Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico

13 October 2010

This was an early morning, as we needed to be at the other side of the Marina to catch our tour to San Sebastian. This is a small sleepy village of about 600 inhabitants in the Sierra Madre mountains. We once again relied on the public bus line to get us there. Our only problem was we walked on the other side of the street from the Vallarta Adventures office, walked past it and had to find our way back. But we had plenty of time.

Our tour guide, Gustavo, regaled us with stories and good information for the entire 1½ hour trip up into the mountains. We passed from the coast, up through jungle, to a mixed pine forest at the top, nearly 6,000 feet in elevation.

At its height, San Sebastian had as many as 30,000 inhabitants working the silver and gold mines. As often happened, those played out and the town nearly disappeared. It has now actually started to grow again, but hopefully not too much or too fast.

Our fist stop was at an hacienda which is well preserved, and now is a small, three room hotel. The furnishings and décor are very interesting. Into town, the next stop was Café de Altura, a family coffee plantation, owned and operated by the Alvarado family for several generations, some of whom we met. Our tour of the plantation gave us a good introduction to the coffee growing and roasting process. This is truly mountain and shade grown organic coffee—always has been and always will be. We bought some coffee from the patriarch of the family.

We then walked further into the town to Comedor La Lupita, a family run restaurant. There was another tour group there, too, which filled the restaurant between us. In fact, we had to sit at a side table because there was not enough room at the main table for our group.

The meal was several courses of “home made” delicious food, starting with a quesadilla. We were then served rice and refried beans. The beans were not like any we had had before, and were very good, probably at least in part because they were made with lard, and not canola. A beef jerky taco and chicken mole, both of which were excellent, completed the meal.

During our meal, the family children came home from school, a good sign of its authenticity. During our lunch, we also were treated to a fairly strong thunderstorm. The rain continued as we left to tour the rest of the town

The next stop on the tour was the town square, with its shops around the edge, and the requisite band stand. We visited the old one cell jail behind the town hall. One of the oldest buildings on the square is now a hotel.

A short block away is the village church, San Sebastian, built in the 18^th century. We had a few minutes after that to continue to wander the town. Karen found a silversmith, and bought a pendant cross. Dick looked for some other art, but couldn’t find anything open with the right kind of art. (We’re still trying to augment the nativity set collection.)

The trip back to PV was uneventful down out of the mountains. We found a coffee shop at the marina, The Coffee Cup, and had a drink and checked email on Karen’s iPod. The public bus ride back to Los Tules completed a very good day.