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Travel Story - A Mexican wintering ground for Canadian Snowbirds

La Penita is home to Mexicans, British Columbians and Albertans

Back at university my friend Ron was a natural all-around athlete, a big powerfully built guy who excelled at both hockey and skiing. After moving on to our separate careers we continued to ski together whenever possible and following Ron was always a challenge. He bombed the icy steeps of Panorama the way he played hockey – hard, fast, and often. That was before his knees refused to absorb any more moguls or take any more hits on the rink. Today he and wife Shirley still have their ski cabin at Invermere but now, unable to ski, they make it their summer retreat and spend their winters far south of the snowline. My ski-buddies have become snowbirds.

Thousands of Canadians join the fall migration each year in search of a tropical wintering ground. Many touch down in Florida, others swoop onto the golf links of Palm Springs, or glide to some retreat in the Bahamas. Ron and Shirley landed in La Penita, a tiny town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. They discovered it several years ago and, together with a flock of six Canadian friends, pooled their resources to build a penthouse on top of Villas Estero del Mar. One by one Ron's partners have flown the coop and now, as sole owners, he and Shirley make it their full-time winter home. Last month, while Betty and I were travelling in Mexico, we finally got around to dropping in for a visit.

After a long, fog-bound delay our jet out of Mexico City finally made a run for it and climbed up through the murk into bright sunlight. Below us the city is smothered in the brown residue of its own effluent. Like some pulsating monster of science fiction the many-armed blob of opaque pollution streams into mountain valleys far beyond the megalopolis that spawned it. Beyond the city the landscape is surprisingly empty – a patchwork of small fields draped around extinct cinder cones and ancient black lava flows still too raw to cultivate. Here and there the sun picks up a tiny village, many with no more than a dozen buildings – a reminder of Mexico's rapidly increasing urbanization and shrinking rural population.

An hour out of Mexico City we pass Guadalajara on the edge of the highlands and begin our let-down into Puerto Vallarta. The stark brown hues of the highlands gradually change to green. Lush tropical jungle covers the hills and, on the coast, the beach is lined with palm trees. Shirley and Ron are waiting for us at the airport.

Ron may no longer have the knees to ski but he still has the reflexes to drive in Mexican traffic, an accomplishment that has my unqualified admiration. After a quick tour around Puerto Vallarta, we set out for La Penita. The 40 km drive along a narrow road through rolling, jungle-covered hills takes about an hour and we arrive at the Villas Estero del Mar just in time for Happy Hour. On the spacious balcony of their fourth-floor condo Shirley hands us her specialty – a tall, cool, gin and tonic with a twist of lime – and we drink a toast to "life after skiing".

The Villas is a four-storey building containing eight units, all with balconies facing an expanse of palm-shaded lawn, a private pool, and the sandy beaches of Jaltemba Bay. A sheltered fresh-water lagoon separates La Penita from the up-scale resort town of Rincon de Guayabitos.

The place is crawling with Canadians who gather during happy hour to swap tales of their other life. During the off season Nick and Vivian, who own and operate the Villas, live in Mission and Nick, I discovered, is one of the engineers who worked on upgrading the Sea to Sky Highway. Almost all of the happy-hour folks we shared drinks with during our stay at the Villas were from Alberta or B.C. and each of them has enthusiastically embraced La Penita as their winter home.

With a population of about 8,000 La Penita is a slice of vintage Mexico – a working town that supplies services to Rincon and other nearby resort communities. Traditionally the base of its economy has been the manufacture of bricks and other building materials, pineapple farming, fishing, and market gardening. But tourism is slowly increasing and RV parks, B&Bs, and small hotels catering to migrant sun-seekers, are now scattered throughout the town.

Its narrow cobblestone streets wind through neighbourhoods of gaudily-painted cement block houses in various states of repair. Walking from the Villas to the business district we pass the Bull Ring, emblazoned with posters proclaiming next weeks bull-riding competition. Farther on, the town’s main street has a wide central boulevard with palm trees, benches, and a brooding Aztec statue. Regular shops and stores compete with street vendors who sell from sidewalk kiosks or the tailgates of pickups loaded with produce. We buy a bag of fresh shrimp from a local fisherman. He weighs them on an antique cast-iron balance and we head back to the Villas for lunch and the mandatory siesta.

While the siesta seemed like a good idea in the heat of the afternoon it took the edge off my night’s sleep and I found myself wide awake, listening to the sounds of the town coming alive long before morning – first the roosters anticipating the day with a pre-dawn chorus of crowing, then the calls of early morning street vendors "bollos! bollos! caliente bollos!" (hot buns right out of the oven). A push cart rattles over the cobblestones, an outboard drones down the lagoon as fishermen leave their moorage and head out to sea. I get up, sneak quietly out of the house, and walk down to the sandbar between the ocean and the lagoon.

The waterfront is alive with seabirds, some still diving for fish in the ocean, others washing in the fresh water lagoon. A boatload of fisherman pulls up, pelicans scatter, and three of the crew get out onto the bar. The driver takes the empty boat back up lagoon, turns and makes a full-throttle charge at the sandbar. The motor, prop racing, kicks up and the boat skids to a stop, still a good five metres from the ocean. I offer to help push but they have a system. I gather the sandbar was not always there. It formed when a breakwater was built to protect the harbour entrance. Dredging was tried, a shrine to Guadelupe was built on the end of the breakwater, but nothing worked. The sand just kept coming back, so now running the bar is accepted by the fishermen as a minor inconvenience on their way to work.

Back at the Villas I found Betty and Shirley buying breakfast bollos from the back of a parked station wagon. After coffee Ron and Shirley took off for their weekly Spanish lesson while Betty and I set out to explore the Thursday street market. Each week four blocks of La Penita’s narrow streets are lined with colourful canopied kiosks and carts. It’s a carnival-like atmosphere where gringos and Mexicans bargain with vendors for everything from fresh produce to second hand pots and pans – even pet birds.

At happy hour that evening the talk turned to memories of skiing together at Whistler and Panorama. "Yeah, I miss it sometimes," says Ron "but life is too busy to dwell on it."

He suggests we go to the beach near Lima de Abajo the next morning.

Located at the extreme north end of Jaltembra Bay it’s not that far from La Penita but getting there was an adventure. The narrow dirt road winds past mango orchards, through pastures and stretches of vine-covered jungle. We miss a couple turn-offs and have to backtrack, pausing to give the right-of-way to a herd of plodding brahman cattle. But the beach is well worth the effort!

A steep-sided surf rolls in over the soft sandy bottom. We dive under the curl of a wave, come up behind the suds and continue out. A hundred yards from shore the water is still only waist deep. Ron and Shirley, both strong swimmers, continue out beyond the breakers while Betty and I attempt to body-surf. By the time we are all done our bodies are ready for a rest. A kiosk half way up the beach offers nachos and beer in the shade of a thatched arbor. We settle down, mellow out, and let the sounds, sights, and smells of a tropical Mexican beach seep into our tired bodies.

It has been a great day – a great week – an affirmation that there is indeed "life after skiing". And here on Lima Beach, listening to the rustle of palm fronds in a warm breeze and the rhythmic whisper of the surf on soft sand, the icy slopes of Panorama and Whistler seem very remote.