Vallarta’s International Friendship Club starts its 23rd Home Tour season on November 16. The regular Wednesday and Thursday schedule will run until April 12, 2012.

Puerto Vallata’s new Los Muertos pier will be finished before the end of the year, according to  Victor Mijangos, planning supervisor at the Jalisco Department of Tourism.  A major attraction of the pier will be fabric sails that will be illuminated at night. The pier structure is reportedly being manufactured in Guadalajara and will be transported in segments to Puerto Vallarta.  The image above shows an artist’s rendition of what the finished pier will look like.

Anyone who appreciates fine dining is in for a treat this month, as the 17th International Gourmet Festival unfolds in Puerto Vallarta from November 10 to 20.

The Hard Rock brand has experienced mixed fortunes in western Mexico: the Puerto Vallarta cafe is a popular hang-out but the eatery and live performance venue in Guadalajara’s Centro Magno mall closed after less than three years in business.

An eyewitness account of the storm in Manzanillo revealed impressive community preparation: “Never have there been seen so many electricity trucks on the boulevard waiting, which they were at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. Windows of restaurants and stores were taped and sandbags piled up in front of Office Depot in readiness,” said Freda Rumford, a British resident of the resort and editor of Manzanillo Sun E magazine.

A new ruling means dozens of families may soon be able to return to the beachfront land where they have worked for more than three decades.