Mornings in Yelapa 7

Here we are in Puerto Vallarta after spending the night following the grand opening of the Vallarta Bontanical Gardens, outside the city. April and I took out memberships in the Gardens last January after our first visit there -- for an affordable $20 apiece -- and so we were able to walk into last night`s proceedings and enjoy the drinks, food, and entertainment essentially for free. Entertainment included the Vallarta Chamber Orchestra playing several classical pieces, a women`s choir from Santa Barbara, California, and dancing afterwards to swing era recorded music. Bus service back to Vallarta was also free, and we left rather early. We`d booked a room in our favorite budget hotel in old town, the Hotel Villa del Mar, where I left April last night to see a strange movie, Perfume, at the nearby theater. Got out of it at 12:30 p.m., and walked through the fairly quiet streets at that time of night to the hotel.

Today April is attending a ^breathing^ workshop in Vallarta while I`m sitting here at my favorite Internet place. We`re to meet in mid-afternoon at the John Huston statue on the Isla Quale (a quiet and pleasant refuge in the midst of the city), where I`ll read (currently I`m into Nabokov`s Lolita for the first time, if you can believe that) until she arrives. Then we`ll catch the bus to Boca, and then a boat back to Yelapa.

With any luck, we won`t have to come into Vallarta again till the end of this month -- and the end, alas, of our stay this year in Mexico.