Daily living costs

As we hear of rising costs at home, especially with the poor exchange rate for the Canadian dollar, we see the price of food rising here also.  A few examples:

One large mango $350 pesos ($2.70 CAD)
One small head of romaine lettuce $260 pesos ($2.00 CAD)
1 kg bacon $110 pesos ($8.43 CAD)
1 litre orange juice $170 pesos ($1.30 CAD) --  the cost is the same whether we make our own freshly squeezed orange juice or buy it in a tetrapak at the grocery store
1 litre milk $150 pesos ($1.14 CAD)

These prices are up from previous years.

Two items that have remained the same:

smoked pork chops $70 pesos per kg ($5.36 CAD)$
large shrimp $180 pesos per kg ($13.79 CAD).

Re other expenditures:

Regular gas here is $13.16 pesos per litre ($1.01 CAD) compared to 93.9 cents per litre at our home in Ontario. We do not use our car very often here as we can walk most places.

The local bus to Puerto Vallarta costs $50 pesos ($3.83 CAD) for the 1 1/2 hour ride.  (About 55 km drive on mountain road of single lane traffic each way)

A day in Puerto Vallarta

January 14th we drove into Puerto Vallarta to meet up with our friends Linda and Frank who had arrived that morning on a cruise ship. Five of us had come from Lo de Marcos to join them at the Malecon.

We ate lunch at Paradise Burgers which provided us with an excellent view of the Malecon area and the local entertainment since the restaurant is located on the second floor of a building on the waterfront.

The acrobats in the following photos climbed the pole, tied on a rope to themselves, then hung upside down and swung around the pole slowly lowering themselves to the ground with each rotation.

There was only one sand sculpture on display along the Malecon.  Other years there have been many on display. The intricate detail of this Mayan calenda  is kept by spraying the sculpture frequently with a fine mist of water.

A view of one of many metal sculptures along the waterfront:

A view of the waterfront as we walked south on the Malecon.

The waves were high and splashing anyone walking close to the sea wall.

Back to the grind...

We arrived back in de Marcos on Wednesday, after two great weeks at home with the family. The grandchildren are just so wonderful to be with and we really enjoyed every minute. The following evening, we celebrated New Years under the palapa with a pozole meal offered up by the park managers.

The park is very busy with many Mexicanos, including a motorhome and pop-up tent trailer. Those are a rarity in Mexico. The place was hopping, all the rooms were booked, and everyone having fun.

We got up this Saturday morning to a gorgeous sunrise.