San Sebastian, Mascota, Puerto Vallarta

We took a 2nd class bus from Puerto Vallarta (located at sea level) to a small mountain village called San Sebastian at 5200 ft above sea level. The ride was very beautiful through the mounains. The bus dropped us off on the highway, about 10 km from town and we hitchhiked into San Sebastian. It was very quiet there, only 1000 people or less and very few tourists (and restaurants). We stayed at Posada del Sol for $22 per night. The next morning, we got up and ate chilaquiles and hot chocolate or nescafe for breakfast. Chilaquiles are breakfast fare that consist of tortilla chips mixed with tomato sauce and cheese which are fried and then served with more chese sprinkled on top (they are conceptually like deep fried cheese curds, popular in Wisconsin, taken to another level: you take something that's already good (tortilla) and fry it to make it better (tortilla chip) except with chilaquiles you fry it one more time with cheese and tomatoes and sprinkle more cheese on it and eat it for breakfast. Luke believes that this could be taken up to a similar level in Wisconsin with brats: boil in beer, grill, place in buns with onions, ketchup and mustard, batter and deep fry and then cut up and pan-fry with tomatoes, onions and green peppers, sprinkle with deep fried cheese curds and eat for breakfast.

The weather in San Sabastian was cooler, in the 70's and dry, with no humidity, which was a pleasant change from the humidity on the coast. Our destination for the day was a hike to La Bufa, a mountain peak at 8500 ft above sea level about 8 km from town. The forest at this elevation is jungle and pine trees, very beautiful. It was really slowgoing, but great views when we got up high. On they way up, only 2 cars passed us on the sketchy narrow gravel road, one was a pickup truck containing a mariachi band, we had no idea where they were heading..... When we were minutes from reaching the top, we were startled by loud thunder, so decided to turn back down. It downpoured the entire way back down the hill, took about 2-3 hours to get up and only 1 hour to get down. When we returned to town, the electricity was out and didn't come back on until about 9:30pm so it was reading by candelight in the hotel room.

The next morning was Sunday and there was no colectivo (shuttle bus) to the next town, Mascota, so we got up early to hitchhike to the main road to catch the big bus from PV to Mascota. Upon waiting for the big bus, we saw a horse in the back of a red nissan pickup truck.

We reached Mascota, also a mountain village with about 15,000 people and walked around most of the day, and realized we were the only gringos in town. We hiked up to the cross on the hill overlooking the city (see photo) for great views. We stayed at Posada Corona for about $20 per night (included TV) and were probably the only people in the hotel. We hit the plaza at night where the entire town was hanging out and strolling around the plaza, eating, talking, drinking, listening to the band play. One strange thing happened right before the band was to play. All of the sudden the church bell rang and everyone stopped dead in the tracks and/or stood up and faced the church. We didn't want to look silly, so we too stood up and looked at the church. It was silent for about 15 seconds and then a bell rang again and they continued talking, eating, etc. It must have been a prayer time. That night we tried sugar cane, where you chew the sugar juice out of the cane and spit out the rest. The next day we took a taxi to Corrinches Reservoir, about 3 miles outside of town and hung out there for a few hours before walking back to town.

On Tuesday, we got up early to catch the bus back to Puerto Vallarta. We decided to spend the night in Puerto Vallarta and so we got a hotel room at the Hotel Hortencia in the Old Town for about $32 (includes cable TV). That afternoon we shopped around looking for a bag for Luke, but didn't find the one he is looking for. We did find some interesting wrestling masks, similar to those in the movie Nacho Libre.

That night we got somewhat lost taking the bus to the movie theater to see Babel and ended up getting off, changing buses, and then getting out again and taking a taxi to the theater. The movie (under $4 per person) was subtitled in Spanish, but parts of it were actually in Japanese and Spanish, so we had to listen hard during the spanish parts and read subtitles in spanish for the Japanese parts. The english parts were not dubbed and had spanish subtitles, which helps for learning spanish. We made it back to the hotel by bus luckily, and ended up walking around on the malecon, eating and watching street performances. With our french fries we tried something interesting, called salchipulpos [combo of the words salchicha (hot dog) and pulpo (octopus)], which are hot dogs cut into bite sized chunks, cut along the long axis and deep fried to look like little octopi. The next morning we woke up and grabbed fresh fruit (with lime juice, chili, and salt) and Tacos de Canasta for breakfast. We didn't really know what canasta meant and we were a bit worried they might be brains, but it turned out to be tiny tacos with frijoles (beans) or papas (potatoes) and were pretty good tasting. Our hotel actually had fresh-brewed real coffee (not nescafe, which is the primary coffee drink in Mexico), so Luke was satisfied.