Strolling the old town
If you only know 1 person in town, that’s who you should have dinner with. Tonight I met Melinda deep in the old town where she is staying with friends.
It really touristville–this is the area with cutesy hotels and lots of beachfront condos and restaurants. All the people you see are gringos. I was the only guy in long pants, but Gail says I’m not allowed to go out to dinner in shorts. She hasn’t been to PV.
This is also the only place I’ve seen dogs, especially dogs on leashes. The Mexicans don’t seem to do that, just the Americans and Canadians. Since I’m missing Claudia, it was nice to see some of the four-footed friends around.
There is something special about this restaurant–there was quite a line waiting to get in, while other local establishments had empty tables. Is their food the best? The cheapest? I don’t know.
The little girl hanging on to the payphone (remember those?) was selling trinkets. I hope she had a parent nearby selling something else, but you can’t be sure.
There are street buskers here. This was a group that set up a music system and then broke into a dance routine. All but one of them had matching shirts. Was the other guy new? Was his shirt just dirty today? I wonder things like that.
You can’t have a tourist area without selling junk, and in large quantities.
Right on the waterfront is where you find the nice condos to sell to the ex-pats:
We wandered into a small place for dinner, a couple of blocks from the beach. Great guacamole. I had a sofrita habibi–which turned out to be pork and melted cheese on pita bread–the owner is Arab. It was tasty but required more chewing teeth that I have at the moment. Melinda had a pork taco that was so good she ordered another just to take home. For dessert, there was a marzipan cheesecake covered in caramel. With a couple of gin and tonics and a glass of iced tea, the bill came to a whopping 553 pesos, or about $27. They don’t take credit cards so Melinda ended picking up the check with her petty cash. It’s hard to go broke on food around here.
Tomorrow I have a quick check-up at the dentist’s office then return check out of the hotel, return the car and head home for about 8 hours and Friday morning we are all (including Claudia) heading to Santa Barbara for the weekend. Life is good.
Totally Unauthorized 
we are staying at the Miramar hotel…Claudia? Loyusland Claudia?