THE BIG MOVE

You've decided - enough snow shovelling (for anyone's lifetime), no more battling traffic jams every week. Time to start taking care of you in a place blessed with mountains (happily un-snowcapped), rivers (teeming with crayfish), a huge bay full of fish, tons and tons of non-liquid sunshine and perhaps the kindest natives on the planet. You guessed it - you've arrived in Puerto Valllarta.

First things first - you're going to need a place to put your head down. If you're lucky enough to have friends who have already taken the plunge you may be able to bunk in with them until you catch your breath and your bearings. If not, there are many hotels that run in price range from ten dollars a night (they're really not too bad) to thousands a night and everything in between. This may be a good place to start but will grow old fast. A few freedoms, like making your own coffee in the morning, may not be possible in a hotel. Often you can find condos that offer all the amenities of a hotel room with more comforts of home.

If your goal is to settle permanently in Vallarta, you need to spend a summer here leasing a condo or a house lest you buy something from which you will flee every rainy season. The first summer, most ex-pats will agree, is nothing short of awesome. The storms practically defy description (but I'll try): 360 degree lightening - including every kind of lightening that exists - all at the same time. You can guess what the thunder must sound like.The power is enormous. Throughout rainy season, which runs from the fifteenth of June to the fifteenth of October, we get one of the big ones maybe once a month. For the rest of the time, most mornings start cool (ish) and clear. The lovely clouds start creeping over the Sierra Madres around siesta time. It rains late afternoon, early evening then stops so as not to interfere with the sunset. That's the plan anyway. We have El Niño in Paradise, too…

And it's hot. Really hot. But, if you thought Vallarta was pretty in the winter, you must see her in all her summer finery. The mountains and parks are lushly green, and every rain brings more flowers. And if the humidity makes you occasionally crazy remember, this too shall pass.
Next week, some facts on the paper work.

Write your questions to: moving@accessmexico.com