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FOR RENT

Guayabitos residential home

Available this season

Pool, 3 bedrooms, lots of deck

Call Dorothy @ 327-274-3356

January 1 2008 Page 2

Agoda is the on line company that we book through when we travel.

Polar bear Swim

Photographs by Bill Bell and Dianna Belitski

Bargains Galore! 25% Discount on

Everything in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Jim Scherrer - PVNN

Well, it appears as though the effects of the mortgage crisis in the US, which began in March, 2008 followed by the collapse of the stock market in October, 2008 are finally being felt in Puerto Vallarta. Thanks to the strong Canadian Dollar, tourist expenditures in Vallarta for goods and services, including retirement real estate, held up fairly well for most of 2008.

However, during the September/October timeframe, the Canadian Dollar plunged by more than 20%, thus reducing the Canadian purchasing power accordingly. Consequently, both the Americans and Canadians are now hesitant to aggressively invest in anything, especially foreign retirement properties.

The airplanes and cruise boats packed with tourists continue to arrive daily in PV; however the visitors are much more thrifty and prudent with their purchases than they were a year ago. Many of the restaurateurs and shop owners are claiming that sales are down from last year by as much as 35%. The construction of new condominium projects has also noticeably decreased as new sales slow to a trickle.

During the past ten years, Vallarta has literally been a boom town with explosive growth and new construction everywhere. Obviously, many of the developers and entrepreneurs failed to see the oncoming global financial crisis and committed to many long term construction projects resulting in a glut of more than 7,000 new condominiums now on the market.

Finally, with the supply of goods and services, including retirement properties, currently exceeding demand, we are now witnessing a true buyer's market in Vallarta. Even though list prices for real estate have not dropped noticeably, the developers and sellers are much more apt to negotiate than they were a year ago. The same is true for store merchants and other vendors in the area.

Okay, now that we have a better understanding of how the economy in the US and Canada have affected business in Vallarta, we should have a better appreciation for the North American bargaining position in this beautiful resort destination.

Therefore, let's take it a step further. With the exception of real estate, most all other goods and services in Puerto Vallarta are sold on a Peso basis and therefore we must consider the monetary exchange rate.

The Mexican Peso has held steady with the US Dollar for more than ten years at about 10.8 Pesos per US Dollar. It wasn't until early in October, 2008 when the Peso precipitously devalued to about 13.5 Pesos per Dollar resulting in a 25% increase in the value or purchasing power of the US Dollar relative to the Mexican Peso.

For those of us fortunate enough to still be holding a few US Dollars, almost all goods and services in Mexico just went on sale! For example, we recently purchased a high-end brand name washer/dryer set, normally priced at $1300 USD, for $1015 USD.

Most all grocery and food products, clothing, hardware, and electronics manufactured in Mexico, gasoline, electricity, and other native commodities are also 25% less expensive to those of us holding US Dollars.

Through inflation over time, the costs of these Mexican products will eventually rise until they return to where they were only a few months ago. The one category where costs will rise much more slowly is that of labor. Almost every worker in Mexico just took a 25% reduction in wages relative to the US Dollar! That includes all maids, gardeners, restaurant and store employees, taxi drivers, doctors, architects, engineers, etc. It will probably require several years for the Mexican labor rates to be equivalent to where they were only six months ago.

One very important labor group is that of the construction workers which represents a significant portion of the total cost of retirement residences, all priced in US Dollars. Add their 25% cut in pay to the cost of Mexican concrete and other native materials which also dropped by 25% and you can imagine how that will affect the completion costs of the thousands of condos currently under construction!

Now, with the demand for goods and services reduced relative to their supply and the US Dollar being 25% stronger, you can see the benefit of shopping in Paradise at this very moment; the time for buying your retirement dream could never be better!

As Billy Mays, the famous TV pitchman would say, "But wait, there's more!" Yes, aside from the 25% savings associated with the Peso devaluation and an increase in willingness of the local vendors to negotiate lower prices (caused by the reduction in tourist consumption brought on by the uncertain US economy and the devaluation of the Canadian Dollar), effective in June, 2008, you now receive a rebate for the 15% IVA tax that you pay on many of your purchases while visiting Mexico.

The 15% IVA or Value Added Tax (VAT) is returned to foreign tourists who can prove they have spent a minimum of $1200 Pesos (approximately $90 US Dollars) on Mexican territory and who are returning home by sea or air. Tourists now have the right to receive up to 50% of the net rebate, an amount not to exceed $10,000 Pesos (approximately $750.00 US Dollars), in the form of cash; the remaining 50% will be refunded via electronic funds transfer within a period of 40 days.

