Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Our third port of call was Puerto Vallarta. The day started out sunny and bright and reached a temperature of 83 degrees.
This city was made famous in the mid-1960s by the Richard Burton movie, “The Night of the Iguana.” After that, celebrities flocked to Puerto Vallarta for sunny getaways. It hasn’t lost its allure after more than 60 years.
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BRIEF HISTORY OF PERTO VALLARTA
Puerto Vallarta is a Mexican beach resort city on the Pacific Ocean's Bahía de Banderas in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Puerto Vallarta is the second largest urban area in the state after the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area.
The City of Puerto Vallarta is the government seat of the Municipality of Puerto Vallarta, which comprises the city as well as population centers outside of the city extending from Boca de Tomatlán to the Nayarit border (the Ameca River).
To the north, it borders the southwest of the state of Nayarit. To the east, it borders the municipality of Mascota and San Sebastián del Oeste, and to the south, it borders the municipalities of Talpa de Allende and Cabo Corrientes.
Puerto Vallarta is named after Ignacio Vallarta, a former governor of Jalisco. In Spanish, Puerto Vallarta is frequently shortened to "Vallarta", while many call the city PV for short.
Puerto Vallarta's proximity to the Bay of Banderas, the agricultural valley of the Ameca River, and the important mining centers in the Sierra have given the town a more interesting past than most Mexican tourist destinations. Puerto Vallarta was a thriving Mexican village long before it became an international tourist destination. Tourism is a major economic activity because of the climate, scenery, tropical beaches, and rich cultural history. The early village name for Puerto Villarta was Tintoque and the name Tintoque Puerto Villarta is still used formally to describe the city.
In the 16th century, Hernán Cortés explored the Pacific side of Mexico by ship. Cortés used the established port of Acapulco to resupply and anchor his ships along the journey. During the early 1500s, he sent two of his ships North to explore the coastline without him. One of his ships wrecked in Banderas Bay and all but three men were reportedly killed. It is believed the corpses of the lost sailors washed ashore. Native villagers encountered numerous corpses on the beach for days after the wreck.
Pirates were known to attack ships along the Pacific Coast of Mexico as early as the 16th century. In the early 1500s, the famous explorer Hernán Cortés set out to establish a safe harbor, north of Acapulco, to provide protection for cargo ships sailing the planned Manila galleon trade route to the Philippines. Just several hundred miles north, he discovered a large bay at the village of Tintoque.
According to local legend, pirates were already anchoring in this bay and regularly pillaged local villagers while burying treasure in the hills. When Cortes and his crew set foot on the beach, a mob of angry villagers believed he and his crew were pirates and surrounded them with native weapons in hand. According to his journal, a Catholic friar accompanying the crew began praying to the Lord for help. Villagers were mesmerized by the red flags the crew carried and suddenly lowered their weapons allowing the explorers to pass peacefully.
It's likely the villagers had seen the flags before when they floated ashore with the dead crew from a Cortés ship that wrecked earlier in the bay. This is how the Bay of Bandaras was named. Francisco Cortés de Buenaventura, the nephew of Hernán Cortés, is said to have formalized the bay's name during his own conquering of the region in 1525. In the following years, Tintoque became a major port and safe harbor for ships traveling the Manila galleon.
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For breakfast this morning Mel had an 'everything omelet' again, while I had an omelet with ham, peppers, onions and cheese (see below), crisp bacon and a hash brown.
Mel also had a chocolate filled pastry (see below).
After breakfast, we went back to our stateroom to get ready to go ashore in Puerto Vallarta.
Shown above is the view of Puerto Vallarta from our virtual balcony.
Shown above is an art display on one of the walls that is on the way to our stateroom on deck 9. It really looks like and reminds us of Sam Testa, one of our dear friends. Shown below is one of the hot tubs on the ship.
We were scheduled to go ashore at 8:00 a.m., but they still weren't letting anyone off. So after we were ready to go ashore, we decided to take a quick jaunt up to deck 11 to see if we could see what was going on.
Ah- ha! We saw that the cruise ship Carnival Panorama was coming in -- so that probably was the reason they were delaying passengers from going ashore.
Above and below are pictures of the pool on deck 11.
At 9:30 a.m. we did go ashore.
Shown above is the welcome to Puerta Vallarta sign.
