Let me finish up talking about the trip. I'm still not done thinking about the emotions that came up for me, surprisingly not about what I thought....but then that's what happens right? When I stay open to possibilities I am often pleasantly surprised by what I end up thinking about, or what I'm invited by the universe to consider, know what I mean? I knew I missing something, and I thought it was closure....but it wasn't. I was fine with my friends. When I went into my house, I remembered why I loved it, but no longer had any desire to live there. The same thing kind of happened when I went to Calif last June. I mean, I still want to go back to northen Calif at some point, but it does not need to be Petaluma. I was a visitor. Besides my daughters, I was a visitor. And unless something (I don't know what) changes in a big way (oh- maybe winning the lottery-which-knowing me is not that out there ha ha), but barring something like that, I am never going to be able to afford to live in my house again....well unless I get a full time job- or a good paying part time ha ha. I love that little house, but I'm pretty much ok with not living there. Further north...I would not too far from my daughters- not more than a day away, right? But that covers alot of territory...and to live in the Redwoods, by a river, or at least a creek, or close to the ocean- yes there has to be water....but after living in Mexico, I just know there's so many things I can do without. Of course in northern Cal we will for sure need hot water!! (which we do have now here in Baja)
As always I got way off topic! Hmmm well I guess it's because I'm thinking about letting go of resentments. That the only two I really have are both about other people- not me. One is the guy who shot my daughter. He's in prison, my daughter is fine, justice has been served. And yet.....I cannot forgive him. I know forgiveness is not about him- it's about me. It's about letting negative thoughts out of my head. Forgiveness does not mean that I think what he did is ok- on any level. It's just me letting go. Whether or not I forgive him does not change him in any way- does not affect him in any way. The ONLY person affected is me. And maybe anyone I interact with because I would have further reduced negativity in my life. Pretty convincing eh? Yep in my head...not in my gut/heart yet. While in Playa Ventura one of the books I brought back is by the Dali Lama and it's called "The Wisdom of Forgiveness"....I never finished reading it...just wasn't ready...but maybe I'm getting ready. Ok- the other person, well it's so much less than what I just wrote about- that the resentment is really really gone! ha ha!! It was my friend I was referring to in my previous post. The woman who had been my close friend and actually introduced me to Playa Ventura in the first place. She opened her home to me by inviting me to go stay in it down there, which I did, then bought my house. (I actually bought it with my ex husband, but even after splitting up we thought we'd keep it for a vacation house and use it at different times, but later he decided that wasn't such a good idea and I bought him out). The woman, and I had a falling out, but we got over it....except except except....she said some pretty horrible stuff about my husband- my current husband- accused him of some things and she was way of base- really wrong. Although she apologized to me, she did not apologize for her comments regarding him. This was a huge problem for me. But you know what? I'm over it. She and my husband will never be friends. They may not even ever see each other again. But they are both adults. My husband can take care of himself. I am over that one. Ahhh good.
