On our first day here, we met Barbara at the beach. She’s from Comox, and filled us in on what she’d learned since arriving a couple of weeks before. We saw her a couple of times after that, and then one day at Los Muertos, we noticed paramedics attending to her after she hobbled out of the ocean. She’d been stung by a stingray, and was in terrible pain. I went with her in the ambulance to keep her company, and ever since then, we’ve counted her as a new friend.
She doesn’t like to drive, but she knew we did, and we were all ready to get out of town for the day, so she rented a minivan and we set off on an adventure together. She’d heard of San Sebastian del Oeste, a colonial town up in the mountains, founded in 1605 when the mines were discovered there. The enchanting little town is nestled in the mountains about a two-hour drive from Sayulita and is on the tentative list as a potential UNESCO World Heritage Site. And so it should be.
We stopped at a tequila factory on the way, where Hawk admired the various machines. Then on to San Sebastian, where Jack had the best tacos (pulled pork!) since arriving in Mexico, at a little cafe down one of the cobblestone streets. Hawk managed to find a hardware store, where he bought himself two new tools. He also found a cop with a really big gun, which he thought was pretty awesome. The cop was surprised to hear that Canadian police only have a pistol for standard issue is a pistol. He laughed.
We watched a gentleman hand-rolling cigars, which captivated us all. His face was so expressive, and his big sausage fingers deftly rolled and twisted the tobacco leaves into shape. Esmé took the portrait of him, and captured him beautifully.
Our landlord asked us to pick him up some of San Sebastian’s famous cinnamon chocolate coffee, so on our way out of town we stopped at the coffee roaster,which just happens to be beside the 24 hour funeral parlor. While I admired the glossy caskets and the proprietor’s toddler playing between them, Jack and the kids went to see the coffee roasting. Hawk stood close, wide-eyed, watching the gears and the flames and the hot beans rolling around the big bin. Esmé found a parrot in the courtyard that kept squawking, “agua, aqua.” A little something for everyone!
The kids fell asleep on the way down the mountain, their heads lolling from side to side in their car seats. They were both awake by the time we got to Puerto Vallarta though, where we were pulled over by the transit police for a wrong turn on a short, unmarked one-way lane. The officer threatened to keep Jack’s license for 24 hours and issue a $500 fine, but eventually he got what he wanted, which was about $50 cash, passed discreetly to him in a blank traffic ticket. We were just glad to get going again, with Jack’s license safely back where it belonged.
Once back in Sayulita, we crossed the bridge and took a left along the dirt road that runs beside the river, which is pretty dry right now. There’s a guy there with an open-air bbq set up under a palapa that we wanted to try. He sold us a chicken dinner, which we took home after we dropped Barbara off at her house, which happens to be just around the corner from us. We ate our supper on the patio as the sun set, exhausted and happy after our eventful day, which is likely what made that chicken dinner taste especially good.
