Actor and comedian Chris Tucker visited the Mexican port of Puerto Vallarta this week while vacationing with his son and girlfriend Cynne Simpson a news host at Fox5 Atlanta.

The “Rush Hour” star stayed at Puerto Vallarta’s Casa Velas Resort and enjoyed dinner at some of the destination’s most popular restaurants including Café des Artistes. During the daytime, the trio enjoyed eco and water adventures across the Sierra Madre and Bay of Banderas with local tour operator Canopy River.

Puerto Vallarta has long been a Hollywood favorite, from its conception as an international tourism destination, with the arrival of A-list celebrities like Richard Burton, Ava Gardner who went to Puerto Vallarta to film John Huston’s“The Night of the Iguana” in Mismaloya, located in Vallarta’s southern coast, as well as then superstar Elizabeth Taylor and author Tennessee Williams. Since then, hundreds of stars have descended on Puerto Vallarta’s shores to enjoy this unique destination, most recently Sofia Vergara, Eva Langoria, as well as Academy Award Winners Kate Winslet and Bradley Cooper and nominee Ralph Prosper (War Witch).

As part of its Public Relations campaign in the US and Canada, the Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board and its agency, LATITUDE, have worked on numerous activities with celebrities, including being a part of last year's Academy Award celebrations by giving out over 100 stays to television and film celebrities.

[readon1 url="http://www.visitpuertovallarta.com/blog/press/chris-tucker-vacations-in-puerto-vallarta/#.U8KWyfldXKB"]Source:www.visitpuertovallarta.com[/readon1]

The series Mi Vida En Sayulita (My Life in Sayulita) is now available to the thousands of Hispanic followers that are subscribed to this popular on-demand Internet streaming medium.

Entries are open until August 1 to participate in the contest "Miss Puerto Vallarta 2014", a competition where the beauty has a purpose, meet distinguished woman representing our city's virtues: joy, affection, personality and intelligence.

The all-inclusive Hard Rock hotels in Cancun, Riviera Nayarit and the Riviera Maya as well as the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, are reporting success with WOW, the Weddings on the Water travel agent specialist program launched last fall.

The popular young model/actress/dancer/singer Bella Thorne spent a week at the Hard Rock Hotel Vallarta, generating plenty of publicity among her millions of followers.

The popular young star, Bella Thorne, spent her vacation days from July 3 – 7 at the Hard Rock Hotel Vallarta in Nuevo Vallarta, Riviera Nayarit.

The actress, model, dancer and singer spent a few days in Mexico’s Pacific Treasure accompanied by her friend and her boyfriend, according to the many pictures they posted on their social media accounts.
The singer of “Call it Whatever” from her eponymous album is beloved among trendy US teens.

Known mainly for her role as CeCe Jones in Disney Channel’s Shake It Up, she’s already been cast in over 15 movies and 10 TV series in the United States.

Bella and her friends dove into the ecotours offered around the destination, including ATV and boat rides, which she amply documented on her social media profiles. They also thoroughly enjoyed Mexican wrestling, or lucha libre, during the “Ring & Rock StAAArs2” event, held at the hotel.

Bella boasts nearly 9 million followers on her Facebook account—where her current profile pic is her likeness on the cover of Seventeen Magazine. During the interview she dishes all about finding the confidence to go after her dreams.

Her popularity is assured given the amazing number of followers she also has on Twitter, approximately 5.5 million, with another nearly 3 million on Instagram.

Last but not least, her YouTube channel has over 6.8 million followers; her single has about 80 thousand likes to date.

When she left the resort she posted on her 5-million-strong Twitter account (@bellathorne): “Had an AMAZING vacation at the Hard Rock Puerto Vallarta.” Among other comments, she also asserted in Spanish “¡México es impresionante!”.

This young lady’s visit is witness to the every-growing popularity of the destination with celebrities, and it indirectly dovetails with the exposure the Riviera Nayarit is now working on within its natural markets. It also strengthens the younger market segment, which is in perfect alignment with the Hard Rock Hotel’s offer.

Words cannot express the joy that I felt earlier this month as the last panels of the roof to the Vallarta Conservatory of Mexican Orchids were installed and construction completion became a matter of just a few small details. A project that began as a vision shared by just a small core group of supporters has built widespread interest among the Vallarta community and well beyond from people of all walks of life. While plant enthusiasts and conservationists are perhaps the most obvious of those this type of work appeals to, it has also become a source of inspiration for those involved with local art, culture, and as well as those who just plain love Mexico and wish it to benefit from a world-class conservatory which we have all worked so hard to create. Those of you who have helped through contributions of funds, time, expertise, and labor please accept my deep thanks for your support once again on behalf of the entire VBG community.

