Embracing Friends and Mexican Traditions
Dia de los Muertos
November 2nd is Dia de los Muertos, and this year we created our first-ever Ofrenda (shrine or offering for the Day of the Dead.) This event celebrates those who've passed on. We think Disney's animated movie Coco does an excellent job of explaining this festival, and many of our Mexican friends agree.
This was our first Dia de los Muerto without Tosh-Love, so of course he was the center of our shrine, which also included Kirk's parents, Heidi's Dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well as many dear friends who left us way too soon.
For the third year in a row, Puerto Vallarta made the Guinness Book of World Records for the tallest Katrina (skeleton woman) in the world! This year she even sported a "life-size" Chihuahua! It takes several days and a crane to set her up. Our friend Keziah did a great job with her Katrina costume too!
Alan & Shay Visit
November and December saw several friends coming to visit Vallarta (and us). Heidi’s former colleague Alan, came to town with his wife, Shay. Heidi and Alan go way back to their Aldus days, 35+ years ago—she has actually known Alan longer than Kirk! And Kirk and Alan enjoyed rock concerts together in Seattle.
Alan and Shay were staying at a friend’s condo that serendipitously was a 10-minute walk from our boat. So we got together a few times for meals out, to enjoy the Dia de los Muertos festivities on the Malecón and we saw lots of iguanas too!
We had not met Shay before and we all instantly hit it off together. So much fun to see Alan again and get to know Shay. Alan also had a stint as a metro bus driver in Seattle, so we took him on the Mexican buses for comparison… a bit bumpier for sure on the cobblestone streets! Shay is a runway model coach, actor, dancer, and singer, and a hoot to be around. We hope they come back again soon.
One Election Result Worth Celebrating!
While we may have mourned some of the US election results, there was one win our family celebrated! Heidi's brother Arne was elected Mayor of Jackson, Wyoming ("Jackson Hole" is the entire valley with five towns, Jackson is the only one with a mayor.) He spent six years on the town council and was Vice-Mayor during that time, so he knows what he's getting into.
We are so proud of Arne and grateful for his continued public service to Heidi's hometown. As kids, Heidi didn't always think Arne was so fair! However, as an adult, he honestly has more integrity and fairness than most people. He listens to all sides of a situation and makes decisions based on what will benefit the majority, or be best for the whole community. He was instrumental in developing Jackson's affordable housing program, and his architecture firm has a long history of designing affordable housing projects.
He ran on a platform of making Jackson more affordable and liveable for the everyday people who work there, in gas stations, grocery stores, drug stores, teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police, etc., They are getting squeezed out of Jackson as it has become the playground of the rich and famous. Many of these vital workers now commute 1-2 hours each way over a snowy mountain pass or icy river canyon, as they can no longer afford to live in Jackson. When your teachers, police, fire, and nurses can't afford to live in the community, that's a problem. Arne won his race handily and has his work cut out for him. CONGRATS Bro, best of luck!!
Wellness Wisdom for Women
In mid-November Heidi helped organize a free Women’s Wellness educational talk, with two holistic doctors in Vallarta, Dr. Rose and Dr. Sherry. Heidi spoke about how stress, anxiety, and overwhelm (a.k.a. sympathetic nervous system or fight-flight-freeze mode) exacerbate illness, with lots of natural tips to alleviate them and put the body back into parasympathetic or rest-and-digest mode.
Their event was a big success, and they are grateful to photographer Josef K. Wepplo for taking photos. They were also interviewed on the local Vallarta English-speaking radio show “Asphalt Radio” (episode 16/11/2024 at 56:00 time stamp), and have been asked to come back again every month to give holistic wellness tips on air.
Kristi's Visit and Vallarta Botanical Gardens
Our next friend to visit Vallarta was Heidi‘s friend Kristi, who she met during her freshman year of college. They are part of a group of five friends from college days, who have all stayed in touch since then. Kristi was also staying near Due West, and she and Heidi had lots of fun morning beach walks, meals out and a day exploring the Vallarta Botanical Gardens.
