Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta is known for its beaches and water sports, but I opted for a tour of a 6000 foot high mountain town, San Sebastian.  That was a good choice, since the temperature was in the 90s at sea level!

The bus wound, for 90 minutes, higher and higher into the Sierra Madre.  We stopped for a break at a bridge high over a gorge, with mountains all around.

Across the road from the gorge was a café and tequila factory.  It was quiet in the early morning, with roosters crowing, but the bottles were out when we returned!

The café had an old-fashioned, outside grill.

Coffee is grown in the Mexican highlands, as in Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala.  On the outskirts of San Sebastian, we stopped at a coffee plantation, with bags packaged for sale and pictures of the founders on the walls.

The plantation kept a menagerie of dogs and parrots, as well as trees with tropical fruits.

We checked out all the equipment, including the bright red coffee roaster.

I don't remember seeing mangos and guavas growing before.

As our bus drove into town, we passed the elementary school, with a bust of the founder.

The streets were winding, paved with cobblestones and strewn with bougainvillea.

San Sebastian is a resort town.  As it gets hotter in Puerto Vallarta, the hotels in San Sebastian are full on the weekends.

San Sebastian is an old mining town, where silver and gold ores were gathered from surrounding areas and processed during the 1700s and 1800s. It was a "company town," ruled over by three Spanish families joined by intermarriage.

We visited the local museum, where a Spanish woman, the descendant of the founding families, showed a wedding photograph of her parents, from the 1950s.  She pointed to her mother and said, "She was also my cousin and my aunt."  The museum was filled with old photos, including photos of the matriarch of the clan, who came from Andalucía in the 1700s.

We also visited the local church, with its rococo statues of Jesus and the saints.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant--beans, rice, guacamole, a casserole with tortilla chips, and corn.  A local woman made fresh corn tortillas as we waited.

Before boarding our bus, we examined a statue of a miner in the square and lounged against the wall of the secondary school, watching the world go by.

I wished I could try an avocado from this tree!

On our way back to Puerto Vallarta, we stopped at the café by the bridge and learned how tequila is made.  Samples were offered, but--no thanks!