For those who will be around on July 26th, please join us in the dedication of this new facility’s main stairway in memory of the late Mexican orchid researcher Roberto González Tamayo. I hope to see you there or at one of the other events we have this month… or any other day you have a chance to visit next!

Without the direct government funding that many of the other “TOP 10 Gardens in North America Worth Traveling For” receive, we thank our members and donors for allowing us to continue our mission, “to create Mexico’s foremost botanical garden for the discovery, study, propagation, conservation and display of native and exotic plants for the enjoyment of Puerto Vallarta’s residents and our visitors.

To those of you in Puerto Vallarta, please come up to the mountains and visit us soon; to those of you in other places, keep Mexico in your hearts!

From the Gardens,
Bob Price, Curator and Founder

[readon1 url="https://www.vbgardens.org/july-2014-leaflet/#curator"]Source:www.vbgardens.org[/readon1]

The video titled ¡Dios bendiga a Sayulita! (God Bless Sayulita!) is the first of four that will be published on his social networks, where he has a following of over 120 thousand fans. His videos already have nearly six million views.

Real Housewives orange county shannon vicki brooks ayers mexico vacation    

Posted by Brianna Creter on 07/01/2014 at 7:48 PM Recaps

The Popdust Files: bravo, heather Dubrow, real housewives, Real Housewives Orange County, Reality TV, shannon beador, tamra judge, Vicki Gunvalson

The ladies of the Real Housewives of Orange County are back after the Heather Dubrow/ Shannon Beador show down last week!

Fresh off of being kicked out of Heather’s home, Shannon decided to get her “WooHoo” on with Vicki Gunvalson and her insanely creepy boyfriend in Mexico.

Nothing solves marital problems like a little vacation and advice from a two-time divorcee.

Heather, who is concerned that the addition of Shannon to their inner circle is running her friendships, is in the midst of handling her very difficult life struggle—hiring a personal chef. It is quite a stressful life this woman leads, but someone has to build palatial homes filled with staff to do whatever Queen Dubrow needs. Heather believes that whenever Shannon is around Tamra Judge or Vicki, they do not act like her genuine friend. So, she isn’t the biggest proponent of the Shannon/Vicki/David Beador/Creepy Brooks Ayers upcoming vacay.

Vicki, the self-appointed “Mayor of Puerta Vallarta”, arrived in Mexico with her gang and awaited the arrival of the Beadors. She feels it will be really beneficial for Shannon and David to be around other healthy couples. We hope to the sweet Lord above she truly does not believe the words that come out of her own mouth. One freakin’ word: BROOKS. I mean, who wouldn’t pick those two as the picture of health and happiness, right? Answer: the world.

Vicki invited the Beadors to stay at her condo, however Shannon wasn’t really feeling the size of her room. She and David tried to flee the scene to a hotel and give their room to Vicki’s son, but the WooHoo Mayor wasn’t having it. Nothing screams “romance” quite like a troubled marriage and a twin size bed!

Meanwhile, back in the OC, Tamra and Eddie Judge are busy with their robot baby. Yes, a robot baby. Tamra thought having Eddie take care of this baby would give him a proper feel for fatherhood. Given his commentary throughout the whole episode, as well as the look of sheer pain on his face every time the robot cried, we’re going to assume a baby is not in their near future.

Vicki and Shannon left the boys behind to have some girl time to discuss Heather and Shannon’s argument. Vicki revealed that Tamra told her about the email also. However, Vicki made it known she fully supports Shannon on this one.

The crew went out for dinner and, of course, Shannon and David started fighting 30 seconds into the meal. What was the argument about you ask? Tequila. They were bickering about tequila.

Shannon left the table and Vicki quickly followed. Shannon got emotional in the bathroom because she felt like all eyes are on her and David’s relationship. Although she knows that her marriage is a hot ass mess, she reassured Vicki that “everything is fine” in the Beador household.

And so, the saga continues…..

The Real Housewives of Orange County airs Mondays at 9pm on Bravo.

[readon1 url="http://popdust.com/2014/07/01/real-housewives-orange-county-shannon-vicki-brooks-ayers-mexico-vacation/"]Source:popdust.com[/readon1]

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Banda music is the soundtrack of modern Mexico, with its thumping polka beat and trumpets blasting everywhere from rural fairs to working-class Mexico City weddings. And it's increasingly made in the U.S.A.

