Mexico...At Last!

Photos are not ready yet. I took 1. Nat took all the rest. When she gets them to me, I'll get them to you.

Anyhow...here we go.

Wednesday: Travel Day.
Why is it that air travel is such a hassle? I volunteered to be bumped from my flight to Phoenix because I had a longish layover there. At the last possible second, they decided not to bump me after all, shoved a $100 voucher in my hand, some coupons for free headsets/drinks, took my suitcase and sent me down the jetway. So much for a free ticket.

Then when we boarded the plane to Mexico, we taxied out to the runway, started to take off, and had to stop. The plane in front of us had not made it off the ground yet, so there was brake action and a little swerving action, and thus, back to the gate we went to have our landing gear inspected. Nice delay getting us to Mexico an hour late.

We checked in to our hotel, wandered around a bit, finally found someone to give us a package of maps and stuff for the resort itself, and she gave us free welcome drinks. Then we had some dinner, went up to the shopping center to get some breakfast food and had an early night to bed (there was amusing American tv with Spanish subtitles). Very exciting. The food was tasty though!

Thursday: Out and About
We slept late on Thursday, not getting ourselves up and out the door until after 11. Then we took the bus into Puerto Vallarta itself, got some money, and had some lunch. We then wandered around the downtown area, shopping, sweating, exploring all our activity options for the days ahead, and ended up booking our outdoor adventures at an internet cafe (saved us 10%). We cabbed it back to the hotel because the bus was a miserable unairconditioned experience, and changed into our swimsuits to head for the beach.

Ahh the beach. Warm sand, warm water, cool breeze. Comfy chairs and towels. Waiters to bring you drinks. Umbrellas with little tables for your drinks and misc items. We sunned ourselves for a bit, and then once the daily afternoon/evening storm started, we headed indoors. That evening in particular had a very spectacular rain storm, with lightning and thunder. Some nights it just rained but that night was a good old fashioned storm.

I think for dinner that night we went up to the shopping center and had some Brazilian food. It was this hilarious all you could eat place, where the prices were different for men and women. We stuffed ourselves on all kinds of meat, and then attempted to walk around enough to help the meat digest. Ha ha ha. Not particularly effective.

Friday: Snorkeling and Sun!
You know your vacation is not pure relaxation when the alarm goes off at 7:00 AM. Such is life, however, on the Vallarta Adventures Snorkeling and Wild Dolphins trip. The boat leaves Nuevo Vallarta at 8:30 sharp, so that it can be in port at Puerto Vallarta at 9:00 to load up the rest of the crowd and then off you go into the ocean. It's about a 70 or 80 minute ride out to the Marietas Islands. It was a wonderful ride out there. Cool breeze, warm sun. Entertainment and direction from the guides. Once we arrived at the islands, the motor boats take off with the scuba divers and the rest of us leap off the boat into the ocean for some snorkeling.

After 30 minutes or so of snorkeling, maybe 45, we decided we'd had enough and we wanted to try the sea kayak.
Woo! That was entertaining. There weren't that many different fish to look at in the water (and no wild dolphins) so the kayak was more of an adventure. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Try not to crash into people in the water. Loads of fun.

Then the boat loads back up, the bar is open and lunch is served while they take us over to a beach for the afternoon. We decided not to leave the boat, because it is so pleasant on the boat, with the breeze and all, so when the motorboats took off for the beach, we stayed put. We laid out on the front of the boat and read our books, listened to the ipod, worked on our tan. And when we got too hot, we moved under the covered part of the deck and enjoyed our books there.

I cannot recall how long we were at the beach/on the boat but after a while the boat loads up and heads for port. By the time we got home it was 5:00, easily, and we were sunburned and tired. Nevertheless, sun worshipping girls we are, we laid by the pool and had some chips and guacamole. We ate dinner at the resort, we may have gone shopping at the mall (we did this several times, just to have something to do) and went to bed early (again) since we had the canopy adventure the next day.

Saturday: Jungle Canopy Tour
Fortunately, this was not an early day for us. The trip didn't leave until 11, so we slept in and then had some cereal before preparing for this trip to the jungle. Sunblock, followed by bug spray. And damn if they don't have the stinkiest stickiest bug spray ever down there. It doesn't repel mosquitos, it traps them in the stick and they suffocate!

For those of you unfamilar with the canopy tour, it involves zip lines attached to the tops of trees, and you wear a harness, helmet, and a bunch of pulleys and safety lines, and the guides attach you to the lines, teach you some technique, and give you a little shove and off you go, sliding between trees. Ostensibly, you are supposed to be looking at the jungle, but you're too scared of crashing into the next tree so you don't. I looked down like 4 or 5 times in 9 lines. You still see a lot, but its probably not the best way to see the jungle. We have no pictures from this but we have a DVD, so I'll try to post some images from that when I get the DVD. At the end of the tour you get to rappel down like 60-70 feet, which was thrilling and scary as well.

We did 9 lines, a couple of bridges, and the rappel at the end. Here are some pictures from their site. They are pretty accurate.
This is one of the pulleys. They actually use two, for safety, one on each line. The guides do the connections and disconnections, and you do the rest.
This is one of the bridges, but usually I don't think they let everyone go at once. They usually only let one or two people at a time on the bridge.
This is what you look like. This is a guide, not a participant, I think, but that's what the jungle looks like as you go past. The longest line is over 600 feet long I think, and over 150 feet high. The biggest three is Big Daddy (biggest), followed by Mamacita, and then Big Momma. On Big Daddy and Big Momma you have to yell "Big Daddy" and "Big Momma" respectively, for seven years of good luck and "coochie-coochie" according to our guides.

I highly recommend this for anyone who is ever in a location that offers it. Its extremely scary at first but tons of fun. Really exhilirating. I think it was a good way to show yourself what you are capable of. I loved it.

After we got home from that and washed off the 18 layers of sweat, sunblock, bug repellent and dirt, we got dressed and headed back into Puerto Vallarta for the evening. There we found the shopping stalls on the Rio Cuale and got some cute necklaces. Then we took a cab up to Ah Caramba, recommended to us by 2 cab drivers as a good choice for dinner. It sits up on a hill, and has the most amazing view of town and the ocean. Gorgeous. Two little boys of about 5 or 6 met us as we got out of our cab and escorted us into the restaurant. They were adorable. At the end of the night, they opened the cab doors for us and helped us in. We tipped them mostly because of how cute they were!

Sunday: Rain and Travel
We had this grand plan on Sunday to lay next to the pool after brunch until we had to leave for the airport. But we woke up Sunday morning to discover that it was raining. Pouring at times. And it didn't really let up until late afternoon when we were at the airport. So we had brunch, and went to the mall and did some last minute shopping before we returned to the hotel lobby where we flaked out on the couches and read until we left for the airport.

Whereupon we discovered Nat's flight was way late, and the airport is too small and too noisy for humans to spend very long in. Her flight left, and then mine left, both of them leaving a good 45 minutes late. Once in Phoenix I got to run through the airport after clearing customs to grab some dinner and get on my flight home. And then, we started to taxi out to the runway...and a light came on. So back to the gate we went to get our navigational system checked out, and once it was replaced, we took off and got home an hour later than planned. Sigh. Air travel.

Fortunately we both got home in one piece, and neither one of us was traveling this past Thursday when everything was so nasty.

So that was Mexico. I promise pictures when I have them!