Today’s trip involved taking the bypass road through the hills behind Puerto Vallarta. If one does not know about this road or misses it then before you know it you are in the narrow, busy streets of downtown Puerto Vallarta and one of a couple of things could happen. You could find yourself in the embarrassing situation of not being able to get by one of the many double-parked vehicles and holding up traffic for a long time or you could find yourself getting a very large ticket for being there and escorted out of town by the Police. It is unlikely that you would simply be able to drive through town unscathed.
We knew about this road and the day we drove the car into Puerto Vallarta, we made a point of watching for it for future reference. We got all the way into town without seeing it. That was ominous! We asked the waiter about it when when we had breakfast and he gave us a map of town and pointed out the road. He said it was well marked. The problem with these tourist maps is they do not show all the streets, only the ones with their advertisers businesses on and they are not to scale! As were were leaving town later in the day we watched again and there was the road! Well marked (from the South only) with all the highway signs you would expect. We took note of what businesses were near the turnoff and went home.
Today as we were driving the rig looking for the bypass we were watching very carefully. We got to a landmark we had noticed yesterday and Norma said, “This is where we turn!”. I was in the wrong lane and looked frantically for a sign. There was none, and the name of the street was not even posted. I made an illegal left turn and we were on the bypass! It was a narrow, rough road with lots of topes and potholes but it eventually got us through two tunnels and onto the road South.
Below Puerto Vallarta Mex 200 becomes a narrow, rough road with vegetation encroaching on both sides as well as forming a canopy over the road. Pulling over for oncoming traffic is less of a problem than being passed by huge busses doing at least 20 or 30 KM/hr more than me. That gets the heart going!
We drove a couple of hours to Perula where we slept in a quiet RV Park a few feet from the surf which crashed all night! We did not bother setting up the TV dish but fell asleep to the sound of the pounding surf. We were asleep by 9 PM so in Perula, Mexico, Life is Good!
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