Restaurant Le Bistro Serves French Cuisine for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner in a Romantic Comfortable Setting on Isla Cuale in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Restaurant Le Bistro is a Classic Riverside Puerto Vallarta Favorite which has been Lovingly Restored by Grupo La Palapa
A Visit with Lisa and Billy, Volunteers at RISE, a Shelter for Children in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
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Hello fellow travelers, welcome to 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, in fact my new home, and maybe even yours too and that’s Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
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 we go to Isla Cuale for the Grand Opening of Restaurant Le Bistro. We are going to La Isla Cuale to Visit with Sofia Boettner, Director of Sales and Marketing, and Group Events and Customer Service at Grupo La Palapa. Sofia will tell us all about this beautiful riverside Restaurant on the Rio Cuale brought back to life, in all it’s glory, and then some by the folks at Grupo La Palapa.
I stopped in to catch up with our friends Lisa and Billy at one of our favorite children’s shelters in Vallarta, Rise, Refugio Infantil Santa Esperanza. They have some events coming right up as well as some wants and needs.
We have Vallarta news and more. Let’s see what’s happening this week in Puerto Vallarta, the 9th of December, 2024.
Contact Information For Restaurant Le Bistro in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Address: Isla Rio Cuale 16-16A Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco México 48380
- Phone: (322) 104-8863
- Website: https://www.lebistropv.com/
Contact Information For RISE in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Address: Ricardo Flores Magón 251, Colonia Benito Juarez, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Phone: 322 332 5480
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/risepv
- Website: RISE PV .COM
Processions Guadalupena in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Puerto Vallarta is in the midst of the Possessions Guadalupena, which are the first 12 days of December, leading up to Christmas.
I talked about it last time we got together and about how the neighborhood we are currently living in was getting ready for their scheduled time when they were going to join in on the procession, and they were making by hand, their headdresses, known as penachos, which they were going to wear in the processions.
Now this is the first time for us to be in Vallarta during Christmas. So we’ve obviously never experienced these 12 days. And living directly above the Church, as we are now, I’ll share with you our experiences. At 6 every morning, along with the church
bells ringing at the Inglesia de Santa Cruz on the other side of our hill, the church bells start ringing…and it sounds like this…
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That goes on for about a minute or so. So, if you had too much to drink the night before, well, sorry about that. But that’s not all because they, the they, someone who’s in charge of waking the dead, shoots off one, two or three of these big bottle rockets or something, right over the church, which sound like an M80 or a shotgun going off. What a great job, right?
The ringing goes on every 15 or thirty minutes or so during the day and night. Things get really busy at night around the Woolworths Downtown on Juarez. They close off the streets and parade down to the church. All of the side streets have tables set up with food, and drink, and sweets being sold by different organizations associated with the church. The food tables are everywhere. Some of it is pretty good too.
So what happens is these different Catholic church organizations around town have been doing this drill for years. Each group is scheduled for a day and a time to march in the processions. So lots of these groups, you can see them marching together through town, from their colonia, to the parade starting spot downtown, near Woolworths.
Many of the groups have a couple of people holding a banner so you know what group or colonia they are from. Most of the groups have a drum player, or a group of drummers. And almost all of them have dancing groups of costumed Aztec Dancers,
Girls, boys, men and women from these Catholic neighborhood groups have created a dance troupe dressed with handmade native Aztec costumes with handmade, and often, ornate feathered headdresses, known as penachos. They wore wooden nuts
or hollow beads around their ankles that made a rattling sound as they walked and danced, and most of them were barefoot. You’ve actually seen folks dressed up like this all around the tourist areas for years, dancing and collecting tips. I have a picture of some from our first trip to Vallarta in 1984, so yes, you know what I’m talking about. They dress like that. And Dance like that too.
These groups of dancers were accompanied by a float of some kind with a large lifelike or in most cases, a real live, Virgin of Guadalupe person or statue in the back of a truck for example. You have to hold your breath watching the trucks, or the floats start and stop and jolt with these live virgins in the back. Each group will have members of the community/ that colonia, wearing white shirts and blouses and dark colored pants and dresses, lined up in the procession, walking in unison, holding candles and singing a song as they walked along Juarez.
