PUERTO VALLARTA PART ONE

A decision has been made. The downward slide of the Canadian dollar against the Barbados dollar helped us to make the decision. The Barbados dollar is tied to the US$ (at 2:1) and this has made Barbados just a bit out of reach at the moment. Therefore, the first stop is Puerto Vallarta.

Over the course of the last few years we have had several visits there. We now know what to expect (as we stayed in condos rather than hotels), and that made it helpful to get a sense of living there and also made it easy to slide us into the first year of our adventure. We already have friends living there (hi Patty, Troy, Dani), we know where to shop for our day to day supplies, where good beach bars are, how to get the money we need from banks, and where to find things do during the day. The pier is at the end of our street.

We have rented a small condo and were lucky to find one that we could afford that also has a pool. This was one of Cyndi's needs and naturally (as a good husband) I have to do everything I can keep her happy.... :-)

Our new place is in a condo complex called Loma del Mar on the corner of Francisca Rodriguez and Pino Suarez in old town Vallarta, located 2 blocks from the pier and the beach. The condo is on the third floor, is fully furnished, and has high ceilings to help with the heat, and if we still get too hot we can take a dip in the pool. Only the master bedroom is air conditioned - the landlord said they would upgrade the airconditioner unit before we get there and I hope they follow through with that. We can see the pool from our front window. Our suite is located just out of this picture (at the bottom left corner).

We rented the condo for a one year period so we could take advantage of the better rental rates that come with long term rentals. The rents seem to be going up every year in PV and we will need to monitor that if our adventure is going to keep us there. Only a couple of months left in Vancouver and still a lot to do before we can go....