In conclusion, after being exposed to the past six months of economic frustrations, you deserve to escape from the prevailing gloom and doom. If you have ever considered traveling to or retiring in Paradise, now is the time and Puerto Vallarta is the place!

You will find many great values on everything this season; values that have not been seen for almost a decade and may not be available again in the near future. As Billy would say, "Why wait, pick up the phone" and call your travel agent.

The weather is guaranteed to be perfect during the months of November through May, the scenery of the Pacific Ocean, the sandy white beaches, and the Sierra Madres is world class, the Margaritas are ice cold, and the Mexican hospitality is second to none. So, come on down; you'll find bargains galore while enjoying the time of your life on the Mexican Riviera!

The founder of Puerto Vallarta Real Estate Buyers' Agents (PVREBA), Jim Scherrer is a retired entrepreneur who has owned property in Puerto Vallarta for 24 years. Utilizing his experience and extensive knowledge of the area, Jim has written a series of informative articles about travel to and retirement in Puerto Vallarta, which you can read on his website at PVREBA.com.

Click HERE for more articles by Jim Scherrer.

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Yamaha 350 Warrior

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La Penita RV Park Site 127

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Want to buy a small used freezer. Please contact: corvina@shaw.ca with size and price."

"Quiero comprar un pequeno congelador usado. Por favor ponerse a contacto con Judy a correo electronico corvina@shaw.ca , dar precio y tamano del congelador".

On the Tracks of Villa and Zapata in Mexico City
Monsters and Critics
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Mexico City - Whoever follows in the footsteps of Francisco 'Pancho' Villa (1878-1923) and Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) is in for a surprise: discovering the other face of Villa's black legend and understanding how the two revolutionaries of 1910 can still live on so long after their deaths.

The tourist will find wartime love stories and victorious troops who beg rather than loot, and see Villa, 'The Centaur of the North,' forcefully recruit 350 children not to make them fight, but to make them go to school.

Among its cultural tours, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) offers one which not only follows the activities of the two revolutionaries, but also looks at their personalities and ideologies.

On December 6, 1914, Villa led his cavalry unit Los Dorados into the Mexican capital. Three years earlier, he had spent a week's honeymoon with Luz Corral in downtown Mexico City's Iturbide Hotel which currently houses the Banamex Museum and Palace.

The famous 'sarakof' hat Villa wore during most of his campaigns contribute to the myth surrounding the womanizing, sexist and violent macho. Inside the hat shown in the History Museum at Chapultepec Castle, sewn and protected with a plastic cover, there is a photograph of Luz, 'the love of his life,' as the revolutionary once confessed.

Of the 12 women certified by the registry as Villa's wives, she was the only one whom he actually married in a religious ceremony, even though he did not believe in God and although the parish priest at San Andres, Chihuahua, had to demand that he disarm before the May 28, 1911 ceremony.

A month before Villa's triumphant return to the capital, his main ally, Emiliano Zapata, had done the same, followed by thousands of well-armed peasants and indigenous people.

For Zapata, this was one of few encounters with a world of a French-style cobbled streets which appeared to intimidate him.

The two men had no opposition. Their common enemy, Venustiano Carranza, had fled, and they were hailed by the people.

They posed for photographers at the National Palace: Villa smiled while Zapata stared at the camera suspiciously.

From the building's main balcony, the revolutionaries watched one of the longest military parades in history, featuring some 50,000 men and lasting over eight hours.

Afterwards, the two leaders looked for simple accommodation. Neither of them contemplated using official facilities. And they soon left, separately, to pursue other fights.

Villa made use of his brief stay in the capital to rename Plateros street with the name of a man he greatly admired, Francisco I Madero, who launched the Mexican Revolution.

A shot that left a mark on the roof of the restaurant La Opera, at the corner of 5 de Mayo and Filomeno Mata, is often said to have been made by Villa. However, Armando Ruiz Aguilar, a researcher at the INAH, rules out such an episode.

Some Zapatistas, with their .30-30 rifles across their shoulders, had coffee and paid the bill at an old branch of the Sanborns cafe chain, where the Madero bookshop currently stands, at the corner of Madero and Gante. Others wandered through the streets, knocking on doors to ask for food.

'None of their bosses was made to take on the responsibility of the presidency or wanted to be in power forever. Zapata took up arms with the slogan 'Tierra y Libertad' (land and liberty), in the name of peasants who lived in abject poverty in what is now the state of Morelos,' Ruiz Aguilar says.

'Villa's biography, personality and vision were different, more complex. He had gone a longer way, carrying out more activities, holding ties with foreign companies like Wells Fargo and the German armament maker Krupp,' the researcher noted.

With Wells Fargo, he negotiated a generous payment in exchange for not raiding its facilities and 'protecting' it.

