DAY FIVE: IN PUERTO VALLARTA -- We finally got a day off the ship, and spent it wandering around the Mexican city of Puerto Vallarta. It’s main claim to fame, apparently, is that it was the scene of the 60s movie, “Night of the Iguana”, with it’s attendant media circus involving the then-scandulous love affair of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, pretty tame stuff by today’s standards.

We engaged a bus tour of the city, including a couple of interesting stops. One
was at “the birthplace of San Tequila”, alleged to have been the bartender at the Last Supper, and where all who wanted one got a taste of freshly made tequila. The other stop was a tile factory where we picked up a few gifts for folks who are looking after things for us back home, as well as a Christmas tree ornament for ourselves. It’s an interesting town, with lots of variety, and we enjoyed the day’s excursion.

A couple of observations about this first shore visit in old Mexico. The gringo culture (white wetbacks, our guide called its purveyors) is pretty strong: our first sight upon leaving the ship was a WalMart SuperCenter, and everywhere were the usual franchises, everything from Office Depot to Blockbuster to Jiffy Lube, and including a very conspicuous Hooters. (Incidentally, I later got a wonderful picture from the deck of our ship of the Wally World with a large pirate ship docked in front of it; it was more symbolism than I could have manufactured!)

And talk about symbolism: we parked the tour bus across the street from a beautiful Catholic church in the historic downtown section of Puerto Vallarta. I went inside to look around, then retreated across the street and sat on a bench until our bus returned. While waiting there, I noticed that many people, old and young, men and women, blessed themselves with the sign of the cross as they passed in front of the church, even across the street from it. Maybe it was superstition, maybe it was mindless habit, maybe anything, but it was an impressive display by people who knew there was something special about that place, people who knew there was something/someone greater than they were.

The main industry in Puerto Vallarta is tourism, almost entirely North American
tourism, so the cultural assimilation isn’t surprising once you think about it, but it does come as quite a shock. All this we observed the day after Bush signed into law the border fence which so many of us find offensive as well as ineffectual. I can’t help but wonder what the Mexicans here think about it, if indeed they think about it at all. I’ve obviously got my familiar “gringo guilt”.

There’s such a gulf between our worlds, and it was demonstrated with wonderful
clarity on the tour today. Our very competent guide was telling us about life in his country, and made the point that in Mexico the minimum wage is the equivalent of USD$5.00 A lady in our group piped up that in the US it’s $6.00 (or whatever). He patiently explained that here in Mexico it is $5.00 a DAY.

On the home front, I need to report that Ann’s arm and shoulder pain is really no better, although it seems to be controlled for short periods of time with medication.
Otherwise it’s really bad stuff. She reports that on a 1-10 continuum (from “nuisance” to “more than labor”) she often scores a 9. Not much to do about it here on the ship, apparently, other than to give it topical and symptomatic relief, and enjoy
the pain-free periods.