The Cultural Tour of Vallarta Artisans and The Puerto Vallarta Abuelos Program
This week meet Anne Marie Weiss-Armush and The Vallarta Abuelos. Buying Bicycles, Book Bags and Helping neighborhood Children in The Cinco de Diciembre Neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Hello fellow travelers, welcome this episode of the Puerto Vallarta Travel show. I am your host Barry Kessler and I am just so happy to be introducing you to my favorite vacation destination, and maybe even yours, Puerto Vallarta Mexico.
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That music you were just listening to is performed by Alberto Perez, the owner of the La Palapa Group of Restaurants. Those are La Palapa, Puerto Vallarta’s Oldest Restaurant on the famous Los Muertos Beach, and The El Dorado Restaurant and Beach Club right next door so you can enjoy that fantastic view of the Los Muertos Pier all lit up at night in beautiful colors, or during the day in its grand splendor for breakfast, lunch or dinner, seated with your toes in the sand right at the water’s edge. It’s so romantic, it’s so, Puerto Vallarta my friends.
This week I’m going to introduce you to Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, She’s an expat from the states now living in Vallarta who is making an impact in her neighborhood helping local children and families is a very special way. She will tell us about the Vallarta Abuelos and the Cultural Tour of Vallarta Artisans she does to raise money for these neighbors, but before we get to Ann Marie, Let’s see what’s happening this week in Puerto Vallarta, the 15th of November, 2019.
Brewmasters on Cuale Island November 16-17th
If you remember last week we talked with Edgar Rivas From the Brewmaster Festival. If you are in town this week, it’s here, Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th from 1 till 11:30, Drink, eat, dance and enjoy. Over 100 varieties of beer. Craft beer, so don’t miss it Cuale Island at the back at the Cultural Center. Entry is free. The beer will cost, even though you’re just renting it.
Mi Cafe Re-opens After Expansion and Remodel
Mi Café did not open last weekend, but it’s going to be open this weekend. Here are the pictures!!!
Mi Cafe Restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/DeliMiCafe/
- Address: Francisco I Madero 505 Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco 48380
- Phone: +52 322 222 1584
3rd Annual Taco Festival in Puerto Vallarta with Special Guest
If you aren’t into beer, and Tacos are your game, there is a Taco Festival, the 3rd annual Taco Festival, also on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th. The festival will be featuring 18 different taquerias cooking up our favorite tortilla wrapped delicacies. The fun starts at 2 in the afternoon and goes till 11 in the evening. It’s at the Municipal Stadium across from the Sheraton. There will be a special guest Lady Tacos de Canasta. From Mexico City, the Taco Lady is legally named Francisco Marven. and even though on Social Media she is known as Lady Tacos de Canasta or Basket Taco Lady, she introduces herself as Marvin. She’s 33 years old, wears a big smile has long black braids, rides a blue bicycle, drinks mezcal, and has a great time. I have a video of her in the shownotes, so if you go to the taco festival, make sure to look for Marvin.
Mexico Has Another Guinness World Record, Largest Taco
And speaking of tacos, a Guinness World Record was just set for the worlds largest carnitas Taco. From Mexico News Daily, Dateline..Queretero Mexico, dated November 11th,
The state of Querétaro earned the Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest carnitas taco on Sunday.
Stretching an entire city block, the enormous taco measured 102 meters long and weighed in at 1,200 kilograms of tortillas and 1,507 kilograms of seasoned pork meat.
The organizer of the event, Alejandro Paredes Reséndiz, said it began in 2011 when he made a promise to his uncle — head of the Querétaro gastronomical council — that he would make the world’s largest carnitas taco.
He researched the most consumed food product in the state and found that it was carnitas.
“I recognize that there are other states in the country, like Michoacán, where they make delicious carnitas, but here in Querétaro there are seven different styles,” he said.
He said the Guinness organizing committee had declined five previous applications for the record, waiting until event organizers had fulfilled all the requirements necessary to qualify for a world record.
“We used certified workers with history in Querétaro,” said Reséndiz. “We complied with all the regulations of the Guinness contract. All of the carnitas were made today, everyone had the proper equipment and, most importantly, we shared the food with all who attended.”
The event took eight months of planning, utilized local carnitas producers and gathered 15,000 people to witness the spectacle and then eat the results.
Guinness World Records does not award prize money, but Reséndiz said any money earned as a result of the record will be donated.
“If we earn even one peso, it will be donated to the DIF family services center, because Querétaro should be the best state in Latin America,” he said.
For Reséndiz, the achievement was not only a world record, but also a personal best.
