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January 5, 2003.
Did any of you
happen to see the incredible sunset last Monday, December 30th? We are truly blessed
here because of the geographical and topographical conditions of the Bay of Banderas
-which faces due West - to be able to witness some of the most spectacular sunsets
anywhere in the world. But once in a while, one happens along that even seems
to surpass everything we "jaded" folk have seen up to that moment. Awesome,
it was. The New Year's Eve celebrations were spectacular as
well - all the fireworks exploding in multicolored spheres and streamers and screamers
around the bay, plus that immense cruise ship that was all lit up and decked out,
just floating there in the absolute darkness in front of the Malecon, tooting
her horn so the echoes reverberated against the hillsides of the Sierra Madre,
surrounded by dozens of smaller boats, all with their lights on too… A thousand
times better than the "organized event" for the town's 150th anniversary
last year! Now I'm curious: How many of you were taken
in by the headlines in the local papers -and The Times - last Saturday, December
28th? I was amazed at how many of the local residents were, even after having
lived here for so many years. You see, December 28th is El Día de los Inocentes
in Mexico, something akin to what we northerners know as April Fool's Day. (See
separate article in this issue.) The Vallarta Opina and
the Tribuna de la Bahía both had front covers at both ends (both sides)
of their paper that day, one was right side up, the other was upside down. The
headlines included items like: "The entire surface of the Malecon was installed
wrong side up. Now the whole thing will have to be lifted and reinstalled,"
"Downtown school to be turned into a parking lot," "Puerto Vallarta
to get floating convention center built by the Japanese," "Spielberg
to film movie on Hurricane Kenna in town", and the best of all (in my opinion)
was the article in The Times that stated that 500 rickshaws would provide transportation
in the downtown area, replacing the buses… One of my friends believed it
and told everyone around the pool at her condominium complex about it. Boy, did
she turn red when she found out it was all a hoax! Good fun. This
is the 300th issue of the Tribune. People love it when a number of zeroes line
up, don't they? Like the year 2000. Of course we all knew that January 1st of
that year would not mark the beginning of anything, but everyone celebrated anyway
so we might as well celebrate the 300th issue of our little weekly. For
my part, I went into the archives in search of Issue No. 100. That would have
been close to four years ago. In my column that week I had written: "It appears
that work on the underground cabling of power and telephone lines in the center
of town is scheduled to start in three weeks. That will probably result in another
few months of traffic jams... Meanwhile, a new plan was proposed to hook up all
traffic lights in town to a computerized system in order to ease the flow of traffic.
In a town where stop signs are put right on traffic light posts, and none exist
where they should, the process should be interesting to watch! For my part, I
never cease to be amazed by the number of people who watch me line up my car to
parallel park it into a spot, wait for me to put it into reverse, and then cross
BEHIND me! Why? What are they thinking?" (And it wasn't even the Día
de los Inocentes!) Has anything changed since then? No. If it's not the electrical
wires, then it's the telephone wires, and if it's not those, then it's the Malecon… I
wrote that we who work at the Tribune would like to offer Vallarta's English,
French and Dutch readers "something interesting, a quality publication worthy
of all that this unique resort has to offer." That still goes. Over the years,
we've gone from 16 to 36 pages, and we've increased our circulation many-fold,
but it never seems to suffice. I wrote: "We are limited by the weekly nature
of the Tribune. We'd love to tell you even more about all the events that take
place here for your entertainment, but we can't. I'd love to tell our readers
about the great expressos and cappuccinos they serve at the local movie theater
and review the movies that play there, but I can't. By the time we go to press,
the movie has gone. So we do the best we can with what we've got. If you enjoy
the P.V. Tribune, tell all the restaurant, gallery and shop owners that they should
advise us of their upcoming events well ahead of time so that we may advertise
them in the Tribune, if they're not already doing so! That way, we will really
be able to help you, our readers, and them as well." I am repeating this
not because I'm lazy and I don't want to write a new column, but because it still
applies. Also back then, there was some construction going
on a dead end street on the hill up above the Church. Every few days, a truck
would come up and dump a load of sand to be used in making the concrete. One day,
there was a car parked in the spot where the sand was usually dumped, so the driver
left his entire truckload right in the middle of the street. Late that night,
one of the residents came home to find that he couldn't pass the pile of sand
on either side. Frustrated, he began honking at it, loudly, perhaps hoping that
the pile of sand would move. Guess what? It didn't. Four
years ago, the Tribune was running a continuous "update" on what was
going on in the airport. They had installed monitors all over the place. At first
they would show videos of what visitors might want to see or do in the neighboring
state of Nayarit, then people pointed out that maybe they should be promoting
Vallarta's attractions, so they took the Nayarit videos off and replaced them
with one about Vallarta, but that one was so beautiful that airport employees
would forget to work and just stand there watching the video… So those were
taken off. Then they showed arrival times -only- and the week of the 100th issue,
it was only departures. No one knew whether their friends' flight would come in
on time or not... Today, they've removed all the monitors (for which they paid
a fortune) and replaced them with a few larger screens showing both arrivals and
departures. It's an improvement. They also removed the humungous digital clock
that was never turned on for the two years and some that it was installed above
the escalators. I just found out that Tom Hector, owner
of Ibiza, suffered a very serious accident earlier in December in a fall from
a ladder while putting up Christmas decorations. Thankfully, he's recovering rapidly,
and he hopes to be back at Ibiza soon. His wife is operating the restaurant in
the meantime. I want to take this opportunity to wish Tom a speedy recovery. What
great food Ibiza offers! If you haven't been there recently, you should try it! So
last week, the big deal on the international news was the claim made by that Québec-based
hedonistic cult, the Raelians, that their organization's scientific group had
successfully cloned a human. The announcement was made at a press conference in
Hollywood, Fla., by Brigitte Boisselier, chief executive of Clonaid - a company
founded by the Raelians in 1997. The cult believes that extraterrestrials created
humans. I remember when those folks would have their "love-ins" a half-hour's
drive north of Montreal in a beautiful spot in the Laurentian mountains. We all
thought that they were nuts back then, and I'm talking about 20 years ago, folks.
Now look what they're doing! Why don't they just continue to make love, not babies? There
is an ancient Turkish proverb that says: "A heart in love with beauty never
grows old." Think on that one, especially here in this amazing place that
is Vallarta, where there is beauty all around, all the time. Have fun this week,
folks. Take advantage of the madness. The food is great, the nightclubs pull out
all stops, and there are a zillion activities for you to enjoy. Just drive carefully.
You never know how many Tequilas the other guy had… I wish a most Happy and
Healthy New Year to all our readers and by the time my next column comes out,
both my fellow Canadians (Wayne, the editor of Vallarta Today, and Jamie, our
own computer guru) and myself will have turned one year older. Happy Birthday,
Wayne and Jamie! Here's hoping that we continue to age gracefully… Hasta
luego.pvmomto3@hotmail.com Archives
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