It's been a long road for one of the most iconic landmarks of Puerto Vallarta, but finally after more than two years in the making, on Friday, January 4, we'll have our renewed and beloved Pier back.

The new Los Muertos Pier suffered a series of setbacks during its construction, the most difficult to overcome was with no doubt the absence of funds to finance the project.

Puerto Vallarta's golden beaches and indigo waters invite carefree bayside relaxation. Playa Camarones ("Shrimp Beach") is thusly named because local fisherman used to beach themselves here to unload their daily shellfish catches on the sand. Kids will go crazy for the folklore behind the city's largest public beach, Playa de Los Muertos ("Dead Man's Beach"). Legend has it that this stretch of sand was a hub of pirate activity during the 17th and 18th centuries. Aspiring Jack Sparrows can dig for buried treasure while their parents unwind with a liquid treasure of their own.

[readon1 url="http://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Beaches-cDestinations-g150768"]Source:www.tripadvisor.com[/readon1]

A benefit of the Biblioteca Los Mangos
Puerto Vallarta

Once you manage to pass the time share hucksters at the Puerto Vallarta

General:
Retirement to Puerto Vallarta is a good option for many expats looking to retire early or wanting to experience a higher standard of living on a limited retirement income.

The wedding took place at Casa Aramara, the beachfront home of “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis.

Eva Longoria was among the 150 guests that attended the nuptials.

After the sunset ceremony, mariachis performed and dinner was enjoyed on the lawn.

For dessert, a five-tiered chocolate and red velvet wedding cake by “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro was serve

Marriage is truly a lifelong adventure, so why not start yours with an adventure wedding, immersed in a private tropical paradise?

Our exclusive tropical beach hideaway, Las Caletas, offers wedding parties, large and small the ideal location for the adventure wedding of your dreams. With the majestic Sierra Madre Mountains as your ultimate tropical backdrop, the seclusion, and breath taking natural beauty, Las Caletas is the perfect location for an unforgettable celebration. Accessible only by boat, there’s truly no place more secluded or romantic.

From quaint and casual to over the top sophistication, we’ll design an unforgettable, personalized experience to suite your individual style and budget that’s guaranteed to launch you into matrimonial bliss.

Our professional wedding coordinators will handle every detail of your big day with an all inclusive package so you can relax, knowing that all is taken care of. And because all of our facilities and excursions are owned and operated by us, we’re able to coordinate and book all of the wedding party's events, tours and activities for you too.

Modern Bride magazine ranks Mexico as the fifth most popular destination for weddings in paradise, and once you experience Las Caletas, you’ll know why..

Anyone who has had the privilege of spending New Years in Vallarta

Experts say humpbacks has two types of sound,

Gael García Bernal is not your average Hollywood movie star.

He intersplices his long sentences with references to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and throws in a bit of French radical thinker Alan Badiou for good measure. “Right now I’m reading In Praise of Love by Badiou,” he tells me while unwrapping his sandwich. “I’ve never read him, I have to catch up!”

We are sitting in a sparse office at Canana, the production company he set up, in his native Mexico City. Despite his global celluloid fame – he’s starred in Hollywood blockbusters alongside Brad Pitt and Julianne Moore – he is down-to-earth, arriving suitably late but with few of the usual airs and graces. His life now is divided between the Mexican megalopolis and Buenos Aires, where he lives with his Argentinian wife.

His latest release is the film “No”, set in Chile in 1988 towards the end of General Augusto Pinochet’s military rule. Bernal plays advertising executive Renee Saavedra who is leading a TV campaign to convince the Chilean population to vote “no” in a national referendum on whether General Pinochet should stay in power for another eight years (his boss at the advertising agency is working on the rival “yes” campaign). The “no” campaign eventually triumphs, opening the door to the restoration of democracy in Chile after nearly 17 years of dictatorship.

The Los Angeles Times has called it “a most unusual underdog story, the kind of heady, relevant filmmaking we don’t see often enough”, and the film looks set to be nominated for the next Foreign Film Oscar. “I was interested in doing it because working with [Chilean director] Pablo Larrain was something I wanted,” says Bernal. “It was very captivating to be doing a film about the big part that publicity played in the 1988 election. It was an angle that nobody knows about, I definitely didn’t know about it. Not many people know how Pinochet was overthrown.”

So far the film has been well-received amongst critics, and, adds Bernal, in Chile itself. “It has caused a great debate among people who participated in the events. It is still a very resonant issue, it was the birth of the new democracy.” “But,” he adds, “at the time there was this feeling that everything could fall apart in a second. People who were participating in the referendum with a lot of vigor and passion still thought that everything was rigged, that it was going to be a fake election, because in 1980 there had been an election that was a complete fraud. It was really jumping into the abyss.”