So....we had an amazing wonderful time in Playa Ventura. We left too soon I thought - we were supposed to stay one more day. Poppi bought some just caught lobster and we were gonna eat it with Gume and Chela; we put it in their fridge. We were waiting to talk to/meet with the guy who was going to do the formal measurements of our property and associated paperwork, and turned out he had done it for other people there, including our friends, and the guy taking care of our house (that's where we got his name), but knowing everyone was using him made me feel a little better. He had actually been there a few days before, and we had been supposed to meet with him, but we were broke down in Patzcuro and missed him. Everardo tried to call him on Thurs and Friday, but got no answer. We decided to wait until Monday; we were prepared to stay all the next week, in fact there was going to be a fair the next weekend. And then on Saturday we got a message that the guy was trying to get ahold of us. So we drove out the spit, the other side of town where sometimes you could get cell service, and called him. We had talked on the way out there and decided maybe Poppi would drive the 4 or 5 hours to Chilpancingo where the guy was, but he surprised us by saying he was coming the next day- Sunday!! He was going leave at 5am and meet us at 9am. There was also another client waiting to see him, so he was gonna make some money....so maybe not that much of a surprise- for Mexico. So he came. Our business, at least what we needed to be present for, needed to sign, ect was concluded. Poppi was worried about the truck and wanted to go back to the guy outside Morelia and have him do something on it- but for free, since he didn't fix the other thing we paid him for. So we left Playa Ventura at the crack of dawn on Monday. It was raining and I think rained all day there, so I guess it wouldn't have been great- NO I'm lying!! Of course it would have been great- we would have eaten lobster!!! On Sunday afternoon we visited Jay and his family- the guy who care takes the house, then we walked over to Gencho and Rosa's to sit with them for a while and say good bye. I do love Rosa- she is like a sister to me - we always talked even though she doesn't speak English and when we were there my Spanish sucked. I remember when she told me all about how her husband pursued her...some of it was pretty funny with him waiting outside her house in the pouring rain....I love him too. After that we went to Chela and Gume, finally all their customers left- although that's when we met the real estate guy- from Chilpancingo like the other guy.....Did I say the electricity was off all day Sunday? So besides no cell service- well that's always, now the land lines didn't work plus the lights...etc. Sorta sucks for a restaurant...fridge, blender....but very normal to being going out for the day down there ha ha. It came back on in late afternoon. Since it rained all day Monday who knows if they had electricity. I was disappointed anyway because finally Chela would have some free time, but as Everardo said- she'd feel obligated to be there for us when probly she needed to sleep ha ha. They stayed up all nite Sat nite at the wedding we all went to...Rosa & Gencho stayed up all nite as well, then both families had customers who had either camped or stayed in their bungalows and wanted to be fed and other services all day Sunday. So, I let myself be convinced it was time to go.
We drove all the way to Urapan....we went home a different way...still on free roads, so instead of going to Patzcuro we went more north and west and went to Urapan. Oh the mechanic in Morelia you ask?? Yeah I asked, too. Well the truck seemed to be running so well, he decided not to go back to Morelia, but to just head home....the next morning we drove to Puerto Vallarta where a friend of ours, from Russia, was staying for a week with her sister who was visiting her from Russia. This is the route we took when we had the amazing mountain breakfast I wrote about. That was the highlight of that day....since after that is when we chose the crazy million curves road. In the end we didn't get to Puerto Vallarta until dark- of course...but we contacted our friend and seeing her the next day was really important- she was going thru a crisis and I had told her if by any chance we were any where near there when they were that we would see her, but I could not promise. She had confided in me some terrible problems she was having with her husband, a man both Everardo and I knew and the fact we were actually able to see her really meant alot to her and made me feel better about leaving Playa Ventura so soon.
They were staying in a resort/spa type place- and oh yeah I gotta remember to go onto Yelp and give it a horrible review. The weird thing about a place like that is you could be anywhere in the world and never venture outside of it. They had stores, pools, beach, restaurants, gyms, waterslides, boating, surfing, everything. It was immense! And they were not the only one; once we went thru the first gates, there were a bunch of high end hotels out there. It had been a big gov't built housing community, and they all got "moved" somewhere else. I mean you would never see Mexico much less experience it...I don't know- is that what Club med is like? Or used to be like, I never hear anything about it anymore. Oh and it was a timeshare...couple of guys wanted to show us...in fact on the malecon (boardwalk) in Puerto Vallarta a guy wanted to give us free everything and Poppi started talking to him, and I was laughing because the guy would say how we just had to listen to this "small presentation" ha ha ha been there done that before! Ok so we get there finally, and have to get green wrist bands and give over Everardo's dr lic after we park in the special lot. Then we walk to the reception building and she wants us to fill out another paper, and we were just visiting a hotel guest. I put a fake phone number