The Royal Family headed to San Pancho?

La Patrona Polo Club open soon!
I never really knew how awesome polo was until one evening a group of our guests at Roberto’s Bungalows were heading to a match at the field in town and asked us to join them. I was hooked the first game at La Patrona Polo Club
I have been taking folks from Roberto’s Bungalows out to the huge new project since it began two seasons ago on tours in the Roberto’s custom golf cart about three days a week and have seen the most beautiful transformation of land one could lay eyes on.
I thought polo was a game where the rich Prince rode around on horses and waved at the Royal family in their pretty hats. I couldn’t have been any further from the truth about the very exciting game of Polo.
The new fields are almost done and we are talking International games. There is a regulation field which if you don’t know is 3 football fields long and a football field and a half wide. The game is kinda like NHL and NFL combined with horses running at top speeds and men and women swinging big long clubs and aggressively going for the ball (and I believe the other players heads) and the goal posts with one thought… WINNING!
I am hooked on the game and wish I was 40 years younger and out there riding and playing this high stress game.
I was invited to watch a few games yesterday on the new field. I was so excited and humbled by the excitement of the huge new field and the hospitality of the people who are putting this whole thing together.
The horses are far beyond beautiful and everyone from the spectators to the riders seems so happy to be involved in this sport.
The people in charge beam with excitement and you can see by the smiles on their faces how proud they feel about this new project. I will be one of the very regular visitors with a big smile on my face during most of the International Games! I even plan on turning my Hawaiian shirts in during the games and wearing the Polo attire. Might even buy me a pair of the awesome players leather boots.
Yup I’m hooked and you will be too.
There is also a huge 4 star restaurant for your dining and drinking pleasures. The restaurant decks overlook the three different fields. The International field, the smaller field for games right at the restaurant and a beautiful night field with stadium lighting on the one side of the restaurant. There is one more field for the jumping horse shows.
This is a huge Eco project and I as a San Pancho resident and a member in our family business I couldn’t be more proud of this wonderful project.

if smil

Cock-A-Doo-El-Do——–Cock-A-Doo-El-Do

Ok it’s time I tell a story about living here in Mexico.

There is something I miss now and then about the United States and that would be Peace and quiet! Yes peace and quiet.

Living in the United States I can’t recall having roosters wake me up in the last 69 years.
Here in Mexico in our little village it just isn’t the same. A few seasons ago my next door neighbor bought a rooster and it happened to be one without a sense of time of the day or night it was. The rooster would Cock-A-Dude-El-Do day and night as LOUD as loud can go. Starting at midnight and 3 in the morning 5 in the morning, 7 in the morning as he wanted to beat all the other roosters in the village to be the first to crow.

I went to my neighbor and asked if he would move the rooster somewhere and I would pay him, because I owned a hotel next door and my guests were getting a bit annoyed and he just looked at me and smiled. He couldn’t speak English and with the little Spanish I know it was a dead end talking to my neighbor.

At one point It started to get real crazy with the roosters never stopping. I went back over to the neighbors house and this time he was a little more understanding, as he nodded much more this time with a much bigger smile.

Well nothing changed and this went on for months and it got more irritating as the season went on. I had had it at one point and I decided to go over and up the amount of money I would pay or ask him if there was anything he wanted me to buy for him.

On my way over I stopped and told one of my guests what I was doing and she was smiling and I told her I was going to offer them $150.00 and she said make it $1500.00 and I will pay and maybe I can get some sleep. I told her if I was to offer $1500.00 for the rooster everyone in the village would buy one hoping their neighbor was getting annoyed.

Well I left for my vacation in August and September and to my surprise when we got home the rooster was gone. I thought about asking, but I left well enough alone.

Something I did notice was my neighbors across the street had bought a few more roosters while we were gone. I didn’t think much of it until the noise level had reached an all time high along with their dogs and chickens. They were now making noise 24 hours a day. Kind of like living in the middle of a Rooster zoo. Well I noticed many chickens running around and even started catching them in my courtyard. Before I could complain to the owners about the roosters I noticed that there were now about 15 to 20 birds.
Now it was time to go have a talk with my neighbors who I got along with very well.

