The Best of Mexico

I started this blog last Wednesday and never got it finished. Here it is. My last Mexican adventure report.


I'm hanging out one last time in my outdoor living room. I might cry a little.

It's a perfect Vallarta day. A clear blue sky and a very comfortable 30 degrees. I might just hangout on the sun deck for a few more rays before I go for lunch then depart for the airport. My flight home leaves at 5:40pm. I said farewell to the beach and the ocean yesterday.

Okay, now I'm really going to cry. Leaving paradise ain't easy. And those are just a few things I'm going to miss about Vallarta. Having spent four months here I've made a lot of good friends, had way too much fun for one person and indulged in many gluttonous activities.

Here are a few other things I'm going to miss.

Bacon-wrapped hotdogs—if you’re gonna eat a hotdog (and I’m not talking an all-beef jumbo frankfurter, but a skinny little wiener’s wiener) then you best be rolling it in delicious pork candy. One of these and a quesadilla after the bar, it’s like eating the best of what North America has to offer for preemptive hangover food.


Serviettas—Mexicans are obsessed with these tissue-paper like square napkins. And now I am too. They collect the sweat from my cold bottle of Pacifico and clean my fingers after eating beef and bean quesadillas outside Farmacia Guadalajara. The funny thing is you need to use a dozen of them every time you eat so these little scrunched up bits of stained tissue litter your table (or Styrofoam plate) at every meal.


Bags—Of juice. Salsa. Even mojitos. Get fresh-squeezed orange juice at a stand before work? Plastic bag with a knot tied around a straw. Spill-proof, cheap, and more earth-friendly than Styrofoam cups. Order tacos to go? Salsas come tied up in little bags. Want a mojito to go at Joe Jacks? Normally you’ll walk out with a plastic cup but if you ask Tanque (king of the bar) nicely he’ll pour it into a bag for your walk back to the hotel.


Staff meals—almost every night after the last customers left the restaurant the kitchen staff would prepare a meal for whoever wanted to partake. Platters of grilled mahi mahi or Mexican lasagna or shrimp fried rice would be laid out on table 35. We’d all gather up on the terrace, wolf down some food, have a beer or two, smoke cigarettes and occasionally get high. The waiters would be gathered plotting what bar we’d go to. The kitchen staff were just taking a long needed break from the craziness of the line before they returned to tear out the entire kitchen and hose it down. Another two hours work ahead of them.


Joe Jack’s amigos—what a group! Some of the craziest and funniest people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. We worked hard and drank even harder. There were secret affairs, ass-kickings, burgeoning resentment and admiration. Love and hate. Drama. Good times.


Simon—five month old Jack Russell terrier. My roomie and great friend Alfonso’s newest sidekick is one of the cutest, most well behaved and quiet puppies an owner could ask for. We shared a lot of naps.


Vallarta sunsets—sounds cheesy but damn they’re great. On days when I worked lunch I’d get off at about 4pm, grab a couple Dos Equis and head to the beach. Nothing’s better than a jump in the ocean after schlepping food and drinks all day, downing a couple beers and watching the sun slide into the pacific.