Mexico Day 8

Yesterday I wrote that this last hotel we’re staying in will do for the price. How wrong I was! I could barely sleep from all the noise! The hallways are noisy and it seemed that a group of people decided to have a party in the hallway until around 2am. We discovered that Steven can deal with noise but he can’t deal at all with light when he sleeps. I am the exact opposite. I will wake up from a pin drop but can sleep with the lights on with no problem. I don’t think either of us feel well rested though. My lack of sleep meant that Steven was kept up by me reading at 1am with a flashlight. I also accidentally scared the crap out of him when I was looking for the remote to the AC and accidentally woke him up as I was rummaging through things in the pitch dark for it. Quite a rude awakening for him.

On our last day we did a bunch more walking around town again. We started noticing that we were the only ones walking around with light sweaters. Even in the early morning, it was still only like 65 degrees out. Yet, for some reason everyone was walking around like it was snowing!

Check out this kid...

His mom was actually dressed in a puffy down jacket with ear muffs. Really? It's 65* people! Maybe you need a light sweater but it was around 10am and quickly getting warmer but the ridiculous winter gear remained all day.

During our walk that day, we finally found the only mail box in all of Mexico. [12/20 edit: we're still not sure if our postcards ever made it to the recipients!]

We also finally got some decent shots of Steven standing on his birthday street. Steven's birthday is also Mexican Independence day.

Steven also got a better video of the street crossing signs. This video better illustrates how the walking man goes faster and faster as time counts down.

We thought we were used to the things the locals found entertaining. But then we came across this...

Hide your kids, people. That is a creepy, smoking, singing, robot clown who will probably kill you in your sleep.

We could have created a whole blog based on how often people ignore safety laws. But here are a few snap shots of one building under construction.

We saw people standing at the top of a ladder that was roped together to another ladder to get extra height and a guy running a power tool by touching two raw wires together. Crazy!

We made one final trip to the fabric store and Steven realized that he never got any pics of what fabric stores in Mexico are like. I'm not sure if we mentioned before but there is a large fabric store every few blocks in the city center area at least.

I'm like a kid at a candy store!

Well after all of that walking, we picked up our luggage from the hotel storage and headed to the airport. Our taxi driver was INSANE. He was very heavy on the horn and has absolutely no patience for traffic. To him, driving on sidewalks, or on the wrong side of the street, or driving over center dividers is totally a legit way to get around. We made it to the airport in one piece though. After paying him though, we still had a couple of bucks left which we decided to blow on some airport shopping. So  Steven walked up to the register and the guy rang us up and the total came out to exact change of what we has left. It was the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me.

I am actually excited to get back home. It was a fun and mostly relaxing trip but there is no place like home. I look forward to not having to try and figure out the money exchange in my head for every purchase or make a fool of myself speaking what must sound like cave man Spanish mixed with a little mime. And as much as I hate our old mattress at home, I do still miss my own bed. And Bowie, my little Bowie! He must miss us so much.

We are also coming home to some possible damage to our house. Our neighbor said that all of our roofs suffered some damage in the recent wind storm. We found out about the wind storm when Steven’s phone was going crazy from Oxy alerts in the middle of the night. When we woke up we read in the news about the fire at Oxy and the power outages everywhere. LAX apparently lost power for over an hour and flights are still being delayed. My work at Art Center College was actually closed for the whole day since the roads left the campus inaccessible due to fallen debris and all of those old trees around were still a threat while the winds persisted.

We'll see when we get back home!

[12/20 note: the above text was written at the airport so you obviously know how our house fared]

Mexico Day 7

Alas our final day in Puerto has arrived.  We woke up and readied our bags to check out and went to our last meal at the resort.

After checkout we got a taxi to our bus back to Guadalajara. We took the Vallarta Plus line. There are half a dozen bus lines that take the trip back and forth between Gudalajara and Puerto Vallarta just about every hour each way. The ETN bus line is the fanciest. They take a regular charter bus and fit it with plush chairs. Basically it’s all comfy and fancy and top of the line…and also double the price that we paid for our bus trip. The Vallarta Plus bus was only $20 per person each way if you buy the round trip and they give you a little lunch/snack. It was actually very comfortable and they showed movies. On our trip out to Puerto we saw part of Toy Story 3 (en Espanol) and let me say, the emotional parts transcend the language barrier. Steven and I got a little misty eyed.

Here's a picture of some fellow travelers. I wonder what they paid for their cross country ride with full lounge action?

The bus ride seemed to pass quite quickly. We left Puerto at 1:08 and we were checked into our hotel in Guadalajra at around 5:15. So our entire trip took a little over 4 hours. We overheard that flights from Guad to Puerto were only 45min, but factoring in airport security and travel time to and from airports which are farther away from the cities and you probably only save an hour or so.

