March 12, Monday 10,000 Steps

Today we met our housekeeper, who was intent both upon making the place right by HER standards and not upsetting things that we had in place for a reason.  For instance, we had piled up a bunch of decorative pillows from my bed near a chair where I was doing needlework, to serve as an ottoman of sorts.  She immediately identified the pile as “significant” and though we didn’t share a language, we agreed rapidly that it should remain undisturbed.
Once she was well underway, and the “fix-it” man had arrived to educate us that the lack of hot water in Linda’s shower was that the controls were reversed from the ones in my shower (if you only turn on the cold water, you can’t expect hot) … and my sink cold water WOULD flow at a reasonable level if I only turned the control at least 12 rotations … we felt we should get out of the unit for a bit.  We had a small shopping list which ensured we’d see to the need of our friend arriving tomorrow, as well as meals for three instead of two.  We thought to patronize the recommended local market, but were challenged to find it (squinting carefully at the map, the road we thought to take was interrupted by … dots … which turned out to be yet another precipitous stairway … we turned back and took a longer route!)
We did find the place, which had prominent banners proclaiming that … CONTRARY TO RUMOR … they were NOT going out of business and thank you for your patronage.  However, cruising the place, we were not motivated to buy there.
So we thought to head back to the market we’d patronized Saturday, and maybe hit the tourist-info office enroute.  Little did we know the hike to which we had committed ourselves!  We were navigating by the “gay map” for Puerto Vallerta … and it simply didn’t go anywhere near our target merchant.  We DID ultimately find the tourist bureau and a better map, and finally DID hoof it to the market … just about nailing our 10,000 steps goal for a day.  Happily the taxi stand was still right there, and though our new driver had to seek instruction from the fellow behind him, he got us home between what he’d been told and our own instructions.  We had a nice (if very micro) instruction session in practical Spanish on the way.