Bernal has never shied away from giving political opinions, and speaks with real knowledge about the politics of Latin America, and further afield too. The man who famously played Che Guevara in the “Motorcycle Diaries” film is unabashedly “of the Left”, and was active as an activist as far back as the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, on the first day of the NAFTA. “I’ve been told, ‘You’re an actor, you cannot talk about politics, you know nothing about politics’”, he says. “There still exists that mythology that no one who is not an “expert” in politics can have an opinion on politics, it’s ridiculous because we’re such political animals.”

But he says he doesn’t like the sledgehammer approach to political aesthetics, where the audience is hit over the head with the political message. He likes to work in what he calls “the grey areas”. “As an actor it’s about exploring these uncertain areas rather than having a preconceived idea or answer. It’s more about provocation and asking the terrible questions. My position therefore is sometimes a bit greyish because I don’t buy into the pamphlet.” He continues, “What is motivating is when you the audiences ask new questions, get new perceptions, not when you give them opinions digested, the complete answer, that has another shape.”

The former child “telenovela” (Mexican soap opera) star, who was born in Guadalajara but grew up in Mexico City, voted and campaigned for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, the left-wing candidate in the recent Mexican elections. The elections were eventually won by right-wing rival Enrique Peña Nieto, amongst customary accusations of electoral fraud. But Bernal was never enamoured with the candidate he voted for. “I say this from the position of someone who voted for AMLO, I would always vote for the left, but I want much more sophisticated, more cordial, bigger scope, politicians. We don’t have statesmen.” He adds, “Elections have become a very perverse and Manichean game where the person who sells the best image wins, not the person that has the best vision for the country.”

But Bernal is optimistic about the future of Latin America, especially the “pink tide” of democratic left-wing governments that has swept the region over the past decade, which shows no sign of being turned back (yet).

“Like Žižek says, Bush deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for having eradicated the hegemony of the United States, he singlehandedly completely destroyed it,” Bernal says. “Now it’s a whole different world. Argentina, for example, most of its business is with China, and Brazil as well. There is a lot of hope in that sense, it’s not the world we grew up in, it’s a whole different thing. I think that the Left in Latin America still have lots of debts from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, things they have to complete, to deliver. Argentina is the only country that has looked back on the people that were part of the military coup and junta and put them in prison, it’s the only country that has done that, that is reason enough to support [President] Cristina Kirchner.”

Bernal is rare in the world of entertainment, not merely because he has an opinion, but because he can back it up at length and with real knowledge. It’s a rare quality in a world where some sort of bland, non-specific “social activism” is now a must for most celebrities, but questioning the PR lines fed to them by their handlers is almost non-existent. “I would love athletes, sports figures, to be more political,” says Bernal. “Remember Socrates the Brazilian player was very critical of the junta there. Or the guys in 68 here in Mexico City with black power. It adds so much depth to them, it’s incredible when they do it, but right now you don’t see them involved in anything.”

As he finishes up his sandwich, which he hasn’t had time to touch during his long dilations on politics and art, he tells me his next film will be with up-and-coming Argentinian director Pablo Fendrick. He gives it the tantilising description of “a metaphysical ecologist Western”. Bernal says he would also like to move into writing soon. “Always talking about what you haven’t done is daunting, I have to write something about acting soon, I don’t know what. A little general perspective, like a bio-statement.”

But just listening to what Bernal has already done by the tender age of 34 is daunting enough by itself.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Pilgrims and locals celebrated Christmas Day on Tuesday in the ancient Bethlehem church built over the site where tradition holds Jesus was born, candles illuminating the sacred site and the joyous sound of prayer filling its overflowing halls.

Worshippers lined up Tuesday inside the fourth-century Church of the Nativity complex, waiting to see the grotto that is Jesus' traditional birthplace.

Duncan Hardock, a 24-year-old teacher from MacLean, Va., said he got to see "both sides of Bethlehem" as he arrived at Manger Square after passing through the separation barrier Israel built to ward off West Bank attackers.

Later, Pope Benedict XVI will deliver his Christmas message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans gathered in the piazza below. The "Urbi et Orbi" message is traditionally a review of world events and global challenges.

On Monday, Christians from the world over packed Manger Square to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

For their Palestinian hosts, this holiday season was an especially joyous one, with the hardships of the Israeli occupation that so often clouded previous celebrations eased by the United Nations' recent recognition of an independent state of Palestine.