Once the equivalent of country music, with lyrics about rural life sung by men from Mexico's western badlands, it is more and more being produced in the suburbs of Phoenix and Los Angeles, and sung by Mexican-Americans who grew up speaking English and listening to rock and rap.

And as U.S.-born singers gain prominence, it's becoming more akin to gangster rap, with a slicker sound, lyrics that praise drug traffickers and videos with guns and expensive cars filmed on Los Angeles' palm-lined streets.

This month, two U.S.-born banda singers have had Top 10 hits in Mexico and the United States.

Billboard's No. 1 Mexican regional song is "Quien Se Anima," or "Who Will Dare," a tune by baby-faced, 24-year-old Pasadena, California-native Gerardo Ortiz that asks who will dare enter a business where "there is lots of money, pleasures, banda music and women."

Ortiz's "Damaso," about a leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, has for weeks topped the playlists in Mexico. Its video, with a lion, briefcases full of cash and flaunted pistols, has been viewed on YouTube more than 61 million times.

"The King of the Drunks" by Lupillo Rivera of Long Beach, California, has also been among Mexico's top 10 songs.

It is a reversal of musical direction for a genre in which Mexican bands traditionally sang tunes popular with immigrants in the U.S. nostalgic for their homeland. Young Mexican-Americans have embraced banda and many musicians now first gain success in the United States before heading south to sing in dirt-floored rodeo arenas and auditoriums in Mexico.

"These singers were born (in the U.S.) but their parents instilled the love for Mexico in them," said Stephanie Himonidis, morning prime-time DJ for La Raza, a Los Angeles radio station that plays Mexican music.

Ortiz spent his childhood in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, the birthplace of both banda music and many of Mexico's top drug traffickers. But it was upon his return to Southern California that he found fame and fortune after self-promoting his ballads and "narcocorridos" on YouTube. "Narcocorridos" are songs about drug traffickers that often glorify them and their lifestyle.

A record executive offered Ortiz a contract after seeing him perform at an underground party at a packed Los Angeles warehouse in 2008.

"I grew up on a ranch but when I came back to Los Angeles, a big city where there is all kinds of music, I fused the music from the ranch with the music of the moment and people who didn't like corridos began listening to them," Ortiz said.

"Narcocorridos" are banned from the radio in parts of Mexico. But in the U.S., artists sing them on prime-time awards shows on Spanish-language television, where series about the lives of drug traffickers have become popular.

Ortiz said some of his "narcocorridos" were inspired by those shows.

While singing "narcocorridos" is relatively safe north of the border, it carries risks in Mexico.

Ortiz was in an SUV in the Mexican state of Colima when gunmen opened fire, killing his manager in 2011. And in May, Phoenix-born Tomas Tovar Rascon, better known by his stage name "Tito Torbellino," was shot to death at a restaurant in the border state of Sonora, where he was scheduled to perform.

Authorities have not publicly identified a motive in the killing of Rascon, but in the past singers have been killed by rivals of the traffickers they praise or by gangsters offended they wouldn't perform privately for them.

Not all banda musicians sing about drug traffickers.

Luis Coronel, an 18-year-old Tucson native who won the Artist of the Year Debut at this year's Billboard Latin Music Awards, only sings about love and heartbreak. He is attracting a new generation of fans, mainly teenage girls who follow his every step on Instagram and Facebook.

"Like their parents, these new generations have a need to listen to music that can bring them a little bit of Mexico and that's why you have more and more young singers in this genre," La Raza's Himonidis said.

[readon1 url="https://music.yahoo.com/news/us-born-banda-singers-success-mexico-us-042043026.html"]Source:music.yahoo.com[/readon1]

Los Bambinos, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico’s most popular club band is making a return trip to Friday Harbor on July 5th. That means another “funraiser” at the Brickworks as the San Juan Community Home Trust presents their 2nd annual Mexican Fiesta dinner, dance and concert celebration.

You know, as much as I like to think I can handle episode after episode of Shannon Beador and Heather Dubrow arguing, Monday night’s episode of Real Housewives of Orange County was a much-needed break from the weekly Chairgate head-on collisions. No, the Heather/Shannon feud wasn’t swept under the rug entirely, but we put a pin in it. And it was a nice little break.

So, if Chairgate wasn’t the driving force of the episode, what happened? Anything? Uh yes, duh: Heather and her family watched her episode of Hawaii Five-0, Lizzie Beador asked Heather how to “have it all” (Heather told Lizzie that Lizzie does have it all, she just has to remind herself. AW, HEATHER), Tamra Judge took care of robo baby Astro, and Shannon met Vicki in Puerto Vallarta. And Shannon in Puerto Vallarta was incred.