Our group from up in El Cerro gathered together at Emiliano Carranza and Aldama. They had mostly young ladies, like pre-teen girls doing the Aztec dance with their handmade penachos. They had a group of mariachis and a singing group accompanying
them. Lots of the neighbors joined in the procession. They also had one of those truck virgin floats. It was a big group. And we followed them down to the starting point. It was lots of fun. So the drill is, that each of these groups heads down Juarez, stopping
every so often to do their dance routine, which can take two to three minutes, till they get to the church. The Inglesia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. They do their last dance, and then the church bells ring, and the whole group, the whole colonia, go inside the church where I’m not sure what happens in there. But I’m guessing holy water is involved.
If someone knows, let me know will ya?
It’s quite a sight. It’s loud, and crazy, and it happens for 12 days and nights, in Puerto Vallarta. Jesus bombs, included.
Juan Diego Day December 9th
So today is feast day, for Saint Juan Diego. That’s right, it’s Juan Diego Day and it was way back on December 9th, 1531, the day that Juan Diego met the Virgin of Guadalupe for the first time.
Born in 1474 in Cuauhtitlán, Mexico, Juan Diego belonged to the poorest and most numerous class of the Aztecs, besides that of the slaves that is.
Juan Diego spoke in Náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs.
A fun fact, if you notice his birthdate, Juan Diego was born 18 years before Columbus sailed to America. He was baptized by a Franciscan missionary in 1524 at the age of fifty. He became a farmer, and 7 years later, in 1531, he saw the Virgin Mary on Tepeyac Hill. So Juan Diego was no spring chicken when he met the Virgin.
The story in a nutshell is that Juan Diego was walking to church, a mere 14 mile walk from his home, as he did often as he was a devout Catholic convert, and he was approached by the Virgin Mary who introduced herself to him and asked him if he would go to the monastery and tell the bishop that we had this little talk and I want him to build a Church up on Tepeyac Hill so the people could come to know her and she could quell their suffering.
So Juan went to the Bishop that same day, and told him his story, and the Bishop said he’s think about it.
So Juan goes back up to Tepeyac where he finds the Virgin and tells her what the bishop said. He told her that because he wasn’t important enough, a mere native, perhaps she should send someone more important who the bishop would actually listen to. And she said no, you’re my guy. Go back. Which he did, the very next day. This time the bishop seemed more open to Juan Diego and he said look, bring me some proof that you saw the Virgin.
So again, Juan Diego goes back to Tepeyac, and says the bishop needs some proof. So, she says okay, come back tomorrow and we’ll work something out.
But when Juan Diego got home, he found his ailing uncle, Juan Bernardo, was really sick. And the next morning, the 12th of December, it looked like ol Juan Bernardo might be dead in a couple of hours. So, Juan Diego snuck around another way to look for a priest to give his uncle his final rights. He knew that he had this mission with the Virgin, but he needed to attend to his uncle. So off he went in search of a priest when he runs into the Virgin again. And she’s like, what the heck. And he tells her about his uncle, and she says look, don’t worry about your uncle, he’s already feeling better. Go up on that hill and pick some flowers and bring them back to me. I’ll take care of your uncle.
So Juan Diego went up the hill where she instructed him to go and to his surprise, in the middle of winter on a hill with cactus and scrub brush, he found beautiful roses which he collected in his shawl, or tilma as they call it, and brought them back to the Virgin who rearranged the roses in the cloak, and handed them to Juan Diego and said now take these to the Bishop and tell him I want a church. So, Juan Diego went back and appeared once again before the bishop where he opened his tilma, the roses spilled out on the floor, and the imprint of the Virgin de Guadalupe appeared on the cloak.
The church was built, and that was said that this was the moment that Catholicism melded with the native Indian culture. The Virgin spoke to Juan Diego in his native tongue and wanted Juan Diego, a low caste Aztec to carry the message to the biship. And the reason you see the dancers wearing the penachos the ancient Aztec head dress and the pilgrimages in Mexico and bringing that all into the church. It’s fascinating.
Juan Diego’s Tilma is still visible in Mexico City at the Basilica of Guadalupe.
