Casa Amorita, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Mexico was in my must-visit list for forever! After all, I always wanted to know what is Mexico, a country of tequila, love, mariachi with their guitars and sombreros? To my big surprise, we landed into a gray rainy day that is very uncharacteristic for Mexico in February. When I saw this gray picture 15 minutes before landing, a whole range of horror and panic displayed on my face. Do you know this painting "The Scream" by Edward Munch? This was my face! Yes, the gray ocean and the gray hills were a huge surprise to me! But we took our sour lemons, and we bought tequila and salt and tuned into a more positive mood! The truth is it is better to have rain in the paradise rather than sun in the city!

Basically, people who come to visit Mexico usually stay in big resorts. Personally, I don't understand it. What's the point to fly to an exotic country and sit by the pool with fake palm trees around? We, as usual, were able to find a small, intimate place with the charm of old Mexico far from the tourist bustle, high on a hill from where the fabulous views of the Baha' de Banderas Bay and the old town with the majestic Cathedral de Guadalupe were wide open to our eyes. And the name of this cute B&B is so romantic - Casa Amorita. 

Casa Amorita is such a beautiful building built by a local architect, Alejandro Alberto Munoz Plancenia, and decorated in a combination of Mexican, Moorish, Aztec, and Spanish styles accented with ceramics and hand painted tiles. All of the furniture was custom designed by the owner and handcrafted by artisans from Guadalajara. Amazing!

Along the entire front of the property is a cobalt blue, venetian tile pool that goes right into the living room. So beautiful!

There is also a cool bar/terrace on the roof where I got a tan during some mornings.

Casa Amorita has only five bedrooms. Our room was too cute with private balcony. Here are pictures of our room and the view from our balcony on our first day.

After we unpacked, we went for a walk to the waterfront. The sun showed up suddenly on the horizon, and a rainbow-arc appeared over the town. Our first sunset in Mexico was a wonderful surprise at the end of a very gray day. Nights in Puerto Vallarta are very noisy and energetic. There are so many bars, clubs and restaurants! Margaritas helped us finally to relax. And delicious dinner in a cozy French Bistro "La Cigale" promised us a great vacation! 

To wake up in Mexico would be a real pleasure, if not for one thing - the cathedral a hundred meters from the hotel. Yes, yes, yes! That same church which pleased my eyes upon arrival, was a nightmare next morning and every morning!

A huge bell hits a few times at 6:30 am, and then at 7 am, 7:30 am, at 8 am ... etc. Unfortunately, breakfast wasn't served at the hotel until 9:30 am (in my opinion that's too late for breakfast.) But breakfasts from our hostess Rita were superb. We didn't want to eat all day after her breakfasts. If we decide to have a snack during our day, it was because we wanted to try something tasty in a particular restaurant. We had breakfast with the other guests (besides us another 3 couples). I remember Linda and Lee, such nice and wonderful people. Lee miraculously found a harmony between art and science in his works of micro photography of crystals. With a digital camera and a microscope he creates unusual crystalline landscapes of the many colors and patterns. He flew to Puerto Vallarta to open his next gallery show. Some of his work you can find here: www.sidestreetphoto.com! Beautiful work!

Our stay at Cara Amorita was memorable. 

Here is an official website of Casa Amorita: http://www.casaamorita.com/