Who knew lilypads had fuzzy star-shaped flowers?! The Vallarta Botanical Gardens are rated in the Top 10 in the WORLD, and we love going with visiting friends for great hikes through the jungle, swimming in the river, and eating at their tree-top restaurant. There are lots of cacao pods and vanilla beans (an orchid) here too. We'd never seen a Malachite butterfly before (this one was in PV, not at the Gardens), but apparently they are common here, the iridescent green was unreal. This BIG iguana was close to the marina, and about 4' long from nose to tail.
Kristi is an Iron Man triathlete, and keeping up with her was great exercise! Heidi’s Oura ring indicated she walked more in the week Kristi was here than she had in any other week in the past six months! Lol! And Tikka has been more and more social, letting friends pet her. Come back again soon Kristi!
Deck Due West with Lights of Color...
With December finally upon us, it was time to deck Due West out in her holiday finery.
Christmas Season is Kirk’s favorite holiday— and we both love all the lights, music, and holiday spirit—and giving back to the local community by decorating Due West. In fact this year, we were the only sailboat boat in Marina Vallarta to have holiday lights up— and very few boats were decorated at all!
Walking around the marina it was fun to overhear tourists and locals comment on how much they enjoyed seeing our boat lit up. (When we used to live at Elliott Bay Marina in Seattle they had a holiday lighted boat contest every year, and we even won some free moorage one year!)
Kirk planned to raise the dinghy up off the bow to get it away from where he was stringing the Christmas lights along the lifelines. And with the dinghy hoisted vertically by the jib halyard, it gave Heidi the idea to turn the dinghy into a Christmas tree! Heidi put first dibs on the colored lights to string back and forth in a tree shape (in previous years those colored lights were used to decorate the cockpit). She tried to find a lighted star for the top. No luck with that, but we did find a star-shaped cookie tin.
So Heidi stuffed it full of white lights that also reflected off the inside of the tin. Then tied them in place and tied it onto the top of the dinghy. And voilà! we had a Christmas tree on the bow.
Kirk came up with a lighting design a couple of years ago that we really like for Due West, with cobalt blue lights around the lifelines, and multicolored lights up the forestay, backstay, around the cockpit, and bow pulpit.
It was reminiscent of Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation when Kirk got everything connected, and then some of the lights wouldn’t turn on!! LOL… luckily they only had to come down from the forestay part way and swap the plug configuration, and then they worked! Yay!!
Finding good lights can be a challenge in Vallarta, and they are quickly snapped up months before the holidays. If you have a snafu at the last minute when you’re putting them up, you may not be able to find replacement lights until the following year.
This year we created a Spotify playlist of all our Holiday favorites: s/v Due West X-Mas Rock. This eclectic mix of rock, pop, funk, blues, jazz, reggae, world, zydaco, and more is based on our “24 hours of Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas” mixed tapes we recorded from old Seattle radio stations KXRX and KMTT. We were able to find most of those songs on Spotify (but without Norman B DJ-ing, it's not quite the same!) But one of our most favorite songs, Graham Parker and Nonna Hendryx singing Soul Christmas is not on Spotify (not sure why, no doubt it relates to money and rights), but you can listen to Soul Christmas here on YouTube, it is well worth the listen!
Christmas Posadas
We held our first-ever holiday Posada in Vallarta (a Christmas open house), and had quite a full house (17 people!) for a short time. Thankfully, most of our friends didn’t all overlap at once, and everyone had a place to sit. Grateful to our photographer friend Josef for snapping a few shots. Not surprisingly for this “small town” (pop: 300,000), several people knew each other from different walks of life but didn’t realize they each knew us, and were surprised to see each other at our party!
Thanks for all the amazing food, including some delicious herbed potatoes made by our Yoga friends Linda & Mike. And Keziah‘s yummy Puerto Rican garbanzo bean salad and empanadas. Heidi made an OMG-decadent, gluten-free cardamom chocolate mouse cake, check out the recipe…it was also a big hit!
