Puerto Vallarta, Mexico      November 8, 2023

We had a good sleep in spite of the rainstorm - lucky us it rains in the night and /or somewhere we are not!

Around 8, I had the continental breakfast which is included with our room price - 3 slices of baguette, real orange juice and some cantaloupe.  I looked at the menu and am sure what this means-

After breakfast we headed out looking for SIM cards and data.  Oxxo is the best place but neither one we visited had a pin for removing the SIM cards we already had in our phones.  We walked on some boring streets making our way to my dentist and luckily found him in the nick of time.  I thought my appointment was at 11 but duh, checked my email looking for the address and it was at 10.  Dental Life is a small office -

with 2 chairs and 2 dentists.  I was considering getting my teeth whitened but that means quitting drinking coffee - no, red wine - definitely not and dark beverages - Coke - not going to happen!  He said if I didn’t, my teeth would be back to their dingy yellow within a year.  My teeth are the colour of the fourth and fifth teeth from the left and I wanted them to look like the third and fourth from the right.  He laughed!

Smile every day, live every instant, love every hour and brush your teeth!  Just kidding - enjoy every second-

What a process.  He froze my mouth and then had to do it again on the bottom left side.  He ground out the decay and fillings then X-rayed to make sure a crown was possible.  The top tooth was iffy - close to the nerve but possible and the bottom tooth was fine.  He took a few impressions then made two temporary teeth until Saturday when I’ll go back for the real ones.  He glued in the temporary teeth and made sure my bite was perfect.  It was a long 3 hours but I’m very satisfied so far.  Each tooth is 7000 pesos which is about $560.  It would have cost me $1500/tooth at home.  

I wandered back to the Hotel Rosita-

via the Malecon and enjoyed the Day of the Dead leftover Catrina statues-

This one is really tall-

Catrina represents death in a comedic fashion. The skeleton wears a sombrero, a skirt and stockings with a flower between her teeth although most of these sculptures are missing the flower.  She first appeared on the cover of La Ilustración de México in November 1910.

I met Lynne back at the hotel and we switched rooms.  Our new one doesn’t face west and the ocean like last night’s and is smaller.  We still have an ocean view as we face east but the north breeze is blocked by the hotel so we are going to move back to our first night’s room on the 13th when it becomes available thanks to Lynne!  She’s a good friend!

We went walking and had lunch on the Malecon- 

Lynne had fish tacos-

and I had chile rellenos-

Both were very good!  We carried on to La Playa de los Muertos -

and then walked into the Zona Romantico looking for La Fonda restaurant which is owned by Diana Nichol’s friend Lori and her husband Marcelo who visit North Battleford often so we thought we would stop in and say hi-

I was looking for a bar I went to a few times 4 years ago when I was last here but I think it’s been demolished and a condo is being built on the spot.  Very sad as it was a typical old authentic awesome place.  Changing times I guess.

Eventually we made it back to the hotel and enjoyed the pool until it got dark.  We spent the night in our beds reading and surfing the internet.  There’s only so much walking and heat a person can take.

Tomorrow - who knows what we will get up to!