and email- yeah they were "required"! Really?? Then she gives us an orange wrist band and I burst out laughing- another wrist band?? She tells us how now we can use all the facilities all day. Uh ok. She calls our friend who comes down, then we didn't realize what she was doing and she goes to another desk- the members desk not the reception desk, and she's "registering" us....and PAYS $25 EACH for us!! I tried to stop her! I told the guy we were already registered and showed him my orange band- which he got all hot under the collar about and asked how we got them! Telephone calls happened- I saw our little paperwork ha ha. Our friend insisted she didn't care about the money....ok so we have a nice time...they made us some nice appetizers.....Russian style, then we went out for a walk to see the grounds. We didn't use any of the facilities ha ha. When we walked out the front to take some pictures, the parking guy told us not to take off our wrist bands ha ha. So Everardo starts talking to him and he turns out to be the head of security and is really pissed off when he finds out our friend paid the $50!! He says he's investigating the staff for stealing money (embezzling basically) and stomps off to get her money back. We take some nice photos...in front of a waterfall- stuff like that, and go back to their room for a yummy meal of mahi mahi. We leave to go back to our hotel about 5pm, and stop by reception to give back our orange bands, and they ask us for our key cards...what? What key cards? (We don't got no stinkin key cards!!) The woman insists we do- I ask her- what would we keep them for? Why would we want them? Those cards get reprogrammed all the time- and these didn't even open any doors- apparently they were to give the towell lady if we went swimming....which we did not. I reminded her about laughing about the different colored wrist bands...and she said yes, and then I gave you the cards. Her boss was there and she says- see? She has no more cards! I said- what does that have to do with us?? Then she and Everardo started speaking in Spanish and I could tell my husband who rarely gets mad, was getting mad. So finally we hug our friend and walk outside. The boss woman runs outside to show us the little paper book they put key cards in and asks if we reconize it! ha ha we laugh in her face. Then she gets mad and Poppi gets good and mad. She says our friend will be charged for the cards- $5 each! He tell her he will call the Mexico equivalent of the Better Business Bureau...he says they are a big business bullying people and stealing their money...she got very upset. We walked away. We found out the other day they did try to charge our friend that damn $5 each for those fucking cards! She argued with them and then they finally did not...but still!! I will go online and give them a shitty review. We saw people wearing all different color wrist bands and being asked questions at every turn...how awful!
But we had a really good time with her and she was quite touched that we came to her. She is our friend- she doesn't have alot of friends in the US and was pretty intimidated, but she is also a string woman, and such a good person! I love her very much. We were so happy she had her sister with her for moral support; I think she's still with her in California for now. I told my older daughter about her and she will also make herself available for moral support, for friendship, to help her in anyway- if she needs any social services, things like that. So I'm so glad we made the trip.
So we stayed 2 days in Puerto Vallarta and left for Mazatlan and stayed one nite. We got there mid day and so went down to the beach and ate seafood in a little place right on the sand. They have these golf cart type taxis and we took one to sight see a little and then...we went to the movies! We saw The Judge and it was a great movie- Robert Duvall & Robert Downey Jr....we came out and caught another golf cart taxi and went to the malecon where people were hanging out and vendors were still selling their wares. Oh I forgot- in Puerto Vallarta I bought a great hat- kind of a cowboy hat...for the sun and it was the only kind with the strap for under your chin- which I need here..and as it turns out I really like it- as always- if I ever figure out the photos you will see it here ha ha. I also got a wide purple stripe dyed into my hair! They said it will last a month, so we'll see, I really like it- always wanted to do it. In Michocan we both bought leather sandals and I got a small leather (purple of course) wallet and a beautiful scarf. Ok so we walked in Matazlan and then went back to the hotel, which was right across the street from the beach. And if it wasn't for the guys who got drunk around the pool right next to our side of the building...and they drank it seemed like all nite!, if it wasn't for them it would have been perfect...oh and it was cheap! The next morning I could hardly wake up and went right back to sleep in the truck.
But we drove and came into Nayarit and no wonder they call it the Nayarit Riviera! It is so beautiful. The roads wind thru the most beautiful trees and plants and water and hills, so many shades of green, it was just breathtaking. At some point we finally overlapped on our trip- because we got on a road to Hermosillo. Got there after dark...of course....but we had driven taking our time; it was so pretty and we stayed off the toll roads. Now it was Friday nite...a long time since we left Playa Ventura. We got up early after having dinner in the hotel and hitting the sack early... and drove all the way home....got here about 6pm. Hermosillo is in the Sonoran desert so it was the drive I hate- across Sonora and then into Baja where first it's desert and then it's the Rumarosa winding roads over the mountain. I hate all of it. We saw sooooo many checkpoints, mostly for trucks; there were a couple of places where semi trucks, with 2 trailers each, were lines up for at least 5 miles, maybe more.
