The Dog Paradise

We have now officially found the dog paradise! It's called Yelapa, and it is situated at the South end of Banderas Bay near Puerto Vallarta. Everyone living there has a dog, most likely more than one since I'm almost sure there was more dogs than people in the area. And every dog seems to also have an owner, at first I was pretty certain most of the dogs there would have been more or less stray. But to my surprise they were all in almost perfect condition, extremely friendly and loved. The second thing we found out as soon as we landed our dinghy on the beach, was that no dog was on a leash, in fact, it seemed to cause way less problems to just let ours run around than try to keep them on a leash while all these other dogs were going about their business.

And not just that, but the beach I'm talking about was not just a scroungy, rocky, desolate place but a white, sandy, beautiful beach full of restaurants and people, even some tourist tanning themselves on the beach chairs. In this place the dogs, the Mexicans, the tourist, all seemed to coexist in perfect harmony. There were no roads, in fact, everyone either walked, rode a horse, or if you were really well off, you might have a four-wheeler to get around. To leave the town you had to take a panga or some other type of boat. This not only made it safe for us and our dogs but also made it feel like we just went back in time. The pace of life was all of a sudden much slower and the things that seemed to matter didn't matter. What a wonderful feeling.

Our furry friends were not only allowed to run free on the beach but they were welcomed to hang out with us while we ate in a restaurant, of course surrounded by all the other dogs, including the cutest puppy I've seen literally in years. I cannot believe I did not get a good picture of him. I would have given quite a few items in exchange for this little fellow who followed Vanilla like a shark and Vanilla tried her best to ignore the little creature.

I was pleasantly surprised at how good our dogs behaved. I was expecting way more hazzle considering our dog's energy levels and the amount of things that were going on around them. A few incidences occurred when a couple males tried more or less kindly to persuade Vanilla in some mating games and Vanilla had trouble sending her message of "not interested". Or the time when Gin dug a hole the size of her or when Vanilla decided to dig a whole underneath the umbrella of the table that collapsed. Hole digging aside, they mostly hung out like all the other Mexican dogs going for a little swim now and then.  Vanilla even learned how to jump over the breaking waves and continue on to the deeper waters. Smart little fluffy I say.

Five days in Yelapa was way less than I would have spent there but I'm so happy I got to experience my dog paradise.