So when planning this trip, we wanted to go all out and be fancy, except we skimped on the last night. We got a cheap $40 hotel and I guess we got a little bit too used to the pampering and “tranquility” of our last two hotels. This new hotel has tile floors and gaps above and below the door so we hear EVERYTHING going on outside. We ended up stuffing all of the cracks with socks and towels and clothes.

As with the air conditioner at the fancy resort, this light was also just as bright. Steven's socks provide a simple solution.

Also, the whole room has crown molding. Very upscale and opulent looking…”looking” is the operative word. The molding is actually made of painted Styrofoam. This place is by far the most ghetto of our trip but despite me bashing it for this paragraph it is actually decently cozy. Certainly worth the $40.

We rested for about 20 minutes and set off to explore the town again. We walked and walked and walked and then found some tacos and walked some more. The city is actually quite beautiful. There's lots of art all around in public areas and the buildings are very old and architecturally interesting.

We need to translate the description but this guy was notable because he's so intense.

This place comes alive between 6pm and 8pm. There are neverending streets of shops that all have their own specialization. Looking for Christmas lights? Well here’s a store that has nothing but!

We basically walked from 6pm – 9pm so once again we are very tired. Tomorrow is our last day in Mexico. We get almost all day tomorrow to continue to explore the town and then head to the airport tomorrow night.

Mexico Day 6

Day 6

Puerto Vallarta bus tour

So today we had the bus tour. We got picked up by the tour bus at 9:40am for our full day affair. We quickly learned that this tour IS for the faint of heart, unlike our thrilling trip the day before. Boarding the bus we saw that our tour mates were much older than we are, some in bad health, and in various stages of being able to walk for long distances.

The beginning part of our trip was basically the same route we had taken the day before for the zip line tour except that we got to get off in Puerto Vallarta. We walked the boardwalk and saw all of the statues. 

I finally had a chance to take my Lamby pictures. 

Lamby travels everywhere with me.

Then we walked to the Cathedral which we were told is not a cathedral at all since it’s not the residence of the bishop. The church was tiny and beautiful in its own way. 

Steven had already thought that Mexicans were very morbid what with the Dia de los Muertos and all but they had life-sized statues of dead people in clear glass cases. Maybe taking morbidity a bit too far.

Speaking of morbidity, our tour guide highly recommended the beach on the other end of the river from the main area of Puerto Vallarta. He said that very few people cross the river thinking that the boardwalk is all there is to see, so the beach is relatively deserted and very romantic. The name of the beach? Playa de Merto! Beach of the dead? Yes, very romantic.

The pace of the tour was only a little frustratingly slow but then we got 40 minutes to spend walking around the flea market. It was interesting; lots of little trinkets and stuff of course that reminded me a lot of Olvera St. in Downtown LA but the vendors there are SO PUSHY to the point where Steven and I left the flea market early and waited on the sidewalk so that the vendors wouldn’t pressure us anymore.

In between the sections of the flea market was this crazy rope bridge which was so Indiana Jones-esque. 

This is a real life pedestrian bridge but it was oh so dangerous. There were missing planks or holes in the planks and swung like crazy. There are other pictures where people are hanging on the the ropes on the sides for dear life but I am secure enough with myself to show you my own struggle.

When we got back on the tour bus the guide assured us that that would be end of the walking part of our tour. Great, that’s not what we wanted at all. Oh well. The bus took us back into the jungle and past where our zip lining tour was…WAY past where our zip lining tour was. It seemed like we drove through the jungle forever until we finally reached our destination. It was another zip-lining tour/restaurant stop. The food was good and we finally got some freshly made tortillas. You get used to seeing places like this after a while but it kinda seems crazy that are year-round business that don't have any walls.

We took plenty of pictures by the river. It looked a lot like a river at home except for the dense jungle instead of more like a woodland setting.

That's a river house tucked in all that brush.

After the river we stopped by a Tequilery (? Tequila making place). 

<QUEUE HOW IT'S MADE MUSIC HERE> It starts out as agave plants seen here. There are various types. Apparently it takes 10 years of growing for it to reach the right age for making tequila. That seems like a crazy long time for such a small plant.

Below are a picture of the heart of the agave plant. It looks like a pineapple but all those 10 years of growing turns into this.

Next they fire up those hearts to give it a smoky flavor. They pile on different levels of wood and lava rock. Each tequila maker does this part differently.

Next they move the roasted agave hearts into this crusher thing. A mule is attached to the long piece of wood and all of the juices that are squeezed out go into that hole and is collected.

The juices are then put into bins to age. This area was kinda gross and stinky but it's okay because next...

 ...they distill it. What comes out is clean, pure tequila. You better believe we participated in the tastings. They have 6 or 7 different types to try and they gave you a hefty shot of each. The chocolate one was delicious but we ended up buying a bottle of the mandarin one.