So it was quite an adventure. So many things happened! Mostly good....traveling the free roads was very cool, we saw soooo much more of Mexico! Mexico is so diverse, in Sinaloa you call your buddy "Compa" for companero... the word for dragonfly is chambuleke in Playa Ventura, Guerrero, but libeilula in Yucatan. Different ways of cooking different meats, different coffee, clothes...etc. We've been all over the place in Mexico and this time was at least as fun, rewarding, exciting, interesting, as last time and the time before that. Did I say....VIVA!
As always I got way off topic! Hmmm well I guess it's because I'm thinking about letting go of resentments. That the only two I really have are both about other people- not me. One is the guy who shot my daughter. He's in prison, my daughter is fine, justice has been served. And yet.....I cannot forgive him. I know forgiveness is not about him- it's about me. It's about letting negative thoughts out of my head. Forgiveness does not mean that I think what he did is ok- on any level. It's just me letting go. Whether or not I forgive him does not change him in any way- does not affect him in any way. The ONLY person affected is me. And maybe anyone I interact with because I would have further reduced negativity in my life. Pretty convincing eh? Yep in my head...not in my gut/heart yet. While in Playa Ventura one of the books I brought back is by the Dali Lama and it's called "The Wisdom of Forgiveness"....I never finished reading it...just wasn't ready...but maybe I'm getting ready. Ok- the other person, well it's so much less than what I just wrote about- that the resentment is really really gone! ha ha!! It was my friend I was referring to in my previous post. The woman who had been my close friend and actually introduced me to Playa Ventura in the first place. She opened her home to me by inviting me to go stay in it down there, which I did, then bought my house. (I actually bought it with my ex husband, but even after splitting up we thought we'd keep it for a vacation house and use it at different times, but later he decided that wasn't such a good idea and I bought him out). The woman, and I had a falling out, but we got over it....except except except....she said some pretty horrible stuff about my husband- my current husband- accused him of some things and she was way of base- really wrong. Although she apologized to me, she did not apologize for her comments regarding him. This was a huge problem for me. But you know what? I'm over it. She and my husband will never be friends. They may not even ever see each other again. But they are both adults. My husband can take care of himself. I am over that one. Ahhh good.
So....we had an amazing wonderful time in Playa Ventura. We left too soon I thought - we were supposed to stay one more day. Poppi bought some just caught lobster and we were gonna eat it with Gume and Chela; we put it in their fridge. We were waiting to talk to/meet with the guy who was going to do the formal measurements of our property and associated paperwork, and turned out he had done it for other people there, including our friends, and the guy taking care of our house (that's where we got his name), but knowing everyone was using him made me feel a little better. He had actually been there a few days before, and we had been supposed to meet with him, but we were broke down in Patzcuro and missed him. Everardo tried to call him on Thurs and Friday, but got no answer. We decided to wait until Monday; we were prepared to stay all the next week, in fact there was going to be a fair the next weekend. And then on Saturday we got a message that the guy was trying to get ahold of us. So we drove out the spit, the other side of town where sometimes you could get cell service, and called him. We had talked on the way out there and decided maybe Poppi would drive the 4 or 5 hours to Chilpancingo where the guy was, but he surprised us by saying he was coming the next day- Sunday!! He was going leave at 5am and meet us at 9am. There was also another client waiting to see him, so he was gonna make some money....so maybe not that much of a surprise- for Mexico. So he came. Our business, at least what we needed to be present for, needed to sign, ect was concluded. Poppi was worried about the truck and wanted to go back to the guy outside Morelia and have him do something on it- but for free, since he didn't fix the other thing we paid him for. So we left Playa Ventura at the crack of dawn on Monday. It was raining and I think rained all day there, so I guess it wouldn't have been great- NO I'm lying!! Of course it would have been great- we would have eaten lobster!!! On Sunday afternoon we visited Jay and his family- the guy who care takes the house, then we walked over to Gencho and Rosa's to sit with them for a while and say good bye. I do love Rosa- she is like a sister to me - we always talked even though she doesn't speak English and when we were there my Spanish sucked. I remember when she told me all about how her husband pursued her...some of it was pretty funny with him waiting outside her house in the pouring rain....I love him too. After that we went to Chela and Gume, finally all their customers left- although that's when we met the real estate guy- from Chilpancingo like the other guy.....Did I say the electricity was off all day Sunday? So besides no cell service- well that's always, now the land lines didn't work plus the lights...etc. Sorta sucks for a restaurant...fridge, blender....but very normal to being going out for the day down there ha ha. It came back on in late afternoon. Since it rained all day Monday who knows if they had electricity. I was disappointed anyway because finally Chela would have some free time, but as Everardo said- she'd feel obligated to be there for us when probly she needed to sleep ha ha. They stayed up all nite Sat nite at the wedding we all went to...Rosa & Gencho stayed up all nite as well, then both families had customers who had either camped or stayed in their bungalows and wanted to be fed and other services all day Sunday. So, I let myself be convinced it was time to go.
