Bucerias, San Pancho, Syulitas

 At last I managed to muster the enthusiasm to get out for a brisk walk to start the day.  K says I must’ve needed some full on down time.  We had lined up a private tour this day to take us up around the bay towards Punta Mita.  Met our guide Andres at the main gate just in front of our villa and as we loaded into the car, un hombre approaches Andres to accost him about having appropriate documents for this service, seemed rather stasi like, but not too threatening.  I do think it a sign of the low level corruption lurking just beneath the surface of this culture.  Off we went for the 30 minute drive to Bucerias

which we learned had been a productive spot for pearls (oyster diving).  Strolled through the mercado and wondered how these vendors manage to maintain the inventories on display. Didn’t find anything we couldn’t get along without, so it was off the the next stop, San Pancho.  Of course, the original name was San Francisco, and this tiny beach community comes complete with a “Golden Gate” bridge.  The community has a really beautiful beach and good surfing conditions. Lots of gringos milling about the streets with the obligatory beach vendors, mercado, bars and restaurants.  An intriguing looking beach front condominium, Punta Paraiso, suggests that the popularity of this gem has almost completed the transformation of this hippy commune into a bustling tourist trap.  After a stroll along the beach, we piled into the car for the short drive over to Sayulita.  Found a spot to park in the back of Don Pedro’s beach front restaurant, good to know some locals.  The place was busy and we wanted a nice table overlooking the beach in preference to the available table down in the sand tucked back in the corner.  Host says a table should be available in 10 minutes so we left our name and took a quick look at the street market and El Centro.  

Returned to the restaurant and found the table we had hoped for had gone to some other lucky party and we got the one that was available 15 minutes earlier.  Andres tried to argue our case to no avail.  Lunch was just OK, and I wished I had requested that we go to the overlook restaurant Jane had suggested for us.  Maybe we’ll do that with Myles?  After lunch, we checked out the beach, which again was quite lovely and some more strolling through the market before piling back into the car for the drive back via the Nuevo Vallarta big hotel district.  Unfortunately, there was some kind of traffic incident and we had to be rerouted back via the main highway.  Nonetheless, we drove through the district and by the all inclusive hotel Don and Mari will be heading over to later this week.  Once we got back to the villa, we decided we badly needed another Cadillac Margarita so over to the clubhouse where we discovered some maintenance work ongoing and no servers to be found, although a few people were having a late lunch.  After a short delay, we roused the staff an had a drink before they shut down completely.  A tortilla wrap at the villa put a wrap in the the day and a relatively ETB closed it out.