Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta

Paradise Village is an extensive resort complex in Nuevo Vallarta, just north of Puerto Vallarta in the eastern most part of Banderas Bay. It has a marina and yacht club with access to all resort facilities, and even a shopping mall complete with a grocery store, gelato shop, and a Starbucks. It was a nice place to stop after a long trip from Mazatlan, even if it was a little inauthentic (ok, a lot inauthentic).

The bathrooms were cleverly disguised in this replica pyramid.

As Andrew and I took Kitty for a walk around the complex we came across a bird enclosure housing beautiful macaws. Kitty was very interested in the birds and they were likewise interested in her. Two of them clawed their way down the chicken-wire to her level to get a better look at her, squawking ‘hello, hello’ all the while. After a few sniffs she turned her attention to a cage behind us and froze in her tracks. I wasn’t sure why she’d stopped until I caught a glimpse of orange on the other side of the fence. She was about a foot away from a huge tiger!

In the next cage another tiger was napping peacefully along the wall of its pen when Andrew decided to try to touch it. Don’t ask me why. I was not happy about it.

He poked a finger through the fence, brushing the top of the tiger’s head and the beast snapped his head up and gave Andrew a stern look. Since I don’t know why Andrew tried to touch the tiger in the first place, I definitely can’t explain to you why he tried to touch it a second time. Again he poked a finger through the fence and again, managed to touch the tiger’s head. All I could think about were those dumb kids at the SF zoo who were messing with the tiger there (from a much further distance away and with a moat separating them) and the thing broke loose and tracked them down and killed one of them, so I hurried off with the dog, mumbling expletives all the way. From around the corner I heard the tiger give a loud warning hiss and Andrew caught up to me shortly after that.

A few days later I walked by the tiger cages again and noticed some new signs:

While enjoying beachfront margaritas and guacamole one night in Paradise Village, we met two delightful girls, Stacy and Jill, and became fast friends with them. As it had been a long time since any of us had been around women, we invited them to dinner at Il Pescatore, the resort’s Italian restaurant, and enjoyed their company if not the food. We dined with them regularly over the next week and I even got to have some much-needed girl time with them at the spa and shopping mall. What a treat it was to have some estrogen around!

After Andrew returned from the US with a new fuel pump, the guys spent a whole day replacing it, only to discover that the problem with the engine still wasn't fixed. The next day we left Paradise Village to haul out at La Cruz shipyard in the northern part of Banderas Bay.