Un Retroceso al Mexico de Mi Niñez

Shoooo...I was getting worried for a sec that I might have fallen off the four-fold path of mar, playa, vistas y descanso (that whole Colorado being a thousand miles from the ocean thing). So, I had to take drastic action -- and so in three weeks, it's Puerto Vallarta time! I'm going to stay in old Puerto Vallarta, south of the downtown, trying to minimize the gringo resort factor so I can try to practice as much Spanish as is possible in a week.

It's been more than 15 years since when I went to Mazatlan with my dad and brother (the first and only time I went to 'Mey-hee-ko').

Random Memory Fragments (okay, not so interesting, but I'm just trying to bring it all back to see how much is hidden away deep in my noggin):

• I didn't eat much of anything the whole time unless ketchup could be doused on it. My dad brought about five boxes of fruit-roll-ups and assorted snacks which I survived on.
• On a road, we passed a number of tin shacks, and I recall asking incredulously if someone lived there.
• As a kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist and read lots of books about the ocean, so I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to see a tide pool and a dolphin jumping out of the water, when it was about the second or third time I had ever seen the ocean.
• My dad told me explicitly not to eat anything with milk in it, but I forgot and ate ice cream anyways. Didn't get sick.
• Chiclets
• Some random guy asked me and my older brother in broken English if we wanted to sell churros on the beach for two dollars an hour. Nope.
• I probably have a sombrero and a gecko wire puppet somewhere amidst the sedimentary layers of Lesser household crud.
• My dad bartered my plastic digital watch for a better deal on some tchotchkes.
• Crowded bus, many chickens. My dad tells me that there was a disorderly drunk on one of the buses who talked back to an off-duty cop, who promptly pistol-whipped him.
• Going to the marketplace, and seeing a pig's head staring back, and experiencing a whole new miasma of stank.
• Watching a carnival themed show at dinner, with a trick lasso-er, fire juggling, and guys on stilts in costumes.
• It was December, and so they also had fireworks (some festivities for Our Lady of Guadalupe?) and a sign that was lit up with fire works.
• Watching my brother and dad paraglide from a boat.
• Going to the projection TV room the hotel had and watching a James Bond movie with Spanish subtitles.
• Buying a ton of the Mexican equivalent of lifesavers with my funny money. My beginnings as a candy-holic....