Winter Break
 

My trip last week to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico included a meet-up with George Otis and a C&V bike ride:

The Bike is Better than the Rider: Winter Break

Great write up - reads like a fun adventure.

Sounds like a great time! Thanks for the trip/ride report. Must've be nice to get away from the snow and enjoy some sunny beaches. How did you find the road conditions?

The roads on our ride were fine except for almost complete lack of a shoulder. You've got the lane, then the white line right on the edge of the pavement. It was a soft shoulder or ditch to the right of the white line. Fortunately there wasn't a ton of traffic, so we were often able to take the lane.

One thing that struck me about the drivers there was that they seemed completely laid back. In Chicago, the guy second in line when the light goes green will often honk at the guy in front of him if he doesn't immediately step on the gas. In Puerto Vallarta, despite the heavy traffic and fairly rough road conditions (almost completely cobbled in the old part of town), everybody just sort of went along. I think I heard a horn once the entire week.

Nice story...makes me want to go!

I loved PV when I was there. It does have a nice laid back feel to it, tons of Mexico autentico to go poke your nose around in. At least it did twenty years ago when I was there. Bus ride to Mismaloya for a buck. Stayed most nights on my uncle's sailboat in the marina and then checked into a "locals" hotel near downtown beaches for the modest rates and actual showers for the last two nights.

One of my favorite memories was when my wife was attending mass at that huge old church in mid-town Sunday morning, I went walking around in the steep residential foothills for the ocean views, with most of the open windows in the modest but tidy homes revealing TV sets tuned in to a NY Giants vs Oakland Raiders contest going on at the time.