May 10-11, Friday and Saturday 2013   Yelapa

Never set sail on a Friday and don’t ever have bananas on board.  Two of the many sailor superstitions that we don’t really pay any attention to in this modern era.  We have bananas.  We like bananas.  As for Friday, it does not count if you are just going across the bay, just if you are actually setting out on a long voyage.

Friday morning we set out from Paradise Village across the bay to Yelapa.   It is only 20 miles away, not even as far as Long Beach to Catalina.  We go meticulously through the casting off checklist, not skipping over anything.  This will be an easy short sail to get back in the sailing mode after being in port for so long.  It is a lovely day for a brisk sail across the bay.  Banderas Bay is a deep, wide harbor. The towns and hotels are clustered along the north and east sides where the land is flatter.  Along the south coast the cliffs come straight down into the sea.  There are small villages wherever a river comes tumbling into the sea.  The road stops just outside of Puerto Vallarta and from there on the only access if by boat or walking through the forest.  The bays are deep, over 100 feet even close to shore with just a few yards of shallow water around the edge, making it difficult if not impossible to anchor.  Yelapa is the furthest west of these small villages.  According to our cruising guides we should not even think about anchoring but take advantage of the moorings offered by the villagers.  Sure enough, as we enter the bay a ponga races out to meet us.  In it is Rafael who escorts us in, sells us a mooring and points out all of the best places to eat, especially the palapa owned by his family.  He speaks excellent English which he says he has learned from tourists and has lived all of his life in Yelapa.  Once we are moored and have paid he speeds off on another errand. 

Yelapa is really two parts.  What I had thought was lovely native thatched roofed houses  to the left side of the bay as we entered turned out to be the hotel.  Still lovely and blending so naturally into the landscape, but not where the people live.  To the right is the pueblo where the locals live, not lovely thatched roof houses but the typical concrete  and rebar cubes of Mexico climbing up the steep hillside one on top of the other.  The path from the beach winds under and between houses and up the side of the hill.  It reminds me a lot of the hillside towns in southern Italy. 

We decide to head for the town to see if we can find Abuelos Restaurant, which has been recommended by an ex-pat who cane paddling by on a kayak.   We wander happily, up and down and around a maze of paths.  Past groups of people sitting in the shade.  A chain of pack horses is being unloaded by a small store.  Looks like bags of grain.  A couple of young men go past with cages of glossy roosters.  Look like fighting cocks to me.  When I ask, they say that IF there were cock fights they certainly would not be here.  They would be up the road in the forest somewhere.  We go on past the “casino”, actually just a large open meeting hall where some kind of party is about to begin.  Finally we find the restaurant.  It is closed!  Actually we discover that all of the restaurants are closed.   It is Mother’s Day and the women of the town are not about to work on their day.  It is their turn to be wined and dined.  That is what the party at the casino was about. 

So we make our way back down to the beach and push the dingy back out into the water to row across to the palapas that line the beach on the tourist side of the bay.  Even here almost everything is closed.  Finally we find one place that is open and settle down at a table on the sand.  There are a few other diners, including a couple at a table next to us who are just opening a bottle of Moet y Chadon.  When we smile and wish them Happy Birthday, they have the waiter bring us each a glass.  So there we are on the beach in Yelapa at sunset with glasses of wonderful champagne to go with our ceviche and fish tacos. 

Next day we walked up a path through the forest to a lovely waterfall.  This is end of the dry season.  The summer rains have not started yet and everything is very dry.  The hills remind me of Southern California in fire season, so dry.  The stream is just a trickle but the waterfall is still lovely.  The air smells wonderful.  When I ask, a man says it is sapote flowers on the trees.  Back at the beach again, we settle down for a swim and nap on the beach.  As always, there are numerous peddlers walking the beach offering their wares but here they offer weed and pipes along with the usual  bracelets and sarongs.  It really has a flavor of a place left over from the 60s.  We also meet a number of ex-pats who came here in the 60s and never left, including one woman from Topanga. 

Eventually we make our way back up to Abuelas.  The Mothers Day fiesta last night had gone on until 3am so service was a bit slow but the food was definitely worth waiting for.   On our way back to the beach we passed the casino again where, surprise, surprise, there were cock fights taking place.  Just as we reach the path leading down to the beach, we hear music and fireworks and a religious procession comes up the road.  This is the next to last day f the Festival of Guadalupe.  There is a procession every night with a different group leading each night.  Tonight is young peoples night.  The girls all have on white blouses but the US influence is strong.  The blouses are sheer and stylish and work with tight designer jeans.  No traditional native costumes here.  Back at the church, the mass begins with a rocking hymn accompanied by guitar, piano and drums.  The priest is not only young and handsome but has a lovely singing voice.  I predict trouble in paradise.

We hang out for a while but Alan has an aversion to anything religious so we head back to the boat after a few minutes.  Tomorrow we leave, heading south.  Trying to get below 10 degrees before hurricane season starts June 1.