I recently visited the mountain town of Mascota. The drive was gorgeous — all jungle canopies, dramatic ravines, and foggy mountain passes.

The town of Mascota itself is wonderful. Apparently it’s usually quite sleepy…their #1 attraction is the Unfinished Temple de la Preciosa Sangre. As the name implies, it is indeed an unfinished temple (actually an 19th century church, but who’s splitting hairs).

However, I picked the one day that they had a 15-100k trail race in town. Lots of exhausted runners and enthusiastic supporters in the downtown square.

Next to the finish line was an old central square and church. From there, I could see what looked like a hiking path up one of the nearby hills. Cue the trek up a hill, wondering why “Es este propiedad privada?” sprang to mind as a potentially useful Spanish phrase…

From town, I could only see a cross on top of the hill. So this was not exactly the site of worship I was expecting at the top.

But a great overlook point for town.

In summary — Mascota is fantastic, a perfect sidetrip from Vallarta. It was full of cool little nooks and crannies, like this perfect courtyard. (Actually, to be perfect it would need a cat lounging in the sun.)

Meanwhile, I returned from Mascota in time for a big event this week…my planned move to a new neighborhood in Vallarta. Not that there was anything wrong with my current rental, I was just looking for a change of scenery.

I found a rad looking place on Airbnb…a little studio that was just the right size and available for an entire month. Booked it a couple weeks ago and headed there this week to start moving things in. Arrived, took a look around, and discovered a few issues…like that the oven and stove weren’t working. And there was no hot water. And the entire apartment reeked — REEKED — of cigarettes.

…soooo I promptly turned around, swallowed my pride, and called up my former landlady, begging her to take me back. While communicating my situation, did I purposefully mis-conjugate a few verbs in hopes of showing her how helpless I was and inspiring her assistance?

Why yes. Yes I did.

Long story short, by that evening I was back in my old apartment, counting my blessings, and happy that I rented through Airbnb, so there’s an easy path to claim a refund for a misrepresented property. Adios, estudio nuevo. It wasn’t meant to be.