Teatro Limòn Restaurante (Pto Vallarta)

Muscling its way onto the gourmet directory without rubbing shoulders is Teatro Limón, an upscale formal restaurant.

Operated by expatriates, Mr & Mrs Bruce Pelon, himself the head chef, the restaurant is on a solitary cobblestone road near the Vallarta Marina in a residential neighborhood. Teatro Limón is an extention of the proprietors' home--literally. And as it is outside of Downtown Centro, no other restaurants come near it--again, literally.

One must have a reservation. Walk-ins are not customary.

The first surprise of Limón concerns eating there. One must have a reservation. Walk-ins are not customary. Secondly, and more surprisingly, there is no menu! Guests are treated to whatever five-course delight the chef has designed. Each course is presented with professional service and timing. Foods are prepared fresh and with fresh ingredients, choice meats, and culinary prowess. In fact, several times during the dinner I saw Mr Pelon stepping out to pick herbs and peppers form his gardan. Talk about organic!

While not ridiculously priced---meals generally run forty to forty-five U.S. dollars---it may appear so when presented in Mexican currency and especially if one, like myself, has grown used to comparitively cheap national costs.

Cjon Del Limon 1
Palmar de Aramara esq Maria Montessori
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco
website
teatrolimon@gmail.com

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No postage stamps in Old Vallarta

On February nineteenth---for one, at least---all of Old Vallarta had run out of postage stamps. Unbelieveable! I checked back over the weekend and still they were out of stamps for national destinations. The post office, of all places, was plumb out of stamps and has no other means of selling postage---and were apparently not bothered by it.

It was only by a good stroke of luck I bought my one stamp two days prior and I only did that to save myself from having to wait a ridiculously long time for service when I returned.

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4 BIG MISTAKES OF THE AMATEUR TRAVELLER

The following travel article was written by Shanda Stefanson of DailyTakeoff.com. I found it very helpful and befitting to share on my web log. Enjoy!

Being Under Prepared
Imagine spending thousands of dollars on a flight to France, renting a car and driving to the seaside village where you have chosen to spend your winter get-away, only to get there and find that all the hotels, restaurants and sights are closed for the season. At least there will be no police around to arrest you for sleeping in your car! This is, of course, an extreme example, but being under prepared can kill a trip.

Do some research, have at least a vague idea of where and when you want to go, or you may spend your whole trip wondering what to do next. In high season, booking accommodation in advance is a must or you will find yourself spending the night in the train station with your luggage. While there is something to be said for the spontaneous road trip or the where-the-wind-takes-us last minute adventure, if you've spent months looking forward to something and a month's wages getting there, it's a good idea to spend some time planning it.

Treating Schedule as Master
While it's crucial to have a plan for any trip, it is also very important to be flexible and willing to stray from the plan. Trains get missed, connecting flights leave without you, interesting travellers introduce themselves in hostels, and poof, your schedule is no longer valid. No plan should be so rigid that you can't allow for the crazy twists that make travel fun. If your schedule is that rigid, you will waste all your energy stressing over putting it into action and forget to look up at the pyramids or Big Ben. Also, don't try to pack too much into your days. Leave time for espresso breaks, a glass of wine or haggling with shop owners over that gorgeous hand-made bracelet. If you try to do too much you will burn out, and the whole trip will seem a blur when you get home.

Picking the Wrong Travel Buddy
Not all good friends make good travel partners. The best trip in the world can be ruined if the person you are with drives you crazy. While you may be the most compatible people in the real world, travel brings out different things in different people and can be a recipe for stress and fighting. Have you ever watched the happy couples on The Amazing Race slowly grow to hate each other?

Before you agree to travel with someone, make sure you have the same trip in mind. If you want to spend your month in Europe in museums and art galleries and your friend wants to hike the Alps and see soccer matches, maybe you should consider someone else. If you're dead set on doing it together, make sure you schedule time for things that will fit both of your interests or agree to go your separate ways sometimes.

If you find yourself in a situation where even your best intentions and planning have gone wrong and you feel you can't stand another minute with the person, don't. Your friendship and your trip will thank you. Finish the rest of the trip alone and you'll have a great time telling your stories when you meet again for your flight home.