“I broke my own record because the last taco I made was 75 meters long. It was registered, but not certified. I hope that all 15,000 people can eat. We began at six in the morning and we won’t go home until the volunteers feed the visitors until the taco is gone,” he said.
Carnitas are made by cooking the different parts of the pig in giant copper or stainless steel pots. The meat is traditionally seasoned with a mineral salt called tequesquite, but there are many different regional variations.
25th Annual International Gourmet Festival in Puerto Vallarta
The 25th edition of the International Gourmet Festival will take place from Nov. 19-24, 2019 in Puerto Vallarta, Riviera Nayarit and Tepic.
Some of the host restaurants of the Gourmet International Festival include Azafrán Restaurante Bar, Barrio Bistro, Café Des Artistes, Coco Tropical, El Dorado, Emiliano, Hector’s Kitchen, Icú, Maximilian Kaiser, La Terrazza di Rima, La Palapa, Le Kliff, River Café, Stars, Trío, Tuna Blanca, Xiklo, Andrea, Azur, Bordeaux, Divum, Eugenia, Las Casitas, La Casona, La Corona, Lucdcca, Mozza Mare and Tukipa.
The first International Gourmet Festival was held in 1995, the brainchild of renowned European chefs Thierry Blouet and Heinz Reize. Five years later, they were joined by another great chef, Roland Menetrey, and the trio would gain fame as Puerto Vallarta’s “culinary Three Musketeers.” The three chefs have since set up shop in Puerto Vallarta, where they have fallen in love with the destination’s beautiful Bay of Banderas, which they have found to be the perfect setting to fuse their refined cuisine with the ingredients that this land offers.
Six hotels and six independent restaurants participated in the first edition of the IGF, and it is estimated that more than 23,000 people have participated in the festival’s many activities. The original format of the festival remains unchanged: Each participating restaurant invites a celebrity from the world of culinary arts, so that diners enjoy this extraordinary fusion of chef and destination.
For more information on the International Gourmet Festival, please visit www.festivalgourmet.com
L’ angolo di Napoli is Open for Lunch
L’ angolo di Napoli is open for lunch now and I’m so very happy. Up till now they had been strictly an evening place opening at 5 I believe. Well now they will be open for lunch hours. Let me read from their Facebook page….
New LUNCH menú at L’Angolo di Napoli!! We will now be in service from 11am till 3pm with a lunch menu and our regular dinner menu from 3pm till 11pm!! We also deliver!!
So, so happy. Stop and see Agostino and Ali and have some Italian for lunch or dinner.
More Than 30,000 Snowbirds Coming to Vallarta
More than 30,000 foreign residents will arrive in Puerto Vallarta during the winter period, to stay an average of three months in residential homes and condos owned by the winter traveler or rented through online platforms, according to Ramón González Lomelí, municipal director of tourism.
Lomelí noted that this year “there were security situations sadly for some destinations and favorable for Puerto Vallarta, a destination strengthened as a number one travel option, we have been talking and planning strategies, and have been working all this year just to work on the negative image generated by some parts of Mexico, the first was insecurity, the second was the sargassum and the third is that right now Puerto Vallarta is staying attractive by This, he said, greatly affects the other destinations, however, and fortunately, he said that Puerto Vallarta has been recognized as a very safe place, which has allowed an important number of foreign residents to remain in the city for extended times.
Starting November, he said that a large number of foreign tourists have been seen to arrive, and even hotel occupancy is around 62 percent, which is surpassed by the condominium occupation that is currently above 80 percent.
“Right now, the condominium and residential offer has generated such interest that we already have many foreigners in Puerto Vallarta, and if last year we reached around 33,000 foreign residents during most of the five or six month season, now I think we are going to exceed that because every day we are increasing the offer of condominiums. ”
Lomelí insisted, many long-stay tourists are arriving at the destination, and many of the snowbirds range between 45 and 60 years old with very good economic potential.
For this reason, currently you can see in the restaurants of the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood a large influx of foreign visitors, mainly from the United States and Canada, and not only in this area but this same situation can be seen in Marina Vallarta.
In this context, González Lomelí pointed out that although last year at this time the hotel occupation was almost 80 percentage points and today it is lower, the reality is that the destination, in general, is around 85 percent occupied, this insisted, derived from the high number of visitors staying in condominiums and residential homes.
The report is positive for Puerto Vallarta and especially because winter travelers are largely outside of the all-inclusive hotels, these people go out and consume in the town, being an economic advantage for all sectors of the city.
Finally, he said that undoubtedly Puerto Vallarta will live a splendid winter season, “because we are still very presumptuous in the fact that everything is safe and very clean, and that is giving us a very good incentive,” he concluded.
rates”.
