Stand-up paddle surfing. The first time you saw it at the beach you probably exclaimed, “What is THAT?” Or you rushed right out, rented a board and tried it yourself. Stand-up paddle surfers (or boarders) have been in the Los Angeles Times’ Outposts blog in recent years for coming close to humpback whales in Australia and for stand-up fishing in Baja. Now there’s a chance to build a quick Mexican getaway around the activity. Verana, the award-winning luxe resort in Yelapa (fly into Puerto Vallarta) that you need to get to by boat, has some openings left for their Stand-Up Paddle Surf Workshop Dec. 6-13.

Via:
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/yalapa-mexico-stand–5884/

The huge Banderas Bay opens on either side of our eyes like horns of plenty, on the right there is visible far away, the once lovely, now flamboyant, Punta Mita, and to the left can make out between a storm and over the tip of Cabo Corrientes, where the insensible claw of “developers” still hasn’t fallen.

The sea and the waves crash a few yards from thunderous rustic balcony in an old and dignified style edificito Puerto Vallarta, we were lucky to rent for a few days.

On the white and aged building, calmly and unhurriedly rustic balconies overlooking a roof covered with clay, delight shelter and solace to doves, pelicans and seagulls and … some other birds of passage like us.

In Playa Camarones, even before sunrise, runners and walkers seem to break the darkness of the beach with their silhouettes almost blue in the haze of dawn candled.
Elegant policemen dressed in full uniform, warm boots and gun belt and radio to be drawn between the insurance firm and vigorous sports sunrise beach shadows.
Reds, athletic and ready, anticipating the sunrise, the platoon is doing lifeguard training exercises vigorously every day and willing to help those in need.

Via:
http://www.informador.com.mx/suplementos/2009/152317/6/de-viajes-y-aventuras.htm

Like a lot of folks from Southern Oregon, Jim Krois has scheduled a trip to Mexico during our rainy season.

Most travelers head south this time of year to get a break from winter weather. Krois has a different motive. He needs hip-replacement surgery, and he can have it done at a hospital in Puerto Vallarta for a quarter of what it would cost him in the Rogue Valley.

“They told me it would cost $50,000 here,” said Krois, who lost his health insurance in 2008 when he was laid off from his job as a photographer with the Grants Pass Daily Courier. “It will cost $12,000 in Mexico.”

The 61-year-old man from Williams is one of a growing number of “medical tourists” — people who travel abroad for health care they can no longer afford at home. One study estimated some 750,000 Americans left the country for medical treatment in 2007.

Many medical travelers stick to the simple stuff, such as getting a cavity filled by a dentist in Mexico. Others, like Krois, go abroad for major procedures — an artificial hip, a new knee or even coronary artery bypass surgery.

Their numbers are expected to grow as health care costs rise and more people lose their health insurance. A 2008 study by Deloitte Consulting predicted medical tourists could number 6 million by 2010.

via:
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091129/NEWS/911290326

Puerto Vallarta is Mexico’s most popular gay vacation destination and the Thanksgiving weekend is party central.

It will be an embarrassment of riches with two competing parties going all throughout the long Thanksgiving Weekend.

Vallarta Fever includes a number of events exclusively at the city’s wildly popular gay nightclub, Club Manana. It runs from Wednesday, November 25 to Sunday, November 29.

The long running Latin Fever by well-known club promoter Will Gorges also runs November 25-29.

Via:
http://www.examiner.com/x-2026-SF-Gay-Travel-Examiner~y2009m11d23-Gay-Puerto-Vallartas-biggest-biggest-weekend-Latin-Fever-and-Vallarta-Fever-circuit-parties

Hey, Spike! and Mary were recently South of the Border, taking in the Puerto Vallarta scene again at the invitation of her cousin Arlette Butler and husband Don, staying at their Sheraton Buganvilias timeshare.

The Butlers reside in Clayton, Calif., and Grants Pass, Ore. Their daughter, Marcelle, lived here for a few years back in the ‘90s.

We arrived Halloween, on a flight that included Friscoites Lynda and Jim Colety and Polly and Dave Schwan, who were headed up to Sayulita and their Casa Blanca.

That first night had us seeing Mex-Tex recording star Joe King Carrasco In the US, it’s Tex-Mex, but down south they reverse it.

We first saw him in (muy apropos) the Kingdom of Breckenridge back in the ’80s.

Joe, now a popular local in PV, was the headline entertainment at the grand opening of the tricky-named Nacho Daddy Bar and Restaurant in the Zona de Romantica. If Joe’s playing, you’re dancing.

Via:
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20091120/NEWS/911199980/1078&ParentProfile=1055