The Birds

This photo is supposed to be of a duck. Instead, it's a blurred photo of a patio as I attempted to run away from a duck that was trying to attack me. And he wasn't the first bird to try to attack me yesterday!


Yesterday M. and I took the bus to B0ca de T0matlan which is a small village about 1/2 hour down the coast from here. It's from here where all the water taxis leave to go to southern coastal villages that are either unreachable by road or reachable but with great difficulty. He's looking to move out of his apartment in town and try to get a place closer to the beach and jungle so he can paint and be closer to nature. I naively thought that since this village was outside the "big city" of Puerto Vallarta and has no amenities (the biggest store is like a tiny corner deli and none of the roads are paved), rents would be cheaper. But actually we found that rents are more expensive there.

We were shown a place with a great view of the beach but it looked like a prison cell with peeling paint. And the guy was asking only $50 less a month than I pay. We saw some other one bedrooms nicely located on the river (which empties into the ocean) but they were renting from $460 USD for a very small one-bedroom to $900 USD for a bigger place. All prices were quoted in dollars because let's face it, who else but Americans/Canadians could rent for those prices? I even wondered why they bothered putting "Se renta" on the "For Rent" sign. And all these prices are low-season prices. We were both disgusted. We enjoyed seeing the places and had a nice time in the village but were both sad to see that places seemed to be targeted only towards vacationing foreigners with ample cash -- not a good sign for the future of the village.


Anyway, we stopped in a local restaurant to ask about places for rent when we noticed 2 parrots. One seemed to notice me too and I could see in his slow movements coming down from his cage, getting onto a chair, getting onto a table to get to another closer chair that he was stealthily heading my way. I must admit that birds scare me a little bit mostly because I don't have a lot of experience with them and also I was attacked by a mother swan when I was a young teenager so I know they're beautiful but also dangerous. Well, sure enough, once this bird was on the ground, he went for me. I screamed and ran away and the restaurant owner intervened and put him back on top of his cage.


Later we were looking at an apartment when I noticed a pretty duck in the courtyard. Ducks are nice, right? Once he noticed me, he started running at me. I was shocked at first and tried to run away but damn, ducks are fast even on land! He was close enough that I actually hit him, once on his body and a few times on his neck. It didn't seem to deter him much so M. took a plastic chair and tried to keep it between me and the duck. He didn't seem to want to attack M. at all. The owner came down and seemed a bit amused by the whole thing and said the duck wouldn't really hurt me but after he held the duck and put him down and saw the duck attack again, even he seemed a little concerned that the duck might hurt me.

Boca is really a nice village and I hope to get back there more and hike up the river which is supposed to have nice little waterfalls and pools to swim in. You can also hike down the coast to the smaller villages and beaches. And the town itself has a nice relaxing vibe and is a beautiful place to watch sunset. It's beautiful to see the outlines of the pelicans perched on the fishing boats that are anchored at the end of the day. Damn, more birds!