McCormick Family

Our first port of call was Puerto Vallaria, where we booked an excursion from some blogs and review we read. We were to go on a horseback ride and lunch with Rancho Charro. We found their booth when we got off the ship and the man told us we could take a cab to the ranch. When we asked for the address to give the taxi, he walked over to the taxis with us. He waived away the white taxis (white air conditioned mini vans)telling us they would charge $20 for the trip but a yellow taxi would only charge $6, so of course we liked the yellow one. It was a Nissan Sentra painted bright yellow with all the windows rolled down... no AC. The man told the cab driver where to go in rapid Spanish and the price we would pay, opened the doors, pushed us in and we were off. I think that there is only a few streets with lights, the rest of them are first come first serve. We were cutting off buses and cars and being cut off and almost hit a few intersections. We pulled into a dirt parking lot and were told in broken English, "you here". We gave a $20 and got back 4 $1's and some pesos. We weren't entirely sure if we just got ripped off or not. As he peeled out of the lot an Mexican cowboy, complete with chaps and spurs waived us over to his ride, a ancient vw van, totally rusted and looking like it was on it's last tire. We climbed into the back onto seats covered with horse blankets and we were off again. This time we drove on dirt roads thru the rural neighborhoods. We got a good look at how most of Puerto Vallartans live. Most of the houses are made from cement, including the roof (because of the termites and cost of wood), or shanty's from cardboard or old signs and tin roofs. Every block or so a house would have a sign showing it was also a store. The stores varied from beer to meat, dead chickens hanging in the window. It was a VERY bumpy road and we turned so many corners I thought we were in a maze, if we just made all lefts we could find our way out :).

We stopped in front of a hacienda looking home and were greeted by Pamela, our hostess. I was not expecting a quiet country but was amazed by the sounds. Roosters crowing, dogs and donkeys braying. It was louder than I could have imagined. She introduced us to Martin, our guide for the day, who matched us up to horses and got us up on them. They were very good horses, who where patient with us Gringos who didn't know how to ride or gideeup in Spanish. We had a donkey, a dog and a cow follow us at one time or another.
This was not your flat trail ride, we went across a river several times, once up to the horses belly, OK, only my horse when up to his belly because I steered him onto the wrong spot. Dave and Martin thought that was pretty funny. :) We went up pretty steep trails and around rocks and drop offs and made it to the top of a hill to over look Puerto Vallarta and Nuieve Vallarta. We could see the the whole valley and even our ship.

Well now we had to go back DOWN those hills we came up on!!! AAHHGG!! Going on a horseback ride was one of my fears to conquer, since I am afraid of horses (all that power under you and no control of it) and now I have to conquer a second, falling. Great! The horses went very slow down and we made it, I without having an accident (in my pant or elsewhere). As we came back down across the river we saw boys, from about 8-13 washing their clothes in the river. My kids will never complain about doing the laundry again!! Across the river there was a donkey who sounded pretty ticked off we were invading his space. So much so he did he heehaw heehaw thing until he ran out of breath and sounded like he was wheezing. Dave said the donkey sounded like he has asthma, I said he was an Assmatic. hehehe On down the trail Martin stopped and showed us a tree called a Chickel tree. He cut a v into the bark and white sap trickled out. He wiped it up with a finger and stuck it in his mouth. A few seconds later it was chewy, like gum. We each tried it. It tasted like Elmers glue at first but then it thickened into gum (without any flavor) and we chewed on it for the rest of the ride. Martin told us that kids would collect the sap and add water (to make it thick), add cinnamon or cloves to it, dry it out and sell it as chickles, we would know it as Chiclets. After our ride we had lunch in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and had the best mexican food I have ever had. It was in an open area with a palm leave roof. There were decorations hanging from the beams and baggies of water. Come to find out the baggies of water are hung to keep the flies away, something to do with their vision and light refracting off the water bags. It must have worked, we didn't see one fly inside the restaurant. We are going to have to try that at the property the next time we go camping.