Being Too Trusting
I'm from small-town Saskatchewan. I trust everyone. Or, I used to. Travel has taken that tendency out of me. While it's not necessary to assume that every person who talks to you intends to murder you, it is a good idea to keep a cautious eye on everyone, especially in really touristy areas. If you're lucky, the worst that will happen is that you'll have to pay $300 for two cups of tea (happened to a friend of mine) or end up with a fake Gucci that you paid nearly the price of a real one for.

Worst case scenario is much scarier. Tourists disappear all the time. Never get so drunk that you need someone to take care of you. If you get lost, find a taxi, especially at night. The cost of a taxi ride is nothing compared to the cost of being robbed, or worse, if you should stumble into the wrong area of an unfamiliar city. Keep your head on straight and trust your gut. If something doesn't feel right, get out of the situation.

Heed this advice
With a little common sense and planning, any trip can be a great one. Don't hang on to the romantic idea that travel is easy. Every day is a challenge when you're in a strange place, especially if you don't speak the language. But with a little moxie and a sense of adventure, you can take those challenges and turn them into positive experiences, and have some great stories to tell when you get home.

Related Articles: How To Pack Light for a Better Trip

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Real de Don Juan Hotel (Tepic)

Some friends and I spent a night at the Real de Don Juan Hotel on a weekend visit to Tepic, three hours north of Pto. Vallarta. En route we stopped to help a vehicle that had overturned in a ditch; the elderly driver was still alive, sparring himself the indignity of an Alarma obituary. From bottom to top the Real de Don Juan is top notch.


Reception, befittingly, is the first department guests encounter---the lobby sits off to the right with fat, masculine sofas way too comfortable and a dominant portrait of some apparently important man which your author found creepy in its ugly amatuerism---that and a terribly large bouquet table one has to step around to see the front desk. Two towering angles that look alot like the ones in Hilo Bar welcome entrants. In fact, life-and giant-sized statues abound in the hotel.

The kindly Reception was matched by bell-hops, waiters, and maintenance. The hotel's customer service was as polished as the wood fixtures, as fresh as the flower arrangements, as plush as the furnitures---in a word: exquisite.

From bottom to top the Real de Don Juan is top notch!

I, for one, turned in early---3am---and slept like a prince in the soft, kingly bed. Shams, pillows, duvets, white linen were de riguer. The bedding was so expertly made that half of it remained untucked the following morning!

Atop, is a fashionable sky bar with a cold pool, hot jaguzzi, and poolside bedding for lounging. At night it transforms into a little club complete with DJ and swank lighting. Also on the roof is a gym with state-of-the-art equipment that surpasses what I've seen in other hotels. Real de Don Juan is a splendid luxury hotel. Do visit their website.



Av. Mexico 105 Sur
Tepic, Nayarit
website
realdedonjuan1@hotmail.com

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Rotten Fresas jam (Puerto Vallarta)

Last night a car accident happened outside of my apartment. It made a frightful gash in the wee hour tranquility and I feared the worst for those involved---until they turned out to be spoiled Mexican assholes aka "fresas".

The fresas, driving drunk and too important to bother with any oncoming traffic, smashed pass the front side of a taxi cab---whose charge was promptly transferred to another taxi and, doubtless, shaken up---bringing the fancy black 4x4 to rest beneath my window. From there the fiesta ensued: laughing, singing loudly, and more drinking. They were terribly loud at three in the morning yet I was the only one to ask them to quiet down---provoking just the opposite.

Mexico is not America anymore than is Guatemala

Those fat, drunken natives and their equally chunky, subservient girlfriends made even more noise, hurling dormant racist attitudes like "Go back to Africa"---Mexicans think all black people come from Africa or Jamaica---"f--- nigger" and, of course, "This is Mexico!" Indeed. Which is why no one outside of Mexico ever mistakes or associates the country with America or Canada.
The police arrived but did not arrest them as that would have constituted work and pigs only like to pick on people who they think are too poor to defend themselves.