As for Juan Diego, he lived the rest of the days as a hermit in a hut, built near the Basilica de Guadalupe.
So happy Juan Diego Day Everybody.
Very Good Email About Losing A Passport
I received a very interesting email from listener Susan, and I think the information she sent me can come in handy for someone listening at one point or another. Back on Nov 6, Susan wrote:
Hello Barry!
I had planned on emailing you to tell you about all the fun we’ve had and all the recommendations were used from your show! I still will after we get home.
But, our friend who we’re traveling with lost her passport yesterday. We are in Yelapa but headed today back to PV. We listened again to your podcast about Mitch and what he went thru to get a new passport. We’re supposed to fly out on Thursday, tomorrow! So I’m wondering if you have a person you can recommend who can help us navigate all this? Maybe get info from Mitch or a local person? We’ve tried calling the consulate, with no success. Trying to get any information if we can get an emergency passport? Something sooner than 2 weeks?
Thank you in advance!
Susan
So I sent some messages out to some friends who I thought might be able to help Susan, and followed up with an email of my own to her, and here’s what I got back. It’s very informative and full of good info. Here goes…
Susan writes back,
Hey Barry,
Thank you so much for your reply! I wanted to tell you what happened! I’ll give you a shortened version.
So, my friend who lost her passport, Tina, called Delta because she couldn’t get anyone at any embassy or consulate to answer the phone. The first Delta agent she spoke to said to just arrive to the Delta desk and show the photograph she had of her passport there and they would go ahead and let her fly. We then got a suggestion that she better go to the consulate in Nuevo Vallarta and speak to them directly as we were flying out the next day Thursday, today! So, we packed up and jumped on the 9:30am boat from Yelapa back to PV where she and her husband took an Uber to Nuevo, no problems! The agent there said yes, that Delta would let her fly with the passport photo, just to arrive extra early there. They then took a taxi back to PV because it ended up being cheaper than Uber, but took the taxi back with no problems. So this morning she arrived early and all they did was take a photo of her passport photo and sent the pix to Custom & Border Patrol for approval. Then they printed the picture of the passport photo and handed it to her and that was it. She had previously entered her passport information on her Delta app. When we got to Atlanta, they took her picture at Customs and then waved her thru.
We were told that this is a new procedure that at least Delta is doing for it’s passengers that’s been in place for the last year. We were so relieved!
I’ll send you another email about some fantastic restaurants we discovered…. But we did enjoy La Palapa, Gusto Lounge, the Botanical Gardens & did our souvenir shopping last night at Alfarería Tlaquepaque!
But, you were our tour guide and I thank you for all the good info!
Oh & no one got Montezuma’s Revenge!
Thanks again,
Susan
Well, thanks again Susan!
What an ordeal, but handled well, don’t you think?
It’s a wonder they need a passport at all with all the face recognition stuff they are using at the airports nowadays. We scan our passports to get our baggage claim tickets. We enter our passport information when we buy our tickets online. But it was very lucky she had a photo of her passport with her. Maybe not such a bad thing to have on your phone just in case.
Always Carry a Form of Identification While in Puerto Vallarta
Just remember, they don’t like you to have a color photo of your passport with you traveling around Mexico. Although rules change almost every day around here, I still think it’s wise to carry a black and white copy of your passport photo page with you.
That being said, you should always carry some form of ID with you when you travel, just in case you get hit by a bus, or are incapacitated in some way, you should have a card or a piece of paper with you, on your person with your name, your address, a contact person’s phone number and email. At minimum. If you are traveling, I hope you have travelers’ insurance. Carry a copy of the policy, or a printout of your policy card they emailed to you. It does you no good, if nobody can find it.
Marty, Why Not Change The beginning of the Show?
I got a message from my friend Marty. Marty has been on the show a couple of times. Marty is with the Lion’s Club in Indiana and
he and his wife Jeanine are very involved with their eyeglass program where they come down to different parts of Mexico, and fit people up for eyeglasses. It’s a very special thing the Lions do. Marty wanted to know when I was going to change the beginning of the show now that we’ve moved to Puerto Vallarta. I mean, he has a point in that we aren’t vacationing here anymore, and the introduction music has us flying in every week, but I don’t want to change any of that really.