I sat with the son and asked why they needed 18 roosters and he seemed to act like it was no big deal, but at the same time he was telling me about the roosters and he said that his daughter had a real hard time sleeping, because of them. Than he was telling me that his daughter was having a hard time in school, because of not being able to sleep. Then he said that his grandma who is about 90 likes to hear the roosters sing in the morning, so she keeps buying more.

SING? I didn’t know they were singing. I really never thought of it as singing. I just thought it was just a bunch of noise all night and day. Everyday I see the grandma out front of her house sweeping her leaves and listening to her roosters sing.

Well I am not someone to take away another persons joy, so I am just going to let it go and know that I am a very lucky to be a visitor in another country.

Oh Oh Mexico.
What can I say except…….Cock a doodle do!

It’s just another Tequila sunrise

Tequila drinking on the rise
!JUST ANOTHER TEQUILA SUNRISE!

Tequila (Spanish pronunciation: [teˈkila]) or as the Americans say…Ta kill ya!

Tequila is the distilled beverage made from the blue agave plant, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Tequila, in the highlands (Los Altos) of the north western Mexican state of Jalisco.

Tequila is the smoooooooooth drink that is now taking the world in a whole new direction. From the pueblo of San Pancho where you can find Roberto’s Bungalows it’s a two and a half hour beautiful drive up highway 200 through the jungle of the Nayarit coast into the farmlands into Tequila.

I drove through Tequila a few years ago and it was a beautiful site, as it reminded me so much of the Napa Valley. The rows of the Blue Agave plants are everywhere the flat lands and up and down the mountains just as the rows of the grapes are in the Napa Valley. The city itself was beautiful and spotless. I have friends who have restaurants in the United States who come down and pick their special barrels of Tequila for their customer’s enjoyment. Tequila is becoming the new sipping drink of the elite and tasking it in a whole new direction. The tequila drinker of the past was the one who did the salt, shoot and bite the lime drink over and over until they passed out is looking like a thing of the past. The tee shirt that comes to mind when talking about Gringo drinking tequila in Mexico is “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila… FLOOR”.

The new smooth tequila is fast becoming the NEW drink of the stars. Justin Timberlake has partnered with Sauza tequila to launch Sauza 901 a super-premium tequila, which bears the numbers of Timberlake’s hometown area code in Memphis, Tennessee. The brand will have a presence at Justin Timberlake’s world tour, The 20/20 Experience, with a Sauza 901 bar at every show.

Justin Say’s “My love for tequila began a few years ago after I visited the tequila heartland of Jalisco, Mexico, and saw the passion and craftsmanship that goes into every bottle,” “That trip inspired me to create 901”.

Sean (Diddy) Combs is another Star on the run to make Tequila the next expensive sipping drink.
Diageo and Combs Wine & Spirits have formed a 50-50 joint venture to acquire DeLeón – which can sell for more than $1,000 a bottle – for an undisclosed sum.
Diageo said DeLeón will boost its share of the “ultra premium” tequila market, which includes brands that sell for more than $40 a bottle. Diageo also has another upmarket tequila, Don Julio. Both DeLeón and Don Julio sit at the higher end of the price scale compared to Jose Cuervo, which Diageo stopped distributing in the US in July.
DeLeón has five variants, varying in price from $120 to more than $1,000, and is popular among US musicians and in Hollywood, the drinks company said.

So my suggestion is if you are paying $1,000 dollars for a bottle of Tequila you better sip it. I’m not sure if this is the tequila you should be making frozen Margarita’s out of. So as I see it the days of slamming Tequila are reserved to the crazy American who hasn’t quite got the message yet. Which living down here I can say it probably won’t change much for the tequila drinking vacationing youngsters enjoying throwing up and hanging out with the toilet bowl as your date for the evening for Spring Break each year, or the parents who find that an all inclusive stay gives you a free pass to all the tequila you can drink and we are not talking Justin’s or Diddy’s top of the line tequila.

