Monday, March 29, 2010

Panga To Yelapa



Last week, Sergio arranged to hire a panga (little Mexican boat) to take six of us to the small village of Yelapa. I had wanted to visit Yelapa for a few years now but have never gotten around to going. The main reason is that you can only get there by sea as there are no roads in, and I didn't want to be at the mercy of the water taxis. You take the taxis from the Los Muertos pier in Puerto Vallarta or from the beach in Boca de Tomatlan, a little further south. Yelapa only got electricity two years ago so is still very rustic. It's a very popular day trip, even though the boat ride is about 45 minutes each way.

Robin's two friends Denise and Marlene (sisters who live in California) were here for a week and this is one of the trips Robin wanted to take them on. We jumped at the chance to join them because of the convenience of having a private panga and guide. The ride was lots of fun, especially when we saw a school of fish right at the surface of the water. The gulls soaring above them alerted us and Mario, our guide through out a line and almost immediately caught a six pound fish! When we got to the beach in Yelapa, he took it to one of the restaurants so they could cook it for us.

Yelapa has two waterfalls, both popular swimming spots. One is a short ten minute walk through town but as Robin and Sergio had been there just recently, they wanted to hike to the larger one, which was about a two hour walk!!! It was fine for the first while especially walking through the village. There are no cars or motorized vehicles in Yelapa so you have to walk everywhere, no choice. Along the road we passed lots of livestock, beautiful coloured roosters, women walking with baskets of produce on their heads and even a man in the river who was in the process of skinning a large poisonous snake he had just killed! But as we got closer, the path became very rough and very steep. You can imagine what Gail was like, this being the girl who wouldn't look at the Grand Canyon from the parking lot! It was really too bad as about five minutes before we got to the falls, she couldn't go any further. We were hot and tired by then, so the others all continued on and had a short swim, while Gail and I turned back. I was able to walk to the edge of the cliff and get a few shots of the falls however.

When we returned, the waiters on the beach asked how we wanted the fish prepared and before too long we had excellent fish tacos, as fresh as possible, while sitting on the very pretty beach with a cool drink in hand.

On the way back, we saw many more schools of fish but had no luck catching any more. We did see a pod of dophins though, so that was pretty cool.

Once we got home we all went to El Brujo for dinner and had a very scary ending to a busy day. The table next to us had a party of about eight elderly people, who were having a grand old time. They ordered some sort of a flambe desert and as the waiter ignited it, it caught a bottle of booze on fire, sent the tablecloth into flames and it jumped onto the blouse of the lady at the end of the table. PANDEMONIUM!!!! Luckily, the only thing burning was the alcohol and she wasn't hurt at all. Her blouse didn't even look scorched, but it was a very shocking thing to see. I think I will be more aware when I order anything that is flambeed from now on!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Can you tell me how you rented the panga or who you rented from? What was the cost please?

thank you,
Sandra