In his annual pre-Christmas homily, the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, said the road to actual freedom was still long, but this year's festivities were doubly joyful, celebrating "the birth of Christ our Lord and the birth of the state of Palestine."

"The path (to statehood) remains long, and will require a united effort," added Twal, a Palestinian citizen of Jordan, at the patriarchate's headquarters in Jerusalem's Old City.

Then he set off in a procession for the West Bank city of Bethlehem. There, he was reminded that life on the ground for Palestinians has not changed since the U.N. recognized their state last month in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Twal had to enter the biblical town through a massive metal gate in the barrier of towering concrete slabs Israel built between Jerusalem and Bethlehem during a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings in the last decade. The Israeli military, which controls the crossing, said it significantly eased restrictions for the Christmas season.

Israel, backed by the United States, opposed the statehood bid, saying it was a Palestinian ploy to bypass negotiations. Talks stalled four years ago.

Hundreds of people greeted Twal in Manger Square, outside the Church of Nativity. The mood was festive under sunny skies, with children dressed in holiday finery or in Santa costumes, and marching bands playing in the streets.

After nightfall, a packed Manger Square, resplendent with strings of lights, decorations and a 17-meter (55-foot) Christmas tree, took on a festival atmosphere.

A choral group from the Baptist Church in Jerusalem performed carols on one side of the square, handing out sheets of lyrics and encouraging others to sing along with songs such as "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."

Festivities led up to the Midnight Mass at St. Catherine's Church, next to the fourth-century Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born.

Devout Christians said it was a moving experience to be so close to the origins of their faith.

"It's a special feeling to be here, it's an encounter with my soul and God," said Joanne Kurczewska, a professor at Warsaw University in Poland, who was visiting Bethlehem for a second time at Christmas.

Pastor Al Mucciarone, 61, from Short Hills, New Jersey, agreed.

"We come here to celebrate Jesus. This is a very important town. Great things come from small events. The son of God was born in this small village. We hope all will follow Jesus," he said.

Audra Kasparian, 45, from Salt Lake City, Utah, called her visit to Bethlehem "a life event to cherish forever. It is one of those events that is great to be a part of."

Christmas is the high point of the year in Bethlehem, which, like the rest of the West Bank, is struggling to recover from the economic hard times that followed the violent Palestinian uprising against Israel that broke out in late 2000.

Tourists and pilgrims who were scared away by the fighting have been returning in larger numbers. Last year's Christmas Eve celebration produced the highest turnout in more than a decade, with some 100,000 visitors, including foreign workers and Arab Christians from Israel.

The Israeli Tourism Ministry predicted a 25 percent drop from that level this year, following last month's clash between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, which put a chill on tourist arrivals. Foreign tourists heading to Bethlehem must pass through Israel or the Israel-controlled border crossing into the West Bank from Jordan.

Outside the town's quaint Manger Square, Bethlehem is a drab, sprawling town with a dwindling Christian base.

Overall, there are only about 50,000 Christians in the West Bank, less than 3 percent of the population, the result of a lower birthrate and increased emigration. Bethlehem's Christians make up only a third of the town's residents, down from 75 percent a few decades ago.

Elias Joha, a 44-year-old Christian who runs a souvenir store, said even with the U.N. recognition, this year's celebrations were sad for him. He said most of his family has left, and that if he had the opportunity, he would do the same.

"These celebrations are not even for Christians because there are no Christians. It is going from bad to worse from all sides ... we are not enjoying Christmas as before."

Located on the southeastern outskirts of Jerusalem, Bethlehem has the highest unemployment in the West Bank, but the tourist boom of Christmas offered a brief reprieve. Officials say all 34 hotels in the town are fully booked for the Christmas season, including 13 new ones built this year.

Israel turned Bethlehem over to Palestinian civil control a few days before Christmas in 1995, and since then, residents have been celebrating the holiday regardless of their religion. Many Muslims took part in celebration Monday as well.

Christians across the region marked the holiday.

In Iraq, Christians gathered for services with tight security, including at Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation church, the scene of a brutal October 2010 attack that killed more than 50 worshippers and wounded scores more.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who is responsible for the Vatican's outreach to the Middle East's Catholic communities, traveled to Iraq and presided over a Mass to rededicate the church following renovations. In his homily, he remembered those who were killed and expressed hope that "the tears shed in this sacred place become the good seed of communion and witness and bear much fruit," according to an account by Vatican Radio.

The exact number of Christians remaining in Iraq is not known, but it has fallen sharply from as many as 1.4 million before the U.S.-led invasion nearly a decade ago to about 400,000 to 600,000, according community leaders cited by the U.S. State Department.

For this Christmas we do a countdown of the 'Santa' sexiest Latinos.