Bob and Jan's Travels: La Penita de Jaltemba

We are starting the year off with a trip to La Penita de Jaltemba and La Cruz de Haunacaxtle. La Penita is located bout an hour north of Puerto Vallarta and La Cruz is about 1/2 hour north of Puerto Vallarta.

We landed in PV at about 5 pm on January 3 (Saturday). We were one of the first through customs and then waited about 45 minutes for our luggage. Casita de la Penita (our home for 1 week) sent Sugar (our driver) to pick us up - it is a beautiful drive north through the lush jungles. Bob and Linda Gibbs are the owners and operators of Casita de la Penita - they are from Saskatoon and operate this place for 6 months of the year. They have a local family who operate it for the other 6 months. They bought a beaten up ocean front property in the middle of nowhere 15 years ago and have turned it into a great little oasis. Our room is on the second floor with a great view of the ocean and a winding staircase to get to the second floor - Jan is still negotiating the stairs. La Penita is authentic Mexico - not touristy as at all.

We were starving (although when aren't we?) - Bob and Linda recommended that we go to Hinde y Jaime's Restaurant (for those interested, "y" is "and" in spanish). Patty is one of the owners and does everything but cook. We asked for her best drinks to start - I had a Margarita (Patty won the Annual International Margarita Challenge in 2010 and 2011) and Jan had a Mango Daiquiri - both were amazing. We had some fresh guacamole, salsa and chips as well as some fresh fish (verracruzanna style) and two large skewers of shrimp. We were no longer starving. We did a little grocery shopping on Main Street - La Penita is much bigger than we thought with a main street about 4 blocks long. We dropped into bed the fell asleep instantly.

On Sunday, we were up about 8 am and sat on our balcony with coffee overlooking the ocean. We have a great view of the fishing boats and Tortuga (Turtle) Island. We then ventured to Hinde y Jaime's for breakfast (Why mess with a great thing?). I had Heuvos Rancheros and it was the best Mexican breakfast ever. We met several of Hinde's family (Patty runs the place and is one of Hinde's daughters but several other siblings are visiting from St. Louis and Hawaii).

We did a little more shopping (forgot to buy rum) and then headed back to the Casita for the day by the pool - nice and relaxing. We headed back to Hinde y Jaime's for dinner - WHAT? You may think that there are no other restaurants in town but they have big screen TV's and Canada was playing Slovakia in the World Junior Semi- Finals … and it was rib night. All excellent again. We were joking with Patty about having the best restaurant and that there must be others in town - she was smiling from ear to ear. She later came back to the table and said there were some other great restaurants and gave us a couple of suggestions (in the next town over!).

Adios. Mañana.