Reasons Why I Love Living in Puerto Vallarta

By Maria Ruiz

I’m not a single woman or a married one.  I have a partner of over thirty years.  We settled in Puerto Vallarta four years ago after traveling around the world for ten years.

We’re not ‘spring chickens’ or are we ready to stop.  Both of us are active in a local group and have lots of friends.

Recently my partner had to return to the states for medical problems.  He could have been treated here but Medicare doesn’t pay for ‘out of the country’ medical help.

That means I’m left alone with the house, a cat and two small dogs.  At seventy two, little things like opening a heavy gate can become a problem.  Once when the gate would not move, two teen-age kids down the street came running up and opened it for me.

I know all the kids on my block, have watched them grow and returned their soccer balls many times.  I have watched the babies grow, learn to walk and wave to me.  That’s because kids play outdoors.  They don’t sit inside watching television.  None of them has a cell phone glued to his/her fingers.  They play, yell, sing, dance and sit on their stoops every day.  The mothers all smile at me and wave as I walk my dogs.

The husbands stop by to see if they can help.  The ladies ask about my partner.  I am truly a member of my little community.  If I do need help, I know my neighbors well enough to ask.

When we visit my partner’s daughter in the states, the kids don’t play in the streets.  No one is sitting on their stoop in the cool of the evening.  She doesn’t know her neighbors, seeing them only as they pull into their driveways and into the garages.  In back of their neatly mowed grass yards, they are as distant from the community as if they were behind bars.

I wouldn’t trade my little cobblestone street with no yards, with kids, mothers and husbands for all the green grass in the states.