PEACE Real Home Tours
 Harold Sokolove - PVNN
December 21, 2009
| | The next Real Home tour is set for Tuesday, December 22nd. For more information, send an email to tours(at)peacemexico.org. | |
The first ever Real World Home Tour, subtitled Be More Than A Tourist, took place last week. The 4-hour tour of homes in the resort area of Bahía de Banderas was sponsored by PEACE (Protection, Education, Animals, Culture and Environment,) a local non-profit organization established in 2005 focusing on programs of education, entrepreneurship, animal well-being and community engagement.
All of the proceeds from tour ticket sales go to support PEACE's programs, according to the brochure handed out by tour guide Yavette Holts O'shea, a PEACE volunteer, to the 17 tour-takers this day. Tickets for the tour cost $35 US or 455 pesos and included transportation, tour map, snacks and a souvenir water bottle.
The brochure states the tour is intended to "showcase authentic pueblo homes in beautiful coastal villages together with multimillion dollar estates where the smallest details taker your breath away." Four homes are on the tour.
This was a home tour like no other the bus passengers had ever taken, they all agreed. The make-up of the group this day was about 2-to-1 locals-to-tourists.
From the plaza in Bucerias, the bus made its way to the first stop: 2 six-and-a-half million dollar lavishly luxurious homes in a new coastal gated community.
The next two stops for the tour bus gave everyone a chance to walk through 2 plain and simple homes in Punta de Mita and Higuera Blanca, small villages nearby.
The 2nd stop, which was also the scheduled "snack stop," took place at the 13-year homebuilding effort of the family which owned the restaurant next door, which supplied the food for the "tour break."
Molly Fisher, the Director of PEACE, stopped by to visit briefly with the group to field questions about PEACE and to solicit opinions of the tour thus far.
It was "no mistake" she said, that the first stop on the tour was the kind of home you would normally expect to find in an exclusive gated community located in a popular coastal resort area.
The tour, she stressed, was to highlight "the reality of the area." By that, she said she meant, "The wealthy help support the work of PEACE in the nearby communities and provide the jobs for many of the people who live in the houses that the tour is to see later."
The next Real Home tour, which Holt O'shea said might be different homes, is set for Tuesday, December 22nd. For more information, send an email to tours(at)peacemexico.org.
 A Banderas Bay non-profit organization, PEACE acts as an umbrella organization for four charitable programs, Casa Comunidad, Ayuda Los Animales (Help The Animals), a Women's Co-Op (Manos de Mujeres Unidas) and Community Pride. It is a U.S. non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, which accepts tax-deductible donations and a Mexican Civil Association that issues facturas for donations. For more information, please visit PeaceMexico.org or click HERE to read more about PEACE |
Vallarta Weddings
Vallarta Living | December 2009 
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us