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October 14, 2002.
Mathematics
have never been my forte and I have no shame in admitting it - despite the fact
that the father of my children is an accountant. My personal experience with numbers
is limited to the bookkeeping I did for the various enterprises I administered
before moving down to Vallarta. I am saying all this because I confess to being
totally confused by the two sets of statistics that were published recently -five
days apart- with regard to tourism traffic in this port over the last year. This
is what I read: | Sept
14, 2002 | Sept.
19, 2002 | | | | | Foreign
Tourist | | 47.14% | |
Mexican Tourist | 1.54% | 52.85% | | From
the U.S. | 70.00% | 59.00% | | From
Canada | 22.92% | 24.00% | | From
Europe | 3.99% | 15.30% | | From
other places | 1.65% | 1.48% |
What
do you make of it? Another set of statistics was published
a few weeks ago under the heading "Tourism Trust Not Putting Internet Portals
to Good Use". It goes on to tell how the Trust allotted One Million Pesos
to the project that would operate two different web sites. The first received
93,000 hits in January 2001, the number rose to 169,000 by August of that year
and by August 2002, they were down to 40,259 hits. The second site went on line
in October 2001 and by July of this year, it registered a whopping 3,119 hits. Again,
I'm no accountant, but no one gave us One Million Pesos, and yet our site, pvmirror.com,
is registering over 300,000 hits per month and we haven't even been on line for
as long as the Tourism Trust site has. I know we owe it all to my partner, Jesus
de Avila, and the hard work he and his team have put into it. I guess the reporter
who wrote the article said it right: "This shows a lack of attention that
is not permissible for a destination like Puerto Vallarta." I
try to keep as far away as possible from matters politick so don't expect any
informed opinions from me with regard to either national matters (which foreigners
in Mexico are not supposed to comment on) or international matters (which I have
never understood.) Nevertheless, one question has been nagging at me for the past
little while that we've been hearing about President's Bush warnings about Iraq.
If any actions were to be taken in order to "change the regime" in that
country, how would the forces attempting to achieve such a "change"
know whether they've got Saddam Hussein or not? After all, it has been a well-known
and documented fact for a while now that the Iraqi leader has a stand-in or double
who appears in his lieu at various functions. But now a forensic pathologist examined
450 photographs and video clips of the leader (and his doubles) and concluded
that there are three very distinct, different "doubles". He based his
findings on minor differences in their features and their mannerisms. Here's the
kicker: the same study turned up only ONE public appearance by the real Iraqi
president over the last FOUR years! So I guess that if and when the forces go
in to fulfill their mission, they will first have to call out: "Will the
REAL Saddam Hussein please stand up?" I have another
confession to make: I am still following the same driving rules I was taught so
many decades ago in order to pass my driving test - at the age of 16. I suppose
I always will. In any case, I still stop at stop signs. Silly of me, isn't it?
I stopped at the four-way signs at the corner of Basilio Badillo and Ignacio Vallarta,
the ones that say "Uno por uno" (one at a time). I looked to my right,
there was nothing coming, so I started my turn when all of a sudden, out of nowhere
that I could see, came this "blue" bus Number U-83 (no license plates)
FLYING past me. The driver smiled down at me, very smugly. His maneuver had scared
me half to death, so I froze. He had never even slowed down at the stop signs
so if there had been anyone behind me, there would have been an accident. Scary
stuff. I finally caught my breath and my heartbeat slowed down some, but my strongest
feeling at that very moment was my frustration at not knowing how to curse in
Spanish. I think I would have felt better if I did know how, but fortunately or
not, that is one aspect of this beautiful language that I never learned…
and I still haven't mastered the past conditional. By the way, I have a question
for our readers: does anyone know what we're supposed to do when faced with a
traffic light whose green light is on and yellow light is flashing? They never
taught me that one. So what's the deal with Tiger Woods?
Why is he choosing to play in a tournament I've never heard of instead of coming
down to our beautiful little paradise? And why isn't the defending champion team
from South Africa not coming either? Does anyone understand how the selections
are made with regard to the teams that will represent the two dozen nations participating
in the EMC2 World Cup to be played here in December? I don't. That
highly-respected European magazine, The Economist, published the results of its
survey on the best cities in the world for expatriates to live. Vancouver, Canada,
and Melbourne, Australia, rank tops. Toronto and Montreal are also among the top
10. The report's authors also pointed out that "there is very little hardship"
for foreign business people living in Canada. The survey was conducted by the
London-based EIU, the business information arm of the Economist Group, as part
of its Worldwide Cost of Living service assessing the level of hardship for expatriates
in 130 cities around the world. Personally, I still wouldn't
live anywhere else than right here, in this little blessed corner that is Puerto
Vallarta. Though it has its quirks like any other place on earth and though it
may not really be "paradise on earth", I'll take it any day over the
snow and the ice and the cold and the constant talk of separation in Canada. I
hope that all our visitors enjoy their stay here as much as I love living here.
Have a great time and take good care of each other. And a most Happy Thanksgiving
to my fellow Canadians! Hasta Luego! pvmomto3@hotmail.com Archives
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