A really unique RV arrived with a French family with two boys right around Olivia’s age so we stayed in the park for the day and allowed Olivia a chance to play with some kids. It was a hand-made rig made completely of wood and built on an antique firetruck body. It looked really cool. They had been in Mexico since the beginning of the year and the boys had picked up some Spanish but spoke no English. It was really cool to see two French boys and our Chinese American daughter speaking to each other in Spanish.
The park had a large trampoline which the kids really enjoyed and they wandered all over the large open areas every chance they got. Since Olivia could swim I didn’t even worry when they went onto the dock. As for Holly and I we were able to just chill and have a rest when not homeschooling Olivia.
The next day we arranged to go with the other family into town to take a boat tour of the lake. The big party boats only operated on the weekends but there were smaller boats called Lanchas which were offering boat tours for 500 pesos for a half hour or 1,000 pesos for an hour. We bargained them down to 800 pesos but ran into a problem that Covid regulations restricted the boats to six people and we had seven total. The French dad offered to stay behind and the rest of us got some snacks before hopping on the boat.
Once on the water we immediately felt we were no longer in Mexico but rather perhaps in on a Northern Italian lake. Instead of typical Mexican construction, all along the lake were fancy modern lake houses and mansions that would not be out of place in any rich lakeside town. We saw one of the moderately fancy houses, maybe three or four bedrooms with a for rent sign and asked our boat pilot how much the rent would be and he said it should be around 50,000 pesos per month or about USD$2,300. This would be a very expensive price for a Mexican house but I think it would be very cheap for a nice lakefront property in the US or Europe.
It is not until you go onto the lake itself that we understood Valle de Bravo. The center of town was nice but it is not until we saw all the fancy houses from the lake that we could comprehend how special the area was. Valle de Bravo is not just some Pueblo Magical, it is where the wealthy and powerful vacation. It is the Malibu of Mexico. After passing by a few more mansions, the boat dropped us off back at our RV park just in time to make dinner.
