BOTANICAL GARDENS

Ever since I arrived here, I have heard about the Botanical Gardens.  There are posters and signs about it all over town, so I wanted to go there.  One day on my way to the gym, I stopped at a little tourist stand and inquired about the cost.  He said it would be 500 pesos.  I started to walk away when he dropped the price to 400 pesos.  It still seemed to high since it only included the bus ride and admission.  So, I called my friend here and he said there is a city bus direct to the gardens for 20 pesos. (You must question the price of everything here).

The next day we were off.  The bus goes toward Boca then turns inland and up into the mountains.  The gardens are on 20 acres and according to the brochure has 3,000 different species of plants.  It only opened 6 years ago.   For 5 pesos I got a map.  The admission price is 50 pesos (I have no idea if the 500 pesos would have included the map or not).   The paths are not easily navigated as they are just dirt with lots of tree roots.  Sometimes the path consists of nothing but tree roots.  You walk through a jungle under a canopy of various trees.  Again I would love to go there after a rain, but I am not sure what condition the dirt paths would be.  Mostly it is just a jungle with a few flowers.  Most of the flowers are in sort of open air hot houses.

One building had a vine of long strange flowers.  It looked like a wisteria, except the blossoms are bright red and yellow.  The strangest was a hanging iridescent  blue green.  There is a beautiful flower covered restaurant that was highly recommended.  The restaurant was closed!  We think it was because the staff had been let off for the Easter Holidays.  After touring the gardens we were hungry so we decided to take a bus to a little town called El Tuito.

The bus ride was about 20  minutes up into the mountains.  As we climbed higher the palm trees gave way to pine trees.  El Tuito looks like a set from an old Clint Eastwood western.  I would swear that "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" was filmed there.  There are no tourist shops there (no reason for a tourist to visit, really).  There was a plaque that said the town was founded in 1525.  I am not sure by what.  I think the Aztecs were still around in the early 1500s.

We did find a nice restaurant and had a very good cheap lunch with a couple of beers.  As you can see from the photos, there isn't much to see there so we boarded a bus back.  It took over an hour to reach Puerto Vallarta on one of the worst bus rides I have had.  None of the buses have shocks, but I don't think this bus was driving on rubber tires.  Thank God we had padded seats. (maybe that is what the 500 pesos was all about - a better bus).