More than 30,000 snowbirds expected to arrive in Puerto Vallarta
Okay, let’s get to the interview.
The Cultural Tour of Vallarta Artisans and The Vallarta Abuelas
If you listen to the podcast you already know we talk with all sorts of people on the show from local Puerta Vallarta natives, Pata Salada, as well as expats from all over
the world. Mostly from the US and Canada, but all over the world for sure. Many if the people we meet are looking to retire, live the easy life on the beach sipping margaritas and Pina coladas, and others who get involved with the local community in one way or another. Volunteering at local orphanages, beautifying the city through
the Garden Club, giving back helping raise funds for Biblioteca Los Mangos, the big library here. We’ve met a lot of different people haven’t we, all doing their part, giving back in their own ways.
Well this lady you are about to meet, has taken this giving back to the community to a whole other level.
Her name is Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, and she represents a group known as the Vallarta Abuelos which she will explain that Abuelos is the word for grandparents in Spanish. The Abuelos raise money for the neighbor children in need.
What I loved about this conversation, is how in depth Anne Marie takes us into the lives of the Mexican families, the people in Vallarta, who we as tourists and snowbirds and
resident expats interact with on a daily basis. Anne Marie talks about the special challenges parents have to make ends meet and about the struggle to educate their children.
I don’t want to tell you the whole story. I want Anne Marie to tell you, so let’s go right now to the Cinco de Diciembre Neighborhood of Puerto Vallarta, and to a lovely home, sitting on a corner where the door is open and hope abounds, and let’s meet the lady herself, Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, from Vallarta Abuelos and the Cultural Tour of Vallarta Artisans…
Listen to The Podcast
Wow, who knew the challenges of the common Vallartense getting their children educated.
Contact information for The Cultural Tour of Vallarta Artisans and The Vallarta Abuelos Program
- Cultural Tour Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AnneMarieWeissInMexico/
- Vallarta Abuelos Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/VallartaAbuelos/
Suggestions From Anne Marie Weiss-Armush
Favorite Restaurants
Three Day Trip From Vallarta:
Guadalajara for Shopping
- Tonala for The Christmas Market and Artisan Shopping
- The Plaza in Telequipaque
- San Juan de Dios Market in Guadalajara
It’s great to know that we can help in a number of ways. The best way it seems is to take that great tour, The Cultural tour, or go to the Abuelos page to give money for bicycles and Book backpacks.
Also, I just heard they are looking for PFDs personal floatation devices, life vests for kids to take sailing lessons. So if you have a decent life vest you can bring and donate, they can use them.
I have links to all the things Anne Marie talked about in the shownotes.
Okay that should do it for this week.
Next week, stay tuned for more on the ground reports from Puerto Vallarta Mexico, with travel tips, great restaurant and excursion ideas and more. Until then, remember, this is an interactive show where I depend on your questions and suggestions about all things Puerto Vallarta. If you think of something I should be talking about, please
reach out to me by clicking on the Contact us tab and sending us your message.
And remember, if you are considering booking any type of tour while you are in Puerto Vallarta, you must go to Vallartainfo.com, JR’s website and reserve your tour through him, right from his website. Remember the value for value proposition. His
experience and on the ground knowledge of everything Puerto Vallarta in exchange for your making a purchase of a tour that you would do anyway, you’re just doing it through him as a way of saying thank you. It costs no more than if you were to use someone else so do it. Really. And when you do take one of these tours, email me
about your experiences. Maybe you can come on-board and share with others what you liked or didn’t like about the tour. Again, contact me by clicking on the Contact us tab and sending off a message. Don’t forget his maps, his DIY tours and his revitalized Happy Hour Board. I have links to all of those in the show notes.
And once again, if you like this podcast, please take the time and subscribe and give me a good review on iTunes if you would. That way we can get the word out to more and more people about the magic of this place. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Remember I
made it easy for you to do just that with each episode I create. But if you haven’t been to my website, you really need to have a look there. I have the links to the places we talk about, interesting pictures and the more all right there in my blog-posts and show-notes for each episode of the show so check them out for sure if you haven’t already all-right? All right.
If you are in town make sure to make the Brewmasters festival, the taco festival and meet Marvin the Taco Lady. The Gourmet Festival too. And Thanks to you Anne Marie Weiss-Armush, check out the Thursday Artisan Tour. Like the Facebook page
to get notifications. Check out the Vallarta Abuelos. Help them buy bikes and bags. I have links in the show notes. And thanks to all of you for listening all the way through this episode of the Puerto Vallarta Travel Show. This is Barry Kessler signing off with a wish for you all to slow down, be kind and live the Vallarta lifestyle. Nos Vemos amigos!