I think it’s time to book a vacation to Roberto’s Bungalows while you can still get a sip of tequila for free with a trip to Tequila with Earl and Jane and we can be your designated drivers and you can sip your way through a beautiful day in the beautiful City of TequilA and buy a couple of bottles while you can still afford it!

Thinking of going to Mexico? 5 reasons you should stay home!

Thinking of going to Mexico?
5 good reasons you should stay home!

I moved to Mexico 3 years ago against the advise of many people from the area where I lived in the United States. I have had 3 wonderful years down here and will spend the rest of my life here. I am part owner of a hotel (Roberto’s Bungalows) in a little village called San Pancho about 30 miles north of Puerto Vallarta.
We get visitors from all over the world come and stay with us and I can’t believe the stuff I hear sometimes from a small percentage of them when they are booking their time to come stay. Usually 99 percent of them are from the United States and are asking about how safe it is.
I came from a town in the Bay area in California and I loved it and it was a safe and wonderful community. The next town and the cities within about 20 miles were not so safe. Now living in the Bay area if you never read the news or watched TV you would think you lived in the safest place on the planet. Well here is where the difference is. If you did read the paper or watched TV you would realize that within a few miles people are being killed and the cities are going to hell in a hand basket. They are trying everything that is possible, but they just don’t have the man power or the funding to keep the cities under control.
Now for the good news I have lived here for three years and traveled here by car from California and all around the area and never had a problem. The Cartel has yet to make me a drug runner or chopped off my head. When people start up with how dangerous it is down here I just ask for them to Google the crime rate in the town in which they live and the surrounding 30 miles or so. It is just folks who really just watch the TV and read the news about the stories about the border problems.
Remember that the reason for the crime and deaths at the border towns in Mexico is the fact that America has a drug problem. If everyone in the United States didn’t need drugs we wouldn’t have a problem with crime at the border. Drugs that pass through Mexico make up a large percentage of a multi-billion dollar industry meeting the demands of American drug abusers. The thing that will blow your mind is that 99.5 % of that is marijuana!
If you heard of a crime in Los Angeles and lived in San Francisco would you never go to LA again?
Well take the border towns out of your vacation plans and come on down to the Riviera Nayarit coast and enjoy the weather and mostly the grace of the wonderful people of this country. They are pleasant and warm and wanting to help you in every way. Stop the crazy thoughts and get down here and see for yourself. This is paradise and we don’t have the crime that exists in the United States.
Oh I know some of you will read this and be saying oh yeah well I just heard that someone got killed in Mexico. For those of you who are always looking for the bad in everything please do us a favor down here.
STAY HOME!

1. If you don’t know the facts about the crime in Mexico Shut Up and stay home!
2. If you believe everything you read or see on TV stay home.
3. If you are not a loving adventure seeking person with a love of people and beauty stay home.
4. If you don’t want to explore and get to know the awesome people of different cultures of the world stay home.
5. If you don’t want to feel the love and make lifetime friendships and surround yourself with beauty and can’t step out of your comfort zone. PLEASE STAY HOME!

I really don’t want to sound like I think everyone from the United States shouldn’t come to Mexico. We welcome you all!
The area in which I live was just chosen as the 6th best place in the world to retire! This is just for the few of you that make all of Mexico sound like a dangerous place.
I want you all to come and see the world with different eyes and an open heart. The people of Mexico are the most gracious people I have ever encountered. They want you to come and feel the love and share the beauty of their beautiful country. Come and relax on the beaches travel the country and see some of the most beautiful sites in the world.
They welcome you with open arms.
I welcome you with an open heart and open arms.

Riviera Nayarit Gringo

Gringo thoughts from Mexico

Mexico

The Royal Family headed to San Pancho?

Cock-A-Doo-El-Do——–Cock-A-Doo-El-Do

It’s just another Tequila sunrise

Thinking of going to Mexico? 5 reasons you should stay home!