Above and below are pictures of the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas docked in the port of Puerto Vallarta.
We strolled along the boardwalk.
Shown above and below was the pirate ship Marigalante in the port of Puerto Vallarta. We were told that you could book an excursion on this real pirate ship that featured pirate shows, singing, and swordfights.
We walked along until we came to this small flea market (see below) not too far from the cruise ship.
Right next to this flea market were the above statues. I think the one on the left looks sort of like Danny DeVito, don't you?
This peg-legged pirate was in front of the flea market. We were not impressed with the looks of the flea market, so much so that we didn't even go inside it. And not being impressed with PV either, we headed back to the ship.
Above is a view of Puerto Vallarta from the cruise ship. With nothing that I wanted to do happening back on the ship, I decided to go to the library to read. And lucky for me, I met up Jarmila, my craft buddy. So crafts it was for the next couple hours before lunch.
Shown above is my friend, Jarmila from Las Vegas, Nevada that I have been doing StampinUp crafts with.
Around noon, Mel stopped by and said he was going to go up to the Windjammer to get a salad to go with what we might get at the Cafe Promenade. After taking my crafts back to the stateroom, I headed to the Cafe Promenade to meet Mel for lunch (we ate there since the main dining room was closed because we were in port today). I had slice of pizza and a turkey wrap, and a couple of coconut cookies. Mel had the salad he had gotten from the Windjammer, two sandwiches, and a couple of coconut cookies.
After lunch, I again went back to the library to meet up with the ladies I had been crafting with (see below).
(Shown above is Jarmila with Kim.)
(Shown above is Jarmila with Angela.)
(Shown above is Jarmila with me.)
At around 4:30 p.m. I went up to our stateroom to get dressed for dinner. We went to dinner at 5:15 p.m. Tonight the menu was 'A Taste of Italy' (see below).
Mel had a starter of seared beef carpaccio, which was a charred beef tenderloin thinly sliced under arugula, crispy garlic, shaved Parmesan and a Dijon-mustard dressing. I had a bowl of Italian minestrone, which was a classic Italian soup -- diced mixed vegetables, cannellini beans and macaroni pasta cooked in a savory tomato broth (see below).
We both also had the crispy Parmesan arancini, which was panko-breaded and fried arborio rice, portobello mushroom and provolone cheese balls paired with romesco sauce (see below).
For our main course, we both ordered the chicken Parmesan (a breaded chicken breast topped with marinara sauce and melted mozzarella cheese, served over al dente spaghetti).
But, when it arrived (see above) it didn't look anything like the what the menu said the chicken Parmesan should be! First of all, the chicken was dry as it was served with very little sauce over penne noodles (instead of spaghetti) and no mozzarella cheese. Dry, dry, dry -- that simply wouldn't do!
We told our waiter and she took it to the head waiter. Well it turned out, that they had brought us the glutten free dish! It wasn't long after that we received the correct dish (see above) that we should have received in the first place. Much, much better!
For dessert, Mel had the Italian chocolate-hazelnut cake (shown above). It was a decadent nutty cake with sweet whipped cream and a rich chocolate sauce.
I had the lemon curd tartlet (see above). It was a sweet lemon curd baked in a buttery crust with torched meringue and a chocolate garnish.
After dinner at around 6:40 p.m., we headed to the Royal Theater on deck 3 to see the headliner show starring Travis Clover.
Travis Clover was direct from starring on Broadway as Frankie Valli in the smash hit Jersey Boys and in Vegas as Bat Out of Hell. He sang and danced the night away to the 'feel good' hits of the Four Seasons, Journey, and the Bee Gees.
Travis Clover sang a few songs from the Jersey Boys.
Travis Clover sang a few songs from the Bee Gees including Stayin' Alive and How Deep is Your Love (see above and below).
Then Travis Clover sang a few songs from the Four Seasons. He was awesome!
At 8:00 p.m. we ended up at the Schooner Bar. Mel and I both had a mudslide (see above).
At 8:30 p.m. Piano Martin played the piano and sang some songs for our pleasure (see above and below).
And before calling it a night, Mel and I enjoyed another mudslide (see above). We then sweetly slipped away back to our stateroom for some shut eye! And we had to remember to set our clocks back one hour before retiring -- getting back one of the hours we had lost earlier in the cruise.
Shirley & Mel
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