More whales and things

So we are back in Paradise again.  That would be Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallata.  Poeple keep calling this place paradise and one guy said it in a way that has become a catch phrase for us.  It went something like this "well good to meet you guys and welcome the Paradise.  Says it on the sign" as he pointed to the Paradise Village Marina sign.  So now whenever the word paradise comes up or we end up back in Paradise Village Marina someone inevidably mentions "welcome to Paradise, says it on the sign" in a thick drawled out american accent(since I am the only one without an american accent(and yes even that can be disputed) it would imply I am the only one who says this,  that is not true and everyone else says it while trying to thicken their american accent).  However we are not really huge fans of this place as It is way to touristy for us, but we need to be here to get our refrigeration sorted so we will handle a little more Paradise for a bit.

The last week we went for a cruise around Banderas Bay.  We stopped off at a place called Yelapa for a day and stayed almost three.  Nice little place with some nice wildlife.  Mainly dogs looking to be apodted but they were very friendly which is a little unusual for mexico.  Dogs in Mexico are interesting as a few have collars which means an owner and a few get fed by poeple so they follow them around but for the majority it is a free for all.  This means packs of 4,5,6 dogs roaming around like a bunch of 16 year olds, thinking they are way tuffer than they are and looking for trouble.  And then there are the really skinny loaners who are just pathetic and make you want to give them all the food and water you have on you immediately for fear of them dropping over and dying right there.

Evidently in Yalapa every dog gets fed and has some shade to sleep under.  They still have lots of flees and ticks to share if you would like some but they do look happyish.  Christene and Josh left us in Yelapa to go back to their little bit of paradise in Baja.  Christene spent most of the last morning they were with us trying to convince Lisa to adopt a dog they took a particular interest in.  This was while Carl,Don and Leslie were playing frisbie in the ocean with Raleigh and his 4 friends.  Once they started playing a new dog appeared every 10 minutes.  So by the end of that morning we could have easily formed Raleigh's own pack and have invaded the boat with 4 or 5 dogs and probably a good proportion of the flee and tick population in Yelapa.  This would have deffinatly made the upcoming adventures a little itchier.  Other wildlife in Yelapa included lizzards(little and big ones, although the big ones were usually on poeples shoulders and so not sure you could call them wildlife.  Funny that, lizzards are pets and dogs are not in Mexico) the odd random ferral cat, lots of rock crabs, and some funny looking birds with really long legs.

After that we headed back across the bay to Punta de mita.  On the way we hung out with a few more whales (of course) and Carl actually got some pictures of these (I think).  We also encounted a mass of dolphins jumping and charging around.  We hung with them for 10 or 15 minutes before they went back to their jumping and splashing.  There was easily 50 of them if not more and I am pretty sure they were participating in one of those feeding freenzy things that you see on Discovery or Nat Goe.  Punta de mita was great for another 3 days.  Everyone went surfing and we all got to relax a little.  NO wildlife seen other than fish.

Then we turned aroud and came back to Paradise Village and again hung out with a few whales.

So thats about it for the nature watch.   I am sure someone else will be on soon to talk.  One day we will get organised and have some photos for you guys.  But at the moment we are having a few issues getting the whales, dolphins, birds and lizzards to sit and pose properly for the pictures.  we will get there though.