Such unconventional methods, along with many other controversial episodes like the 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, practically kept Villa out of official Mexican historiography until 1964.

For the same reason, he was also kept off the mural, A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park, by Mexican artist Diego Rivera, which shows important figures of that era.

In 1964, following intense debate, the legislator Everardo Gamiz finally managed to have Francisco Villa's name included in golden letters in the honours wall of the Legislative Palace of San Lazaro, the seat of the Mexican Congress where it still shines.

BEACH PARTY! Always Fun Every Sunday!

Consider Retirement Options in Mexico
Laurence Iliff - McClatchy-Tribune
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Cielito Lindo is a new assisted-living development outside San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, that charges about a third of what care and meals would cost in the United States. (McClatchy-Tribune)

With 75 million American baby boomers heading toward retirement and the cost of private nursing care in the U. S. outstripping hammered retirement funds, Mexican developers say they have an irresistible product in the works: active senior and assisted- living facilities in a warm climate full of friendly people for as little as $1,100 a month.

Some developers are shifting their traditional condo and townhouse developments midstream to include assisted- living wings focused, in part, on Americans who want modern facilities with quality services at reasonable prices.

There are already an estimated 1.2 million retired Americans and Canadians in Mexico.

�This is not going to be a niche market; this is going to be an entire industry,� said Eduardo Alvarado, chief executive officer of La Moreleja, a residential development in San Luis Potosi, a colonial city in northern Mexico that also sports Wal-Mart, Home Depot and many other businesses familiar to Americans.

�We already have the pioneers here, but what we are seeing is that many people will come � perhaps not because they want to, but out of necessity,� he said. Many will find Mexico far more modern and far safer than they had imagined, he added.

Alvarado said the drug cartel violence that gets so much U. S. media coverage rarely touches civilians. Mexico �is as safe or safer than the U. S.,� he said.

The U. S. Embassy warns Americans to be extra careful along the U. S.-Mexico border, but otherwise considers attacks against the millions of U. S. citizens who visit and live here to be isolated and rare.

Alvarado said his property is scheduled to be finished sometime next year, with 180 spots for assisted living and 250 for independent.

La Moreleja will charge a onetime inscription of $9,000 and a monthly rent of about $1,100 that includes a full range of services, including meals.

One problem, developers said, is a lack of regulations. The private assisted- living and nursing industry is so new in Mexico � there are about a half-dozen facilities under construction � that laws need to be written to cover its activities. The Mexican Association of Retirement Communities is lobbying for legislation similar to U. S. regulations.

Marisol Ancona Velten, director of planning for Le Grand Senior Living, an assisted-living development in Mexico City, warned against informal, �clandestine� senior housing that caters to Americans and offers substandard care in converted private homes. She also said many Mexican resort cities, like San Miguel and Puerto Vallarta, do not have the world-class hospitals found in the Mexican capital.

Mexico has a national health care system (which Americans can buy into for $350 a year) along with many private hospitals and clinics with U. S.-trained doctors. Average life expectancy for Mexicans is 75 years, just three less than in the U. S., according to the retirement organization AARP.

Since most Mexicans take care of their parents often until death, there is not much of a nursing home industry at all, except for those run by charities or the government.

Many Americans who retire in Mexico have often been adventurous types willing to learn the language and traverse the obstacle course of setting up a home, securing quality medical care and adapting to cultural differences.

Jonathan Taylor, 78, came to San Miguel de Allende from Dalhart, Texas, almost six years ago.

Taylor now spends his time running, playing tennis and socializing but can imagine the day when he might need to move into a place like Cielito Lindo, an assisted living development outside San Miguel de Allende that opened in September.

�I hope I don�t have to consider it for a while, but if you get into your 80s and need assisted living, what could be better than this?� said Taylor. �The people are so friendly and the scenery is so beautiful.�

At another location favored by American retirees, on Lake Chapala near Guadalajara, several small retirement homes have sprung up, often operated by locals, to serve Americans as they get older and can no longer take care of themselves.

What�s coming now, developers say, is completely different: brand-new, turnkey developments, for sale or rent, that come with a buffet of services (from a maid to full Alzheimer�s care) at about a third or less the cost of that in the U. S.

A report last month by the Met-Life Mature Market Institute put the average rate for an assisted-living facility in the U. S. at $3,031 a month. Generally, that included room and board, at least two meals a day, housekeeping and personal care assistance.

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2009

JANUARY 2009

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

1 2 3 4

A�o Nuevo
POLAR BEAR SWIM

Market Day

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

D�a de los Reys

Market Day

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Market Day

D�a de San Antonio Abad - Feast of San Antonio Abad

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Birth of Ignacio
Allende (1779)

Market Day

26 27 28 29 30 31

Market Day

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