10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part VIII

Puerto Vallarta.
Pulling into Puerto Vallarta, you got the feeling it was the most "Americanized" port (see the picture at right)

Can you see the Wal-Mart on left? Or the Sams Club on the right?

Better than that, you wouldn't believe how many people were dying to go to Wal-Mart from the ship! People, this is vacation!!!!!

Oh well.

In Puerto Vallarta, we were doing another Tequila Factory tour that included a tour of the city with a few stops.
Our first stop, was downtown, on the water where we saw sand sculptures that people were making that were breathtaking. Take for example, the one at right: a full sized version of The Last Supper!

It was breathtakingly detailed, and if the sculptor had a nickel for every photo snapped of this, he'd be rich.

I'll post one more, a bit more of a close up of a full-size person so you can see the incredible detail.

These people accept donations for their works of art, and I can only imagine how they must feel when it rains and washes away their hard work.
I can only imagine how long it takes to create these pieces of art.

As you can see behind the sand sculptures, the water was a nice blue, and mild waves. It was a gorgeous 85 degree morning as we walked up and down the street.

Next, we walked a bit more up the street, and saw a religious ceremony that is hard to describe.

Five men climb this pole, and four of them have ropes tied around their legs. They spin the top platform to wrap the rope around the pole, then they lean over the back and allow themselves to spin around and be ever so slowly lowered to the ground while only being held by the rope tied around their legs while the 5th person chants and bangs on a tiny drum.

It's a scary thing, but mesmerizing to watch for sure!

(please click on any picture to 'embiggen')

We watched them do this a couple of times, all the time wondering how you become someone who does this ritual.

When they reach the ground, they sit for a minute, then climb up the pole again and the ritual begins again.

Next, our tour guide named "Pepe", told us about a church we were about to enter, named "Our Lady of Guadalupe" in downtown Puerto Vallarta.

Now, I've seen churches in the US, and in Europe (including Notre Dame in Paris, and a cathedral in Milan, Italy) and this church was gorgeous. Not for it's "ornateness", but for it's simplicity, and raw beauty.

Next, we were off to the Doña EngraciaTequila Factory.

Now if you remember, I had mentioned that Tequila was made from the Blue Agave plant. The actual part used to make the Tequila, is beneath the ground and is called the "piña". There's 3 of them at right.

They kinda look like pineapples, albeit large ones and they can weigh up to 150-200 pounds! Behind them is one of the ovens they're cooked in to release their juices and to bring out the sweetness.

After cooking, they're soft and they're mashed and the liquid that comes out is the liquid that is found in Tequila.

This was another small Tequila factory, and you could probably call their Tequila "artisan" as it's not very widespread, and pretty rare to find, even in Mexico.

Here, they had flavored Tequila like Almond, Coffee, and Peach flavors!

While the Tequila itself wasn't as good as the one we had at La Noria, it was good to try something else new.

That's about it for Puerto Vallarta, and I'll probably do one more installment of our last days at sea soon.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this, as it's brought back some great memories for me!