Several friends (Emily, Keziah & Darren, Sam & Jeffrey) stuck around for board games after the party dwindled… and we played a rousing game of Taboo with boys against girls. The girls won, but the boys claimed it was unfair as the girls had four on their team and the boys only had three. We’ll have to have a rematch and even the numbers!
When it rains it pours, and the two holiday posadas we were invited to were both on the same night and the night after our own party. Honestly, we were beat and really planned to just stop by each party briefly… then head home and chillax. HUH!!
The first party was at the condo of our new friends, John & Henry, who have fabulous views of Vallarta and the mountains behind. They also have fantastic Christmas decorations, including a nice glass ornament Santa Claus collection, which we loved! Plus they had a lot of very nice friends, some of which are now our new friends too!
Two hours later (intending to only stop by for 30 minutes)… we made our goodbyes and headed to the second party at our yoga friends, Paul & David’s condo, in an extremely steep, hilly part of Vallarta. (Thankful for Uber… and that it doesn’t snow in Vallarta! But even with rain, those roads must get slick.)
Yet another spectacular view of Banderas Bay shoreline at night from an entirely different perspective (above right—you can also see the proximity of the Marina to where we've house-sat). Plus tons of delicious food. And they had about six Christmas trees, of various sizes each decorated differently… definitely into the holiday spirit! Again, we had only intended to stop by for a few minutes, but were there for nearly two hours as well!
The sign of great parties: when someone is happy to stay much longer than they intended to… thanks so much John & Henry, and Paul & David. You guys hosted fantastic Posadas, thanks for the invites and holiday cheer!
Also in the holiday spirit, Angel’s soup kitchen, (where we have been volunteering), is held on the 24th of every month, so this month happened to coincide with Christmas Eve day, (which is a bigger holiday in Mexico than Christmas Day.) We made 30 bean and cheese tacos on blue corn tortillas, to serve to the many people in need in Vallarta. We made the same tacos last month as well and they are greatly appreciated, especially by the kids… tacos are comfort food in Mexico.
Christmas morning we decanted the large sauerkraut jar, and it was even better than we had hoped!! We filled a few smaller jars as gifts and then put the rest in a couple of quart-size jars for us (see photo at bottom). Heidi is going to start the next batch ASAP, hoping we never run out again. It’s a beautiful, delicious, topper to soups and stews and salads—and great for our gut microbiome too!
Keziah & Darren invited us out for a Christmas Day Sail (along with mutual friends, Emily & Inez) on their Catalina Morgan 45. We were so grateful for this opportunity to get out sailing, as Due West is still undergoing a bit of engine maintenance and needs new batteries before we can get off the dock. It was a perfect way to spend Christmas day, sailing complete with dolphins and humpback whales, good friends, and delicious food.
Barra de Navidad & Santiago for the Holidays
This year, our Christmas present to each other was a short road trip to Barra De Navidad via bus. The impetus of this mini vacation was twofold. Firstly, Heidi‘s long-time, childhood friend Janet, her husband, Andy, and their grown kids Bo and Reilly were headed to Santiago for their Christmas holiday… which is a small beach town about an hour south of Barra De Navidad.
We planned to go visit them and also catch up with many old friends in Barra. We always felt like we hit the jackpot of locations for the 2+ pandemic years we spent living there. And hadn’t been back in town for more than two minutes before running into sailing friends, Shawna & Travis and their 3 boys on s/v Nini Wahooni, who had been there during the pandemic years too. (If you followed along or made a donation to help with their dismasting emergency on their voyage to the South Pacific two years ago, we are happy to report their boat is back together again with a new mast, and they plan to set sail for the South Pacific again this spring.)
We also loved spending time with our dear friends, the Rodriguez family on s/v Foxy (a.k.a. Prarie Fox) from Seattle. Jerry & Heidi are tight friends (sisters from another mister!) and got in lots of hugs. Kirk loves chatting with Roland about boats and life, and we have watched their 3 girls grow like weeds over the past four years. All five of them are amazing humans.
