Our first couple of weeks of being retired was spent getting ready for a 5 week trip to Mexico. Now we are here again in Bucerias (just North of Puerta Vallarta) for a couple of weeks. We were here last year (see post) for a month and it is making an easy transition for us with NOTHING to do. Bucerias is a Canadian winter hangout and is a lot more relaxed than Puerta Vallarta.
Our main pastime here has been eating. We have been eating at home usually for breakfast and then eating cheap food out for lunch and dinner. Our favorite spots are sitting in plastic chairs in the center of town at food stands. They don’t serve alcohol but don’t mind if we get a $5bottle at the convenience store and they will give us some plastic glasses. We can eat some tacos for $5 for two and then grab some churros at another stand for another $1. There are a lot of better restaurants here that are a bit more money but we keep coming back to the plastic chairs in the zocalo.
We also are trying to figure out what our hobbies are going to be on the road when we are slow traveling. We are used to being together all the time when we are discovering new cities. Now we need to find our own things to do separately sometimes. I have been enjoying watching soccer this week. The European Champions league games have been going on and I really like sitting at a bar with locals and the Canadian tourists watching them. This week I was also able to watch the Seattle Sounders play Leon (a Mexican team) in the Concacaf champions league. It would have been better to see when we are in Guanajuato but it was still fun to see an American team beat a Mexican team.
Last year I spend a lot of time on a rental bike but I couldn’t get the good deal that I did last time. Last year we rented for $150 for a month but this year it was $150 for a week. So we found another company and just rented for 4 days. We cruised through Nueva Vallarta a couple of times and also went back to see the crocodile sanctuary. Last year, I spent a lot of time looking for birds on the bikes but I’m just seeing the same birds this year so I haven’t been that into it.
We have talked for years about slow travel… spending 2-3 months in a town and really getting to know people and finding some volunteer activities. The place that we are staying has about 25 condos around pool and is filled with Canadians that have been spending the winter here for 10-15 years. They are very nice and have invited us into their group. Every day is happy hour where we sit in a circle and drink for an hour or two. The even invited us to a potluck dinner. But… there is at least a 20 year age gap between us and them and it isn’t really our ideal crowd. And, we aren’t really ready to come back here every year, we still have many other places we want to see.