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My husband and I came to PV for our honeymoon in 2001. My husband's best friend owns a few condos in old town on the beach and we stayed in it dirt cheap…his gift to us. I fell deeply in love not only with my husband, smile, but with Puerto Vallarta. I have been back twice a year ever since; every winter and every June. Our winter trips have been getting longer and longer. We started with a week, then two, last year we came for three and this year (2008) we came for an unexpected six. In 2005 we moved from St. Paul, MN to Ely, MN (250 miles NE of St. Paul) so we could live in my husband's paradise and spend more time in mine. We had planned to wait until retirement to do this, but decided life is too short. Why wait to live the dream?

Ely is a very small town and the cost of living is much less but our incomes would stay about the same. This is what would allow us so much time in PV in the winter. It is a tourist town that is "The Gateway to the Boundary Waters" and the population swells in the summer (like PV does in the winter). When we moved there I warned my husband of two things. 1) Living in a small town is very challenging for a number of reasons. The biggest one, for me, is the lack of anonymity. But there are many more. 2) The shine would wear off of his paradise sooner or later and it would either enhance or destroy Ely for him. We have both had our struggles over the last three years, but in the end it has become home for us.

The same principle, I knew, applied to PV. I know that although PV is very large town, it has many small town elements. And I knew that eventually the shine would wear off of PV and rubber would meet the road. I didn't think that would happen for many more years, though, because we spend so little time there. WRONG! Here is my perspective on a touchy subject. Take it with a grain of salt. PV, being a tropical tourist destination, has a tendency to be a transient community (esp. with Americans and Canadians). Ely, being an isolated tourist destination, has the same issue. People often move to Ely for unstable reasons and I know that happens in PV too. Not always, of course. But often. I have talked with many ex-pats about the topic and although I am sure some readers may be offended by this, it is how I see things; right or wrong. Any hoo, due that transience (perceived or real) most of the people I have spent my PV time with were gone this year. We had 2 friends vacationing while we were there, but things seemed a little "off" with them and we didn't spend as much time with them as we were used to or would have liked. In addition, our bed was awful, our fridge barely kept our food cold (we couldn't keep milk more than 3 days) and I missed my dog so much it hurt. All of these things combined brought me to the thought that this would be our last year in PV. I grieved as though I was losing a good friend, but I just didn't "feel" the same about PV anymore and didn't know what else to do or what my feelings could mean. I am very grateful we were there 6 weeks this year because being there that long allowed me to process out the entire thing. Here is what I found:

I know enough about my personality by now (I turned 37 in PV this year) to know that I like the same thing(s) over and over and over and over, ad infinitum. Living in not one but TWO transient communities can not be a mistake (from a spiritual perspective). For the most part, I don't believe in mistakes or coincidences. At least not when they are so dead on like this. So I decided to step outside my box and learn something. I started going to more meetings and, subsequently, I met a TON more people. I started doing things by myself rather than wait for someone else to do it with me. Or I arranged for outings and just invited whoever wanted to go. I found that I can get to know new people in a very short period of time and can feel connected and close to them in a way I didn't think could be possible ('so why bother' was my old thought). Because I was doing more things on my own, I fell back in love with PV; only on a much deeper level. The first time I fell in love with PV I was alone too. On our honeymoon Charlie got sick for 3 full days (and one night) and instead of sitting with him (he didn't want anyone anywhere near him anyway), I went out and fell in love with Puerto Vallarta. It makes sense that I did some of it alone again (one more reason I don't believe any of this was a mistake). But also, I learned that if I put myself out there to people, they are more than happy to be my friend. And although I have always preferred long time friendships, I found I really enjoy short term ones too. And who knows, I may know these people for a lifetime too, just not in the same way.

Some of the friends I got to know DO live in PV...at least part time. I started talking to them about my home sickness (that is another miracle in my life. I was homesick for ELY!! Not Minneapolis). I started sharing the things I missed the most and they started telling me that creating a HOME in PV changed that kind of stuff for them. I had been saying that to Charlie for years and he always chalked it up to me trying to get him to agree to buy a place just because I wanted one. And although that IS true, smile, I also believed that creating a home would make me much more happy and comfortable. Now I had other people confirming my thoughts and, because Charlie fell in love with PV for the first time this year too, we decided it was time to contact a realtor and see what's out there in our price range (which was pretty low). Our friends' Jeff and Bobbie (as I have mentioned) own three condo's in PV. Two they purchased 13 years ago and are in Plaza Mar on the beach (in front of Burros Bar) and one they purchased last year in Plaza Marina; the mall that is at the entrance to the Marina closest to the airport. They bought it to retire in themselves in a few years. It is a gorgeous condo in a beautiful and convenient building. There is no ocean view but the condos are great and there are two roof top pools. Because the ocean is so far away, the condos are relatively inexpensive (or they were. We bought one of two still left for sale). We knew, after spending time in and around the building, that we wanted to be in this building (we looked at several others in the $60,000-$90,000 range). So we went to the guy Jeff and Bobbie bought from. He only had one left and it was $126,000 for what he called a "loft". I think it was a very large one bedroom, but since we didn't want to pay that much, we decided to not even look at it. When we left that place we decided to wander around the mall (we had never been in the building before). We TOTALLY loved it! We couldn't get over how great the building was and how many great stores are in there. There's even a small Mega in there! Anyway, we saw that there were several other realtors in the building (Jeff's guy didn't seem really interested in us. Not that I blame him. Our price range was pretty low). We decided to just see what other people had on their windows and stopped in a couple of places. We landed on a place called AGI realtors because on their window as a 3 bedroom condo in THAT building for $110,000!!! We almost crapped. Instead, we went in to inquire about the condo (ha-ha). Unfortunately, that one had sold a few days earlier. We met the owner, Geranimo, and he was super nice and laid back and willing to talk to us for hours and show us condos around town AND one that was available in the building. The one in the building needed quite a bit of work, but was selling for a low price and Geranimo said the guy really needed to sell (it wasn't HIS client, but he knew a little bit about it). So we knew we could offer less than the asking price and would have a good chance of getting it. We continued to bat around our options and talk to more knowledgeable friends as we headed home to MN. After a week at home (and more prayer and discussion) we decided to put in a low ball offer and see what would happen. It was counter-offered. We thought that was interesting. So we COUNTERED their counter offer and it was accepted. HOLY CRAP! We are still waiting for all the documents to be ready, but we hope to close in the next week. I am really nervous, but I know that it will happen one step at a time. So there is no need to get freaked out about where to buy a couch until we skim coat the walls and etc etc. One step at a time will be my new mantra.
YAY!
I will keep you posted.