember who you are.”