A death and a birth

There are several signs that summer, though officially several weeks away, is already making its presence known in Puerto Vallarta.  We have had our first summer storms, and today is already overcast, humid, and threatening to rain.   That is summer in PV.  It is also the time of the year when the town is pretty much empty.  The seasonal residents have fled north and the hearty stream  of vacationers has been reduced to a trickle.  It is tough on the economy here, though as most locals know, they save up during the robust high season in order to limp along during the summer.  However, that will not be the case for one local, once thriving, historic business.

For decades, there has been one supermarket that has served the entire south end of Puerto Vallarta.  And it literally had the best selection of fresh food and imports of any store in the entire city.  Gutierrez Rizo Supermarket, known simply as Rizo's to the generations of shoppers there, charged more than anyone else.  But, it was convenient, it was local, and it knew its clientele, importing food items from the U.S. that gringos craved for and that you could not find anywhere else in town (think along the lines of horseradish, Libby's canned pumpkin, cranberry sauce).  This morning comes word in the PV Mirror that yesterday, Rizo's closed.  The employees apparently were told it will not reopen.

Those who live here and have depended on Rizo's have seen a slow decline over the past couple of years.  Once a two story market, the upstairs was shut down last year.  And the shelves became increasingly bare during this past season.  There would be days when you walked in and found three cases of canned bamboo shoots stacked in the middle of the store, but no bread or eggs or beer.   Some blame the infiltration of Wal-Mart which now has two super-stores in Puerto Vallarta and began stocking a better selection of products than Rizo's at lower prices.  Others blame it on poor management of Rizo's for their apparent inability to modernize while other more trendy grocery stores were opening elsewhere in town.   Whatever the reason, a landmark is shuttered, there are no large grocery markets on the south side, and we have lost an icon of what Mexico used to be.

But as Rizo's has died, life resurfaces for a scourge of the tropics.  It happens every few years, and apparently, this is one of them.  Locals tell us they are June bugs and they are among the most disgusting of insects I have ever encountered and they have once again invaded our neighborhood.  They are hard-shelled creatures that fly like mini-bombers, the smaller ones being the size of a dime, the larger ones more like a quarter.   They come out at sunset and stick around most of the night. And they must have terrible vision because they are constantly ramming you, ramming the TV if it is on, ramming walls and chairs and anything that is in their path.  You close the windows and doors and they still find a way inside.  And perhaps the worst thing about them ... they excrete a dark red fluid that looks a lot like blood and leaves a nasty stain.  And they've got to be really stupid.   They often end up on their backs, and despite the fact they have powerful wings, they don't use them to flip themselves upright.  They will remain on their backs for hours, wiggle their legs as if by magic that will upright them.   It is not uncommon to wake up in the morning and find an army of them on the patio, appearing as though they are doing calisthenics on their back.  The good thing is, they usually don't last much longer than a couple of weeks, but while they are here, they are among the most unwanted creatures we have to endure here.

So yes, it is summer in PV.  And unfortunately, we won't be here much longer to enjoy it.  Next week, we begin the three day trek northward, leaving behind memories of Rizo's and the crunchy June bugs.

*first photo courtesy of PV Mirror, Puerto Vallarta's leading weekly English language newspaper.