The fact is, that the whole idea of the show was to give listeners ideas of places and experiences that they should try, local or visitor. Lots of you live in Vallarta who listen to the show. Maybe not full time like all year. Maybe 5 or 6 months out of the year, but we all need new things to do, and new food, or drink or places to experience.
So I don’t want to change this to a here’s what it’s like to live here show. I want to keep it as a Puerto Vallarta is a cool, diverse spot with lots of things for visitors to do. It’s easy, let me show you how, kind of show.
By the way we had a lovely meal and margaritas at our favorite margarita place, San Lucas with Marty Jeanine and their friends last week. Good times for sure.
We Almost Have Our Residency for Mexico
With that in mind, Debbie and I are almost done with our residency. The week before Thanksgiving we went back to Los Angeles to pick up some belongings, visit family and friends and do paperwork to prepare for our flight to Phoenix Arizona where we sat for our interview for the Temporary Residency, and were successful. Our next step is within the next week or so, so, hopefully soon, I can tell you the whole story we’ve been holding back, till it’s all final. So hang in there. I know I promised we’d fill you in on the process and how we did it and how it went for us but it’s not over yet. So stand by. We’re very excited. Very Excited.
Meet and Greet with JR
I’m very excited to be crashing JR’s Meet up at Nacho Daddy tomorrow, Tuesday the 10th of December at the famous Nacho Daddy in Zona Romantica. JR’s usual spot for his famous Meet-up that happens every Tuesday at 6:30. I’ll bring my recording equipment with me if anyone wants to tell us what they’ve been doing, or plan to do during their stay in Puerto Vallarta, we want to know what it is. If you have a business or a charity you’d like to share with my listeners I want to hear from you. So don’t be shy, come spill the beans on the Podcast. Let us know what you do, what you like to do, how you like and what you like in paradise, in Puerto Vallarta. So see you Tuesday December 10 at 6:30 at Nacho Daddy, Bassillio Badillo 287, Colonia Emiliano Zapata, lovingly known as Zona Romantica, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. JR goes from 6:30 till 8:30. See you there.
New Anti-Vaping Laws Coming to Mexico
The Mexican Congress is going after vaping again. The law will prohibit all vaping in Mexico including fines. I’ll talk about it more next week. The law hasn’t taken effect yet, in fact they don’t expect that it will be implemented for at least a year. But I’ll talk about it more in-depth next week, as I said. The same goes for the new port tax. Wow..lots of new impuestos. New Taxes.
Whale Watching Season Starting in Puerto Vallarta
It is whale watching season here in Vallarta, well, it’s just getting started with the first pods of humpback whales coming into the Bahia de Banderas. And we saw our first whales today as a matter of fact, from our balcony.
Now we are currently in our third place since we moved to Puerto Vallarta the beginning of September.
Our first place we stayed was for a month at an Airbnb in Conchas Chinas, the Beverly Hills of Puerto Vallarta. It was a beautiful, peaceful, for the most part, kind of place. It was a steal for the month of September because, it was the month of September. But it was beautiful. Open air, open to the bay. Just beautiful.
The second place again was open air where the whole front of the unit, had no doors or windows, just like the first one, and that one, was, is in El Cerro, the neighborhood above the big church. It’s way up here. From here, you can see the whole Romantic
zone, and the mountains around and across. It’s a beautiful view from here. I’d say the best view in Vallarta if you go to the rooftop, which is now where we are till just after New Years, when we’ll be moving across from where we are now to the Colonia Alta Vista, up where Casa Isabel is. And we plan to be up there for some time. At least that’s the plan. But we’ll talk more about that next week or the following week, when the paperwork is done and I can safely talk about the whole experience.
I would recommend the place we are in to any lover of Vallarta, but you need to be able to do stairs…just saying.
I’ll try to have videos of the places and Airbnb links for you in the show notes. If you don’t see them today, the day I post the podcast, the 9th of December 2024, come back the next day and I’ll have them there for you. But thanks to our Airbnb host Lars for all of your help, and for hooking us up with the rooftop palapa studio we are currently in now. It’s amazing amigo!
