The results of fame ... and sin!

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico was a tiny fishing village in the early 1950s, but now has more than 250 thousand inhabitants, and thousands and thousands of time-share apartments ... all because a beautiful woman fancied a particular man. The original tiny village was the site of the movie Night of the Iguana, but this was only indirectly the cause of its rise to fame (actually, we're told, the movie was awful) ... the secret of success was that Elizabeth Taylor, who wasn't in the movie, chased Richard Burton here ... and the resultant media furore led to people coming to see what it was all about, then to an airport, then to more people ... and so on!
We chose to get away from the 'plastic' Puerto Vallarta, and travelled to the countryside - dry, dusty, lots of cowboys on horses, wearing sombreros ... the cowboys, that is, not the horses! We visited a couple of little villages, with very rough cobbled streets, well-loved churches, and friendly people, who were willing to chat - as well as one CAN chat with sign language, a few Spanish or English words in common, and our well-thumbed dictionary. The village of Las Palmas had the street blocked for a local market, which was fun, and the people made us feel really at home.
On the return journey, though, the bus stopped at an up-market jewellert store, in the hope that we would be so astounded by the Mexican opals, Mexican gold, Mexican silver, that we wouldn't notice the US$500-US$2000 price tags! Unfortunately, for them, the prices we're willing to pay are more at village level ... even after we got back to the restaurant and markets near the ship, we shunned the US$20 meals and discovered a family business operating in the carpark, where we each had pork chops in a delicious sauce, tomato rice, refried beans, peppers, more hot tortillas than we could eat, and a homemade orange drink, for 20 pesos (About $2 Australian) each. And THIS meal came with entertainment - five little boys aged about 5-9, who talked to us, sang to us, even helped us up the steps after we finished eating ... THAT'S the part of Mexico that WE enjoy!