We stayed on a friend’s boat in the marina in Barra and were amazed to run into 30+ people we knew around the marina and in town, walking down the street or at a few of our favorite haunts, coffee shops, and restaurants. It felt like old home week.
One waitress in the Antijito (small Mexican plates, like tapas) restaurant Dos Soles, remembered us after not seeing us for 2 1/2 years… it makes a big difference when you get to know the service providers in your town by name and ask about their families. Mexico is very much like the US was 50 or 60 years ago in this regard. She even told us our Spanish was much improved and she could tell we had been practicing (this was all said in Spanish, of course!) We have been prioritizing 20 to 30 minutes on Duolingo daily and definitely seeing an improvement ourselves.
Barra De Navidad literally means “Christmas Bar” and has really spruced itself up in the past 2+ years that we’ve been gone, with lots of new paint jobs on buildings and more coordinated street decorations and pop-up market stalls… so many pretty lights and decorations throughout town, it was beautiful to walk around at night… And the night stars are amazingly brilliant from the beach or the water taxi rides when you get away from the holiday lights in town. No light pollution like there is here in Vallarta.
Barra was named for a sandbar in front of the town, which was “discovered” by the Spaniards on Christmas Day, even though there were already native peoples living there. We’ve written many previous posts about Barra De Navidad, if you want to learn more and see more photos of this beautiful place, you can check them out here.
And one of our favorite parts about being back in Barra is the water taxi rides between the marina and the town… so much fun, and beautiful views in every direction.
The same storm-driven waves that wiped out the Santa Cruz, CA boardwalk made their way to Mexico the following week. Beaches in Puerto Vallarta were closed to swimming during the Christmas holidays due to huge waves and strong rip currents. Unfortunately, not everyone heeds the red flag warnings, and someone drowned in Vallarta that week. In Barra, a surf town, the surfers were loving it.
Secret Beach
And at Secret Beach, the big waves pounded through the blow-hole too.
Another highlight was a wonderful hike to our favorite—not so secret—“Secret Beach” after a lovely breakfast at Bananas with Swiss sailing friends Jean-Pierre, John & Monique, and Scott. (Thanks John & Monique for the ride!). We also saw lots of wildlife along our hike, from lizards, and butterflies (the Whitened Bluewing image is from Google, but was just that vibrant in person!), to wild green parakeets, and a coatimundi in a coconut tree!
Lots of stairs up and down to Secret Beach, plus some hidey-holes to peep through on the way... and the sand has an amazing gold-glitter sheen that a photo just doesn't do justice to.
It was great fun to see Janet and Andy and spend time getting to know their grown kids… They are family friends dating back 50 years, and their daughter is now friends with a couple of our nieces as well, so it’s a multigenerational family friendship. We all hung out on the beach in Santiago catching up on life, and shared an amazing meal at the Oasis Beach Club. Thanks for everything Janet & Andy, Bo, Reilly & Ridge. So happy it finally worked out to get together in Mexico!!
Way too soon it was time for us to hit the road back home to Due West and Tikka. (Big thanks to Keziah for taking care of our sweet kitty while we were away, and so happy she warmed up to you!)
Taking buses in Mexico is always so much fun, you never know what you'll see out the window! Much of Mexico still has creative, hand-painted signs, like these grocery store signs. It’s normally about a five-hour bus ride back to PV, but this trip was extra long due to a parade in the small town of Nuevo Miguel Hidalgo, which we were passing through… horses, floats, and music blocking the highway… everyone having a grand time!
Happy New Year! And please let us know if you are heading to Vallarta anytime in 2025, we would love to see you if we’re around. We’re hoping to sail back to Barra for a couple of months this spring.
PS... The fermented sauerkraut is such a pretty color, we had to show it off (it's delicious too!) Our view of the New Year's Eve fireworks in Marina Vallarta reminded us of the South Pacific, this photo was taken from the bow of Due West. The cacophony from bars, restaurants, and hotels around the marina ended sharply at 2 AM, and prevented any sleep before then, but enabled us to work on the blog post, LOL!
