Puerto Vallarta dream

The dream opens in Mexico. I've been here before but it's been a long time and the place has changed considerably. It was always a bit artistic but now it's entirely artistic. The whole town is given over to decorating their open ended stalls, their rented places of business, with whatever is at hand and in various typical Mexican styles, drawing on their own history, their mythology, their religion, their tribes, and their music. Our path is upward. My little traveling group passes naturally occurring geologic spires such as stalagmites but without any overhanging stalactites to create them, the ground pushed upward somehow as mini eruptions.

We keep walking. The road is rounded river stones set into concrete. The sort of thing that would be incredibly slippery under ice, but there is never any ice, still, it's not possible to have any traction. It's a terrible idea for road material, and of course it would be impossible to walk in high heels. As we go I realize these geologic spires have been decorated. They've been carved. The first group had ghoulish faces carved into them with little eyes rudimentarily as pumpkins, a crude artistic effort

But as we progressed up the road another group of similar spirals were carved more elaborately in the style of Aztec or Mayan Indians. I stopped to admire the folk art. I looked around more closely and realized the entire town is onto this tourism attraction. They decided that is the way to go for economic development, each will do their own part. Each stall voluntarily did what they could to do, something, anything, that would make their individual spot more interesting. The doorways were carved, the lintels were carved and painted, the window trims were all carved uniquely in their own style. The road was inlayed decoratively, the poles were trimmed with design elements.

The doors were carved, the window frames painted all different colors. The whole place was a riot of homestyle decoration. More than for a holiday, these were all more permanent. The tiny yards held interesting objects, the bushes were trimmed out into topiaries, the gardens were filled with exotic plants including cacti, all architectural elements were carved with interlocking geometric designs. The roofs were made to be interesting. When I realized this effort was communal I knew that I missed a lot of interesting elements so I backtracked to the bottom to take it all in more carefully with fuller more complete comprehension and to photograph the whole road and all elements on each side. 

A sudden gust kicked up like a dust devil and delivered a fine brown talc-like powder dust that completely jammed my little camera, smaller than my Nikon, larger than my phone. I examined the camera, distressed and amazed with the amount of dust packed inside it. I blew out dust from tiny spaces but even more dust was packed in. Blowing it out would be impossible. The lens was packed with dust and smeared. The internal mechanisms were were completely packed tight with compacted dust that kept pouring out no matter how much I tapped it out, it just kept pouring out. It would not be possible to photograph the new homespun wondrous art of the new Puerto Vallarta. 

One of the co-travelers urged us to attend a party.

The party is hosted by an expatriate American, an author who hit it big and whose new money goes much further in Mexico. He's invited a very broad collection of weirdos and crackpots. One person in our group knows about this party but none of us were actually invited. The friend urged us to go check it out.

What the heck.

We walked to the sprawling home made of claptrap materials. From the outside it appeared as a collection of wooden shacks. It was not like a millionaire's castle, rather, more like a millionaire's shamble. 

Before going in a small creature approached. Tiny and thin with its arm reaching upward like a child seeking to be picked up. The creature implored to be adopted. We demurred. The creature insisted. We said it would be impossible. The creature continued to insist we are selfish, becoming hostile it stated flatly that we can do anything that we want but we're just too selfish to try. The creature had it in its mind that we are morally required to repair it condition and not doing so makes us evil. Then other creatures appeared that really were sinister. They looked like newborn puppies but they were actually vicious. They attacked. I smashed one of their heads with intention of killing it but it was so squishy that its bulk shifted and I actually smashed it's paw. We got away from them and entered the author's interconnected rooms as a collection of shacks. 

Once again, I am separated from my fellow travelers.

This is another frustration dream. It's all about trying to find my friends. It's a very typical type of dream. I'm going through rooms looking for my friends. 

Each room that I look into and scan holds a party of a specific type of people. Goths, mohawk hair having people, musicians, actors, philosophers, each room is filled with exceedingly strange people. None of them appreciate me looking in and scanning their room.

"What do you want?"

"Shut up. I'm looking for my friends." 

Another room.

"Stop looking at us."

"Piss off, it's not about you." 

People in each room were actually hostile. They were partying among themselves but not as a unified party. They drink. They smoke. They do toot coke, they shoot drugs. They rebel. They fancy themselves superior to everyone else. It occurs to me this is a massive joke experiment put on by the host. I never did see him. He collected the people together to create hostility between them. To prove they cannot mix. I left the house and passed the creatures again, dealt with their pathetic imploring again, walked up a hill with a single friend and looked down from above upon the roofs of the shamble of poorly constructed shacks. The collection of houses amounted to a small community maze.

in

out

Oops. Wrong picture. Apologies. I made another mistake again. My bad. Stupid, stupid, stupid. One of these days I'll learn to be more careful. Oh well. Still works. It'll do. The houses and rooms looked exactly like this.