Mexico is not America anymore than is Guatemala. It is still Third World (like Guatemala) and will remain so with its charmingly characteristic machismo, ignorance, servility, traditions intact.

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Get up & Go Global (GGG)

Get up & Go Global is a one-man job placement agency out of Canada that purports job placements in beach resorts around the world. By employment he means the possibility of a work contract by which one actually gets paid for his labor. By "around the world" he means Mexico. And as far as I can tell there is only one real contact: Club Maeva. (click to read about my horror job story)

For GGG, suckering young, wide-eyed foreigners down to Mexico is the most important goal---because once the youth has flown down---on his own dime---GGG has collected his commission and the young hopeful is on his own...in Mexico--where everything is done in the least simplest way possible.

Operated by Canadian Lee from his home in Toronto, the agency is pisspoor at answering emails or striving to ensure an honest, fun working abroad experience. Crucial information concerning exact payment, pay schedule, working and living conditions, and employee reviews are conveniently not shared or sweetly obfuscated. One learns of the truth quickly, though, upon arrival when, as I've said, he is on his own.

website

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Club Maeva, Manzanillo

This all-inclusive beach resort is a very popular vacation destination in Mexico. One is located in Manzanillo and the other, Tampico. Club Maeva is a great place to vacation (if R&R is part of the goal otherwise the constant "animation" can be a bitch) but a far less than great place to work (if you're non-Mexican).

I had the experience of working at Club Maeva, Manzanillo, last November, and would forthrightly caution any foreigner considering emploment as a Maevamigo: supervisors are harsh, working environment is not fun, Mexican guests are pigs, stressful long hours.

The team leaders---wannabe "chiefs"---in step with the boss who is sychophantically referred to as Chief are high-strung, overbearing, loud, egoists whose reactions are often out of proportion and sometimes bluntly irrational. (With this as the accepted model of leadership is it any wonder Latin American countries keep electing strongmen to power?)

being a Maevamigo is a bragging right for Mexicans for whom four thousand pesos and degradation and a sense of belonging beats working in a warehouse

Working conditions are stressful and non-stop---and degrading: Most of the guests are Mexican and seemed to equate all-inclusive with servitude. They were always demanding I pose for their stupid ass photos and thought nothing of interrupting my or any other Maevamigo's work and rehearsels for it. Even in mid-swing during a game of ping-pong they were piggish enough to poke me on the shoulder for a picture. This happened more than once! During meal breaks, which the "chiefs" begrudgingly allow, Maevamigos must interact with the guests which often meant subjecting myself to more stupid ass snapshots, intrusive questions, crude and inappropriate jokes whilst the plate of food grew cold right under my nose.

The hours are looooooooong, running from possibly 7 or 9am to 11pm or 1am with nary a respite in between (revert to above paragraph) six days a week. Sports activities piggy back one after another; then there are dance and theatre rehearsals in preparation for the nightly shows and further entertaining ("animation") at the Tropical Hut after the show. On top of all this, the pay ranges from maybe to little: maybe you will get paid if the Chief likes you and extends a work contract after the first month OTHERWISE the company tries to screw you out of pay, arguing the illegality of paying for labor rendered sans an inked contract. Barring that corruption, the $4000 pesos is little for all the work and hours logged AND, worse still, was less than the advertised $5000 salary.

Oh, and the other departments---0% foreigner---especially dining services, are envious and resentful of the Maevamigos. Why? Principally because we had the task of humoring and entertaining their crude, fat, ignorant countrymen with song, dance, and posing for stupid ass pictures from morning to midnight. (Guests are audacious enough to ask you to work on your day off. Talk about no class!)

Sadly, but tellingly, being a Maevamigo is a step up, nay, a bragging right for Mexicans for whom four thousand pesos and degradation and a sense of belonging beats working in a warehouse or taco stand. For some peoples, any attention is good attention.

Personally, I cannot abide nor find anything endearing in ignorance, racism ("chocolate bar", "little nigger"), lack of privacy, whimsical job security, in-house animosity, or dressing in drag. And so I left. A boy gots to draw the line somewhere. By all means go as a guest but flee from any job agency's lure of working as a Maevamigo.

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