The Blue Buses of Puerto Vallarta

Have you got gall stones? Cholesterol problems? Well, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico has your answer. The Blue Buses! No operations, pills or surgery needed. These buses will shake it, (maybe rattle would be a more active verb) right out of you. Bouncing is a gimme as drivers are doing 60 miles an hour on a “stone missing” filled street. Anyone who has ridden a bus to Centro downtown Vallarta past the Malacon or Romantic zone knows what I mean. The city of Puerto Vallarta has made a deliberate effort to preserve the old fishing village look to PV complete with the pot-holed cobblestone streets; serviced by these ancient blue buses. I don't know where the green buses go yet. This was my blue bus year.

The PV bus maintenance guys have long ago given up on fixing shocks or brakes. And the bus driver’s manoeuvre  like shocks or new brakes don’t matter anyway. Only passengers count. So any ride is complete with smiles and the sounds of metal on metal as frame hits axel and the drivers race one another to pick up passengers. Klang! Clunk! I mean metal on metal. You know the sound. KaKlunk! No shocks. Almost makes you want to say “ouch”.

As well the ride includes the sounds of no brake liners screeching. I know, back home in Vancouver, neighbours for three blocks will tell you, at the slightest whisper of the wheels hitting the brake with no rubber, the sound of metal on metal. KaScreech “You need new brakes!” Not in PV.

When wanting a bus, if you don’t raise your hand and point at the bus; the “point” indicating I’m a passenger in waiting, you can wait for the next bus. No problem as it is right on the bumper of the bus passing you, unless he is speeding pass that bus and therefore can’t see you.  The bus is filled with bobble heads all sporting a nice tan of course as this is Puerto Vallarta. You can always tell when someone is a new arrival to PV when they have no tan or are asking for a bus schedule. With bumper to bumper buses, who needs schedules?

The one thing sure to piss off a Blue Bus driver is a yellow cab driver getting in his way. New York could use Blue Buses as could Toronto or Vancouver. When a Blue Bus driver is pissed off, he speeds up. Nothing can replace the KaKlunks and KaScreeechs of a Blue bus being driven by a kapissed off bus driver.

A very efficient system for 6 and one half pesos (about 35 cents). One zone or three zones matters not. Six and one half pesos for all those KaLunks and KaScreecheechss and kabobbled gall stones is a bargain.

And, if you want to soak up the culture of Mexico and Mexicans, absolutely nothing compares with a bus ride. Try it and you will see. Get off that cruise ship and bus it from the Marina to the Romantic zone and walk up to where Elizabeth Taylor’s house used to be. Soak up that PV sun. To be part of the race to passengers complete with the bobbling and the sounds  is worth more than any picture of a beautiful sunset. Really is incredible stuff and the cost is only 6 and one half pesos.

Take in the scenic Banderas Bay. Get a 4 dollar one hour haircut, a 25 dollar massage that really gets the crap out of your belt line and radishes as big as an apple. And you will ask yourself, “Why am I spending my winters in the rain or snow?”

The #3 bus to El Remance

Truly one of the best, quickest and most efficient bus systems in the world.

Point to stop

Why did Sandy Hook Happen?

The problem confronting the USA is the same one it has been for decades. They are unwilling to change the attitude that creates the problem. Instead they find excuses. Sure they need to ban assault rifles on the streets. But more importantly they need to confront the attitude of the backers of the NRA. not just ban the guns. So long as the attitude is not confronted the wall street fiasco's, the banks needing bail outs, the resulting recession and unemployment,  the Sandy Hook type massacres will go on.

The USA will support shows like Survivor when the people with the wrong attitudes get to be the winners and behaviors that are undesirable are rewarded. So long as back stabbing, dishonest, two faced cons are rewarded in your culture and exalted on your TV it will be the assassin that is promoted and revered not the Lincoln. If you want to know why there was a Sandy Hook massacre, look in the mirror. Like Micheal Jackson sang " if you want to make the world a better place, take  a look at the man in the mirror and make a change". Then and only then will the Sandy Hooks stop.

Banning the assault rifles is great but confronting the attitude behind those that support the NRA is the big  thing needing to be done. You need to tell them to fuck off big time. So long as outfits like Sprint and Ford will spend their advertising dollers on shows like Survivor and be rewarded for doing so you will have Sandy Hooks.. Thats the WHY.

It shows in your face---The Portal of Light

A portal of light has been created to nourish the health of all animals or peoples around the Salish Sea. It is now a sacred place to be blessed. A portal of light has been created to bring angels to the region and all birds rejoice. Eagles and hummingbirds are flying together. The horses run in joyful herds. It is like a ballad I heard about a windwalker that is the wounded healer who comes to share compassion and love. Like those of a child of God himself. Community. To stop being on opposite sides we get to become one with the area that surrounds the Salish Sea as a collective entity, its peoples, its animals, its air, its water. That is a spiritual adventure that has no end. You cant  touch infinity. The only way to experience it is from the eyes of a hummingbird on a 360 end to end. I think of hummingbirds as filled with endurance full of playful energy, happy , joyous and free. I have looked into the face of joyous freedom and it shows in his face.

You don't have to tell how you live each day

You don't have to say if you work or play

However you work it will show in your face

The false, the deceit that you bear in your heart

Will not survive where it first got its start

For sinew and blood is a thin veil of lace

What you wear in your heart, you wear in your face

If your life is unselfish, if for others you live

For not what you get but how much you can give

If you live close to God in his infinite grace

You don't have to tell it. It shows in your face.

Shmoo Report