| | |  Travel & Outdoors | February 2009 
Travels in Mexico Part 2
 Michael Rule - YourHub
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You arrive in Yelapa by water taxi, which means you pay the guy at the pier $25.00 a head roundtrip and then you get on a panga, which is basically an over-sized rowboat, with as many other touristos as they can cram on board, which in our case was about 40, and away you go.
Forty five minutes later and they drop you off in what the website somewhat over enthusiastically describes as an undiscovered gem of a place. In hindsight I should have guessed that anyplace with its own website and that close to one of the major resort towns of Mexico is a long ways from being undiscovered. Still, it is a pretty spot, with jungle tumbling down steep hills and narrow walkways and no cars and the ocean beating on the rocks and a playa with umbrellas and vendors selling cervesas and ceviche, and when we arrived at Isabela Jordan's, which was to be our home for the next 3 nights, we were pretty excited.
Isabela herself had recently passed away following an unfortunate accident, and the place was now being run by a woman with a British accent named Anna. My correspondence to date with Anna had consisted of an e-mail confirming one night in the Passion Palace, so named because it was said to sit under a canopy of passion flowers and two nights in Pepe's, described as a private and romantic little bungalow, along with a request for down payment of $112.50. This was followed by two more inquiries asking if we had sent our down payment.
The Passion Palace consisted of a bed hung from a metal framework of sorts set on a slab of concrete maybe 10' square over which was hung a tarp. The slightest movement sent the bed swaying to and fro. Between the tarp and the bed was draped a cloth printed with flowers. This was our canopy of passion flowers. We received a plastic bucket and a laminated sheet telling us, among other things, that this was our "pee pot" and in the morning we were to dilute the contents and spread it about the gardens.
The pillows smelled bad and were covered in mildew. The sheets and blanket and the two towels we received for our 3 night stay were old and worn. The shower was up the hill next to the compost toilet. Privacy consisted of a sheet hung in front of the bed. Welcome to the Passion Palace, gringo. We'll take the rest of what you owe us first and watch out for the scorpions.
The next day we moved over to Pepe's, definitely a step in the right direction following our night of Passion. Completely open air; any thoughts of privacy were dispelled when some tourists wandered through the middle of it as we attempted to light the burner to get some hot water for the shower located out back. Hey, at least we had our own toilet, although I have my doubts about just where it drained to. The vines growing below it sure were lush, though. And at least we could leave the pot to pee in at the Passion Palace, after diluting the contents and spreading it about the gardens that is.
Yelapa itself is a small village, maybe quaint and undiscovered in its previous life, but now built completely around tourism. In all fairness we did have some very good meals there and met some interesting people. The local folk were mostly friendly, especially when they were engaged in some activity with you of a monetary nature. Other than that they mostly ignored us. At this time of year the population is at least 50/50 locals to touristos. And, come to think of it, half the locals were North American, many of the aging hippy type. Susan thought I looked like a local. Imagine that.
When it came time to leave I walked up to the reception area and asked Anna for help calling the water taxi. She was very busy, she explained, and asked me to come back in a few minutes when her help had arrived. I don't believe she was busy ordering new linens for the beds, which may have been advised, so I am assuming she was tracking down payments in advance. No problem, Anna, and thanks for everything, and adios.
It occurred to me as we were pulling away from the beach that our stay may have been entirely different had we stayed in one of the other accommodations available. Or if we had a hostess who actually cared about her clients past their wallets. We did meet a number of people that returned to Yelapa year after year. They love it and you may, too. Susan and I however, were more than ready to move on. My conclusion is that staying at Isabela's, and may she rest in peace, is little more than glorified camping, which is just fine if the rates are in line with glorified camping. At $65.00 a night ($30.00 for the Passion Palace) however, it was way over priced and way over rated, which, come to think of it, is pretty much what I feel about Yelapa in general.
Most Americans who travel to Mexico seldom venture far off the beaten path. That is understandable, as we are fed a steady diet of horror stories by the media, and we feel invaded by the illegals coming north to look for work, and if by chance we do gather up the nerve to go to that all inclusive our first glimpse of Mexico itself is the backside of a resort town from the back seat of a taxi or van, and that picture can look straight from hell itself, with dust and traffic and what seems to be complete and total chaos.
Which, of course, is exactly what it is.
Just renting a car can be a bit unnerving. The price magically rises to about twice what your quote was on-line, what with mandatory insurance (and which option would you like, the expensive one where you are liable for everything short of the national debt or the REALLY expensive one where you are still liable for most everything anyway?), taxes, etc., etc., and then you finally see the car itself (which won't start, and I'm not kidding) and it has a broken mirror (who needs mirrors in this country anyway, right?) and no radio, and THEN you take the thing out on the road, and it creaks and it rattles and is about the size of a pepsi can, and THEN you have to turn left.
If you are on Hwy 200, which is the main road in Puerto Vallarta, to turn left you first have to turn right, get on the frontage road, wait for the green arrow, hold your breath, cross in front of about 6 lanes of traffic, including the people going your way but straight, and hope like heck nobody hits you because if they do you're pretty sure those 10 pages of small print you just signed will ensure you never get out of this country again.
Somehow you get through it and eventually you get out of town and things settle down. You stuff some paper into the side of the mirror to more or less hold it in place. You pass some pretty mean looking policemen with really mean looking guns, and if you have ever traveled in Mexico before you KNOW the policia here are not your friends so you try to drive the speed limit.
Big mistake. Nobody, I mean NOBODY, drives the speed limit, and if you try to what's going to happen is they will pass you. They will pass you after they come up on you at a really frightening speed, and they will pass you RIGHT NOW, whether there is traffic coming or there is a blind curve ahead or a hill or whatever.
Mexicans drive fast. Really, really fast. Unless, of course they are driving one of the old dump trucks that are everywhere, or one of the old beater cars that are everywhere, in which case they drive really, really slow because they have no choice. In which case, if you wait until it is safe to pass them, everyone behind you will pass you AND them at the same time, whether there is traffic coming, or there is a blind curve, or just whatever.
So what do you do? Well, first ignore all those white crosses with the plastic flowers adorning them on the sides of the road, pray to your God it is not YOUR time to get your own white cross with plastic flowers adorning it on the side of a Mexican road, and when you get to wherever you thought it would be fun to get to, have a couple of margaritas. Your hands will stop shaking eventually, trust me.
After a couple more margaritas you'll actually be a long ways towards convincing yourself it really wasn't that bad. And that guy who just about got you killed when he passed you with that bus coming straight at you and that dump truck crawling up your arse behind you and with the guy on the burro on the side of the road leaving you ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT AN ESCAPE ROUTE?? He's your waiter.
Uno mas, senor?
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