We drove all the way to Urapan....we went home a different way...still on free roads, so instead of going to Patzcuro we went more north and west and went to Urapan. Oh the mechanic in Morelia you ask?? Yeah I asked, too. Well the truck seemed to be running so well, he decided not to go back to Morelia, but to just head home....the next morning we drove to Puerto Vallarta where a friend of ours, from Russia, was staying for a week with her sister who was visiting her from Russia. This is the route we took when we had the amazing mountain breakfast I wrote about. That was the highlight of that day....since after that is when we chose the crazy million curves road. In the end we didn't get to Puerto Vallarta until dark- of course...but we contacted our friend and seeing her the next day was really important- she was going thru a crisis and I had told her if by any chance we were any where near there when they were that we would see her, but I could not promise. She had confided in me some terrible problems she was having with her husband, a man both Everardo and I knew and the fact we were actually able to see her really meant alot to her and made me feel better about leaving Playa Ventura so soon.
They were staying in a resort/spa type place- and oh yeah I gotta remember to go onto Yelp and give it a horrible review. The weird thing about a place like that is you could be anywhere in the world and never venture outside of it. They had stores, pools, beach, restaurants, gyms, waterslides, boating, surfing, everything. It was immense! And they were not the only one; once we went thru the first gates, there were a bunch of high end hotels out there. It had been a big gov't built housing community, and they all got "moved" somewhere else. I mean you would never see Mexico much less experience it...I don't know- is that what Club med is like? Or used to be like, I never hear anything about it anymore. Oh and it was a timeshare...couple of guys wanted to show us...in fact on the malecon (boardwalk) in Puerto Vallarta a guy wanted to give us free everything and Poppi started talking to him, and I was laughing because the guy would say how we just had to listen to this "small presentation" ha ha ha been there done that before! Ok so we get there finally, and have to get green wrist bands and give over Everardo's dr lic after we park in the special lot. Then we walk to the reception building and she wants us to fill out another paper, and we were just visiting a hotel guest. I put a fake phone number and email- yeah they were "required"! Really?? Then she gives us an orange wrist band and I burst out laughing- another wrist band?? She tells us how now we can use all the facilities all day. Uh ok. She calls our friend who comes down, then we didn't realize what she was doing and she goes to another desk- the members desk not the reception desk, and she's "registering" us....and PAYS $25 EACH for us!! I tried to stop her! I told the guy we were already registered and showed him my orange band- which he got all hot under the collar about and asked how we got them! Telephone calls happened- I saw our little paperwork ha ha. Our friend insisted she didn't care about the money....ok so we have a nice time...they made us some nice appetizers.....Russian style, then we went out for a walk to see the grounds. We didn't use any of the facilities ha ha. When we walked out the front to take some pictures, the parking guy told us not to take off our wrist bands ha ha. So Everardo starts talking to him and he turns out to be the head of security and is really pissed off when he finds out our friend paid the $50!! He says he's investigating the staff for stealing money (embezzling basically) and stomps off to get her money back. We take some nice photos...in front of a waterfall- stuff like that, and go back to their room for a yummy meal of mahi mahi. We leave to go back to our hotel about 5pm, and stop by reception to give back our orange bands, and they ask us for our key cards...what? What key cards? (We don't got no stinkin key cards!!) The woman insists we do- I ask her- what would we keep them for? Why would we want them? Those cards get reprogrammed all the time- and these didn't even open any doors- apparently they were to give the towell lady if we went swimming....which we did not. I reminded her about laughing about the different colored wrist bands...and she said yes, and then I gave you the cards. Her boss was there and she says- see? She has no more cards! I said- what does that have to do with us?? Then she and Everardo started speaking in Spanish and I could tell my husband who rarely gets mad, was getting mad. So finally we hug our friend and walk outside. The boss woman runs outside to show us the little paper book they put key cards in and asks if we reconize it! ha ha we laugh in her face. Then she gets mad and Poppi gets good and mad. She says our friend will be charged for the cards- $5 each! He tell her he will call the Mexico equivalent of the Better Business Bureau...he says they are a big business bullying people and stealing their money...she got very upset. We walked away. We found out the other day they did try to charge our friend that damn $5 each for those fucking cards! She argued with them and then they finally did not...but still!! I will go online and give them a shitty review. We saw people wearing all different color wrist bands and being asked questions at every turn...how awful!