RISE: A Children’s Shelter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Okay, let’s get to our first interview. Let’s talk with Billy and Lisa at RISE which is an acronym for Refugio Infantil Santa Esperanza. Rise is a children’s shelter. Kind of like an orphanage, but not really. In Mexico, it’s very rare that a child is orphaned
because families are so large. If a child becomes homeless, or parentless, an aunt or uncle usually steps in. So these kids come from families who for the most part, have been deemed unable to care properly for a child. Maybe abuse, maybe drug addiction. So these kids have a home at RISE. A home with structure. A safe place. And Lisa and Billy are angles on Earth, the way they care about these kids.
RISE, like so many charities are always are raising funds to keep their projects going and alive. Let’s see what fundraisers they have planned, and let’s see how you can help them…
Debbie and I traveled over to Rise, which is on Calle Florex Magon in Colonia Benito Juarez, across the Librimiento from Colonia Remance, where Lisa gave us a tour, and then we had a talk about what’s happening at RISE Refugio Infantil Santa Esperanza, a children’s shelter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
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Thank you so much Lisa and Billy. That event Lisa was talking about, the Leave it to Cleavage one at Arte Vallarta Theater is again Friday December 13th at 8pm, and December the 14th also at 8 PM.
I have all the info for all those upcoming events, in the show notes.
Contact Information For RISE in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Address: Ricardo Flores Magón 251, Colonia Benito Juarez, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Phone: 322 332 5480
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/risepv
- Website: RISE PV .COM
Restaurante Le Bistro on Isla Cuale in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Next up, we go to an old time favorite restaurant of mine, and my wife’s dating all the way back to our first visit in 1984, 40 years ago. At that time, Le Bistro Jazz Café was the finest restaurant in Vallarta. It was elegant, it was romantic, and the food was
lovely. Jazz on the river morning and night. I even have a photo of my wife and I, taken in front of Le Bistro some 40 years ago. I’ll put it in the show notes as well.
Well, I’ve been telling you, Grupo La Palapa has been doing incredible restoration work at the old Le Bistro on Isla Cuale, and it’s stunning. And as I promised you last time we met, I have with us an old friend of the show, Sofia Boettner. Sofia is the Director of
Sales and Marketing, and Group Events and Customer Service at Grupo La Palapa, and we first spoke with Sofia way back
November of 2017 when we talked about the other five properties of Grupo La Palapa. La Palapa, on Los Muertos Beach with The El Dorado Restaurant and Beach Club right next door. La Troza, the Villa on the beach on the way to Las Animas. Well now Sofia is back to tell us all about what to expect when you come visit this classic, brought back to life. So let’s go the the Isla Cuale just below the newly built Insurgentes Bridge in Colonia Emiliano Zapata in the Zona Romantica, it’s Restaurant Le Bistro, by Grupo La Palapa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
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Contact Information For Restaurant Le Bistro in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
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- Address: Isla Rio Cuale 16-16A Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco México 48380
- Phone: (322) 104-8863
- Website: https://www.lebistropv.com/
Thank you so much Sofia. Thanks for helping us put the finishing touches on this classic, beautiful restaurant.
Le Bistro is now open for dinner, and lunch and breakfast just starting to get that rolling. Sofia told me that they will be having that classic Eggs Benedict on a croissant for breakfast. The chef is on it. The food is amazing and the place, the venue is just
stunning. So beautiful, so, Puerto Vallarta my friends! I have all the information for Le Bistro, in the show notes. And thank you again to La Palapa for the great food, and locations, and the song for my theme music. Thanks Alberto Perez.
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 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 follow share with a lover of Puerto Vallarta or give me a good review wherever or however you happen to be listening. 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.
Thank you to Lisa Manoogian and Billy Pilowaski from RISE. Refugio Infantil Santa Esperanza. Lend them a hand by donating
some time or money to this very worthy cause. Check out their upcoming events in the show notes. And thank you so much to Sofia Boettner from Le Bistro Restaurant riverside dining on Isla Cuale in the heart of Vallarta. Breakfast Lunch or Dinner dine in elegance as only you would expect from Grupo La Palapa. I also have links and maps in the for Le Bistro in the show notes at www.puertovallartatravelshow.com .
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.