It’s Saturday morning, February 17. We got home last night after an easy travel day. We really enjoyed this trip and as of Thursday night were wishing it was longer. By the time we got to bed last night, we were super happy to be home. Like always.

If you read the last entry, you may recall that Ash was in Mexico City in the early part of the week. In my wanderings on Tuesday, I’d come across this shop that had runners and tablecloths, which we’d talked about getting while we are here. I sent Ash this photo saying “we can come back here when you return.” His response: we’ll be very busy, get them now. So I did: 2 each.

Super Salud has been in TripAdvisor’s top 10 places to eat since I first came here in 2018, promoting healthy food at a reasonable price. Mostly due to bad planning, I’d never made it here before, always trying to go when it was closed. We walked by what was it’s old location earlier in the week, looking empty, but Jon said it wasn’t closed, it had just moved. In my wanderings on Tuesday, I found it and came back for lunch after my massage.

And it was true: a lot of delicious, healthy food for cheap. I wanted to try the namesake – Super Salud – but also got a bowl of chicken, lots of fresh, hot veggies, and quinoa. All really good.

I made my way down to the Malecon and sat and vegged with the waves for a little bit Tuesday afternoon. This was the weather we had all week. Never above 75 and actually rained some here and there.

For dinner I went to what might be my favorite place to eat so far: Sonorita. Had only been here one other time in 2022 but remembered it fondly, and with good reason. It was about 6:45pm and I was afraid I would not be able to get in, yet they sat me right away, but at the bar which was fine.

In addition to the normal array of sauces, you also get fresh chopped onions and cilantro.

The waitress tried to warn me that I was ordering a lot of food and she was right. Oh well, I had my mouth set on certain flavors. Above – pastor as intended, with pineapple.

On the left, a volcanes – very crispy smallish tortilla with meat and cheese, in this case chorizo, which I love here because it’s not greasy like it is at home. And a hueras – flour tortilla with meat and cheese; in this case prime rib with the bone even. Yikes. She was right. It was a lot of food – I had no idea that huera would be that big. But I ate every bit of it. The flavors were amazing. I’ll be back.

As I left there wasn’t a seat open in the place, not even at the bar, and there was a line to the end of the block. Good timing.

The next day I decided to walk the island in the river Cuale, but realized after texting with a friend that I’d never walked the very beginning of it, which starts at the Malecon.

And discovered this bust of Elizabeth Taylor. Jon, Ash and I had been discussing earlier in the week why PV was so popular with the gays. Legend says it all started with Liz, when she came down here with Richard Burton while he was filming Night of the Iguana. News of their affair here was international – they even bought houses across the street from each other and installed a bridge, which I’ve written about in prior blogs. So, the story goes that her entourage of gays came with her and it built from there.

Well, here’s a little bit of proof of that. The translation here is: British-American film, theater and television actress who promoted tourism development in Puerto Vallarta.

After all that meat the night before I decided I needed something lighter. I searched Yelp for the best salads and was directed to Barra Light, over in the Ampas area. 

A cozy little place with indoor and outdoor seating but it was a little muggy so I sat inside.

I got their tuna chef’s salad and it might have been the best salad I’ve had in my life. The tuna was fresh and amazing, and the combination of veggies including beets, artichoke hearts, spinach and avocados was a great blend of flavor and texture. Just what I needed.

I asked Jon where I could get flowers and he directed me here, so I picked some up to surprise Ash for Valentine’s Day.

A water pitcher was the best I could do for a vase but he was surprised and enjoyed them when he got in from Mexico City about 1:30pm on Wednesday.

He hadn’t really eaten so we went across the street to Freddy’s Tucan for a snack of nachos.

About 4:30 we made our way over to the marina to attend Rhythms of the Night – a “dinner and a show” thing that’s hugely popular. I had done it in 2020 and thought it would be a fun thing for us to do on Valetine’s Day. It starts with about a 45 minute boat ride across Banderas Bay.

Once you get off the boat, there are all kinds of folks in costume to greet you as you make your way to dinner: see the woman with the spear above by the waterfall; mermaid on the rocks below.

We were at the dining area the farthest away which was OK by us, because it had the best view from what I could tell.

We encountered this flute-playing butterfly on our way to the show.

It’s an outdoor theater. The show is essentially their version of Cirque de Soliel – lots of acrobatic type things. Pretty entertaining.

I always enjoy the fire stuff the most, with a fun little video below.

It was a late night for us, getting home around midnight. Thursday morning, we went to a meeting then met up with our friend Steven, who’s also here visiting from San Diego. We went to Johnny’s Diner for breakfast, a place I’d passed a million times over the years, just a couple of blocks up Basillio Badilla from where our condo was. That’s Steven and Ash there seated at the end. It was pretty good, and we would go back.

Steven asked if I had any massage recommendations, and I’d just discovered the day before that Blue Massage has another location oh about 20 feet away from where we are sitting in that photo. So afterwards we made appointments for 2pm and Ash played bridge that afternoon, which he’d learned about by running into one of his SF bridge buddies earlier in the week. It felt like we were running into people we knew all week long.

I wasn’t even planning on getting a massage that day, but it turned out to be the best one of the week (out of 6!).

For dinner, we met Jon and Christopher again, along with Christopher’s sister, Melissa, and her husband, Richard. I’d done things with that group before in 2019 and 2020 – Melissa and Richard are often here for a month around February and had just arrived on Tuesday. We had a great time visiting at Archie’s Wok, another place I’d walked past a bunch but never checked out. It was actually very good. We’d tried to go on Saturday evening for Chinese New Year but it was packed and learned they didn’t take reservations. So we met at 5:30pm, were seated easily, and amazed at the gaggle of folks waiting to get in when we left 2 hours later. We had a great time as all the smiles in the photo might indicate.

Friday we met up with Steven again at Freddy’s again – so easy and pretty good, and also hard to get a table but we did.

Steven had a yogurt parfait, Ash had a spicy chicken dish, I had tropical oatmeal with bananas, pineapple, and coconut.

We said goodbye to Steven and had just enough time to pack up and head to the airport for our 2:10pm flight.

And finally: I enjoyed the many ways Starbuck’s baristas heard my name: Stif on the left, Skit on the right. Clearly, I need to enunciate more effectively.

That’s it for this trip. I’m glad I recorded it for the restaurant names if nothing else. That always comes in handy later.

What’s next for us? In May/June we will be doing another National Geographic tour, this time Machu Picchu and the Galapagos. That will be a new continent for me. Then shortly after in June/July we will do a week in NYC to see shows and attend the Gay & Sober Men’s Conference, then a week in DC after that. Jon Scott will join us for most of that trip and we are super happy about that.

Until next time…