But we had a really good time with her and she was quite touched that we came to her. She is our friend- she doesn't have alot of friends in the US and was pretty intimidated, but she is also a string woman, and such a good person! I love her very much. We were so happy she had her sister with her for moral support; I think she's still with her in California for now. I told my older daughter about her and she will also make herself available for moral support, for friendship, to help her in anyway- if she needs any social services, things like that. So I'm so glad we made the trip.
So we stayed 2 days in Puerto Vallarta and left for Mazatlan and stayed one nite. We got there mid day and so went down to the beach and ate seafood in a little place right on the sand. They have these golf cart type taxis and we took one to sight see a little and then...we went to the movies! We saw The Judge and it was a great movie- Robert Duvall & Robert Downey Jr....we came out and caught another golf cart taxi and went to the malecon where people were hanging out and vendors were still selling their wares. Oh I forgot- in Puerto Vallarta I bought a great hat- kind of a cowboy hat...for the sun and it was the only kind with the strap for under your chin- which I need here..and as it turns out I really like it- as always- if I ever figure out the photos you will see it here ha ha. I also got a wide purple stripe dyed into my hair! They said it will last a month, so we'll see, I really like it- always wanted to do it. In Michocan we both bought leather sandals and I got a small leather (purple of course) wallet and a beautiful scarf. Ok so we walked in Matazlan and then went back to the hotel, which was right across the street from the beach. And if it wasn't for the guys who got drunk around the pool right next to our side of the building...and they drank it seemed like all nite!, if it wasn't for them it would have been perfect...oh and it was cheap! The next morning I could hardly wake up and went right back to sleep in the truck.
But we drove and came into Nayarit and no wonder they call it the Nayarit Riviera! It is so beautiful. The roads wind thru the most beautiful trees and plants and water and hills, so many shades of green, it was just breathtaking. At some point we finally overlapped on our trip- because we got on a road to Hermosillo. Got there after dark...of course....but we had driven taking our time; it was so pretty and we stayed off the toll roads. Now it was Friday nite...a long time since we left Playa Ventura. We got up early after having dinner in the hotel and hitting the sack early... and drove all the way home....got here about 6pm. Hermosillo is in the Sonoran desert so it was the drive I hate- across Sonora and then into Baja where first it's desert and then it's the Rumarosa winding roads over the mountain. I hate all of it. We saw sooooo many checkpoints, mostly for trucks; there were a couple of places where semi trucks, with 2 trailers each, were lines up for at least 5 miles, maybe more.
So it was quite an adventure. So many things happened! Mostly good....traveling the free roads was very cool, we saw soooo much more of Mexico! Mexico is so diverse, in Sinaloa you call your buddy "Compa" for companero... the word for dragonfly is chambuleke in Playa Ventura, Guerrero, but libeilula in Yucatan. Different ways of cooking different meats, different coffee, clothes...etc. We've been all over the place in Mexico and this time was at least as fun, rewarding, exciting, interesting, as last time and the time before that. Did I say....VIVA!
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