The sort-of fight between Shannon and David Beador that ignited during the beachside tequila tasting? Not incred. The this-turned-sour-really-fast-so-let’s-excuse-ourselves-from-the-table fight between Shannon and David during the group dinner? Not incred. But Shannon living life by Shannon’s rules while whooping it up with Vicki? AUUUGHHH I loved it.

Shannon will do Shannon. She’s not the “when in Rome” type. She’s the “sorry, not going to settle for sleeping in a double bed in your beachside condo” type. And though I was surprised she accepted Vicki’s brother’s offer to switch rooms without hesitation, I respected it. Because she is who she is, and vacation will not harsh her vibe.

That wasn’t the only Shannon-tastic moment from Monday night’s ep that stuck with me. Here are three more that I’ve yet to move on from:

Packing For The Trip
While the Beadors prep for their vaycay, David tells Shannon to put away the ball gowns or whatever it is she’s holding (I like to think they are ball gowns). He says she’ll be wearing shorts for a majority of the trip.

“I’m just curious,” Shannon begins. “When’s the last time you saw me wear a pair of shorts?”

David cannot remember. Why? Because Shannon doesn’t wear shorts. And Shannon’s not about to change that for this trip. Atta girl. Ball gowns to the beach it is!

(Ugh, I WISH Shannon wore ball gowns to the beach. Though she’s not a fan of shorts, she does own beach-friendly clothing. Caftans and flowy dresses and what have you. She can save her ball gowns for a rainy day. Or you know, a ball.)
Jet Skiing

“I don’t like the ocean because of the fish,” Shannon says during a confessional. “I don’t want to tip over [on the jet ski] because then I’m in the ocean and god knows what’s below me.”

Yes, Shannon has a fun time jet skiing, but she can’t let loose entirely. The fear of what lies beneath is too great.

Understandable. Did you see that movie?

Cigar Shopping
Vicki takes Shannon to a local cigar shop. Vicki explains that while she never inhales, she enjoys smoking one every now and again. She says something about women looking “sexy” while they smoke cigars. Shannon is not feeling it. Vicki puffs away and Shannon refuses to partake. She coughs, winces, and says Vicki will get sick.  

[readon1 url="http://www.bustle.com/articles/29974-real-housewives-of-orange-county-shannons-making-woo-hoo-py-in-puerto-vallarta-on-her-own-terms"]Source:vwww.bustle.com[/readon1]

Mixed martial arts fighter T.J. Dillashaw and his girlfriend, Rebecca Reynoso, were married on the beach in the Riviera Nayarit, where they enjoyed an exclusive ceremony with a very Mexican flair at the Hotel Villa Amor.

The Riviera Nayarit has become one of the top weddings and honeymoon destinations for the rich and famous. The most recent couple to tie the knot in Sayulita was T.J. Dillashaw, bantamweight champion for the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and his lovely bride, Rebecca Reynoso.

The event was held on June 21st at the Hotel Villa Amor with one of Sayulita’s famous sunsets as the backdrop. The ceremony was very private, just friends and family, with a total of about 60 people joining the couple for their special moment.

Originally from Sacramento, California, the fighter—also known as “The Viper”—and his partner chose traditional Mexican touches to include in their ceremony.

“They asked for things that are traditions in Sayulita: a coconut vendor handed out coconuts with gin during the event, the traditional churros with sugar were passed around and there was even a piñata stuffed with tequila bottles,” said Karen Reuzga, the hotel’s social events coordinator.

She also mentioned the up-and-coming champion in the world of mixed martial arts was a complete gentleman and conducted himself in a very humble manner. T.J. even took pictures with the wait staff and the attendees wearing his championship belt.

The happy couple enjoyed an unforgettable wedding night in a special villa with a 360-degree view of the water.

The fighter, who debuted in professional cage fighting in 2011, also played golf while shirtless and shoeless according to his own tweets (@tjdillashaw), where he has over 38 thousand followers.

The international promotion the Riviera Nayarit Convention and Visitors Bureau has put into effect along with the indirect publicity given by the celebrities that visit the destination is having a positive effect on tourism. Not only are those connected to the movie, music and television industries seeking out the destination, but other celebrities attached to different industries are also taking time out to visit Mexico’s Pacific Treasure.

Photo credit: Joann Arruda.