Day 9 ~Salty Feet in Puerto Vallarta

Well, we lost another hour last night and are now on Central Time. And I seem to have lost a number of details from our sea day yesterday, too. The voyage from Cabo to Puerto Vallarta was pleasantly lazy. I can confirm that we had surf & turf on the fantail for supper, spent time with our friends, attempted abstract painting with limited success and enjoyed Wendy Law's 2nd cello performance, but other details are fading into a delightful haze. 

Puerto Vallarta couldn't be more different from Cabo. The Baja peninsula is arid and rocky. PV is lush with green mountains rising from the beaches, and a friendly populace eager to welcome us to their home. Our tour guide today was Victor, a personable, funny young man who loves his country and shared a wealth of stories about the history of the area and his life there in particular. He explained that native Puerto Vallartans refer to themselves as "salty feet," because in early days, the main export was reclaimed sea salt for use in the silver mines in the mountains. Those in the mountains meant "salty feet" as a term of derision, but Victor says the folk who live by the sea now wear the name with pride.  

 After a bus ride and a short walk, we visited a beautiful church, which Victor hopes will one day be named a cathedral when it's appointed a bishop instead of a priest. The churches are the hub of local life and explained the custom of the pinata to us. In Mexico, they aren't shaped like donkeys. Instead they are like a crown with seven thorns, each thorn representing one of the 7 deadly sins. Whacking away at the pinata reminds us to fight against sin in our lives and when we break its power through faith, we receive a prize!

In addition to showing us the site of the filming of John Huston's Night of the Iguana,  a movie starring Richard Burton, Ava Gardener, and Deborah Kerr, Victor took us away from the glitzy sea side resorts to the heart of the city where regular folk live--his own neighborhood. It was clean and safe and projected a strong sense of community. There is a park in the square which used to have free wifi, but the grandmothers in the area lobbied for it to be removed because they saw that people weren't talking to each other any more. 

At the end of the tour, Victor thanked us profusely for coming to visit them. Tourism accounts for a huge share of the economy and the past couple of years have been hard on everyone. He said he realizes there are parts of Mexico that are very dangerous. (Frankly, the same can be said of the U.S.!) But Puerto Vallarta is very safe, very clean and quite beautiful. 

   

We finished our day with supper in the Restaurant, and a magic show in the Star Theater. I'd say we were rocked to sleep in the worlds largest water bed, but the Pacific continues to be so calm, I barely feel the movement.

Oh! I also wanted to share something we learned from several members of the crew. One of the reasons they are so happy to be working on board again is that all during the pandemic when cruising was completely shut down, Viking continued to pay them. 

Now, that's class!