Then it was time for the long ride back to Nuevo Vallarta. The best thing about this tour was that we got to see the different stages of the city’s growth. We saw downtown which is where the oldest buildings are. It used to be a mining town but soon those mining homes were changed to fancy beach side homes and shops once the movie stars (namely Elizabeth Taylor) caught wind of this place. The place expanded rapidly north in the 70s and 80s and then grew north farther to Nuevo Vallarta which is where we are staying. All of the resorts in the Nuevo Vallarta area look brand new (because it is) and some of them are still being built. 

The Northernmost part of Puerto Vallarta (which is immediately south of Nuevo Vallarta) however looks like it’s seen better days. I would say half of the buildings, hotels included, are vacant and look abandoned. Either everything of value was stripped and sold or they were in a middle of a renovation and ran out of money and there the hotel sat for a decade. I feel like maybe 20 or even 10 years ago this place was amazing, now it’s a little old and run down and there isn’t enough money to get it going again. There were even some vacant Senor Frog stores with old sun bleached posters proudly stating that Spring Breakers are welcomed and that Senor Frog is home of girls gone wild. Not no mo.

We got back to our resort around 5:30pm. It was such a very long day! We relaxed in our room while packing up our things. Our checkout from our resort is tomorrow at noon. We’re both so sad to leave. This place is really beautiful and serene and after spending 4 nights here, we feel at home.

We went to dinner for the last time. True to form, Carlos insisted our salad would have shredded duck on it but when it arrived it was a regular mixed salad with cheese and sliced almonds, no meat of any kind. Oh Carlos! Thanks for not letting us down on our last night!

For all of you thinking of maybe visiting Taheima in the future, here’s a bit of pros and cons for you from our experience with pictures in between in case that's all you care about:

[EDIT: Please note that since we returned, we learned that Taheima actually just opened. No wonder it was so impeccable. That might also be the reason some kinks weren't quite worked out yet.]

Pro: The hotel is gorgeous, clean, safe, with a friendly and memorable staff.

This is all one hose! We saw it one day laid out around the grounds and were astonished that we couldn't find an end.

Con: It seemed like the maid service went a little too far in trying to make things look neat. They would open up our closed luggage and put stuff away in them and close them back up. Yes, it looked neat but I didn't like the daily search for things I didn't put away. Also, one day I had some clothes draped over a chair so that they didn’t get wrinkled but we came back to the resort to find that they bundled up all of those clothes and shoved them in one of our bags. It was weird and annoying.

Pro: The resort is basically empty. It’s the off season so we would say there were only about 50 rooms occupied at the whole resort leaving most spaces looking sparse of people.

Con: There’s nobody around! It happened many times that we were the only ones at breakfast or at dinner or at the bar or at the pool and it just felt awkward. Sometimes there were more than enough staff members, like at the restaurants, and sometimes it was hard to find someone, like when trying to order at the pool.

Breakfast and we're the only customers. A common site at meal times.

Pro: Free yoga and other daily activities. Appointments were very open at the spa

Con: Again, the spa was not fully staffed to their regular working hours. They are supposed to be open from 9am-8pm but it seemed someone was actually there between 10:30am and 5pm. That made it really difficult to do ANYTHING outside of the resort and still get an appointment in at the spa. We had $50 credit for 5 days and only used 3 day’s credit because we couldn’t get an appointment that worked for us.

Gorgeous...and empty.

Pro: seemingly a lot of activities advertised. Perhaps in the “on season” there are more events at the resort.

Con: the staff basically seemed unaware of some of the perks that were supposedly included in our package. Mayra (my nemesis at the front desk) didn’t tell us about the book of excursions even though I asked several times for it. She at first said it would delivered to our room, then said it didn’t exist and then later that very day, we found it in the lobby a few feet from her desk!

Pro: Because we got it on a Groupon-type deal (actual website was Tippr), it was really cheap! We paid $250 each for a 5 night all-inclusive stay, plus they threw in that $50 per day credit.

Cool pool options. Just want to wade? That's fine, you can still hang out with peeps in the deep end.

We would both recommend this place. It was a great, low-key destination and we would definitely come back.

Wind Storm

Sorry everyone.

We were easily distracted while on vacation and wrote out all of the blogs but it takes so long to put in the pictures and edit and everything that we fell behind.

...and then this happened when we got home:

Most of the roof shingles -- gone.

Back yard mess

So we'll get the last few days of our vacation up as soon as we can. Right now we have other things to worry about!

Mexico trip dia 5

Puerto Vallarta

Two words to describe this day : Zip and Lines!!!

This morning we woke up early to talk to the concierge about trip excursions knowing that we wanted to do something awesome. According to our deal, our $50 daily credit can go toward zip-lining, swimming with dolphins, kayaking and more! However, when we talked to the concierge she didn’t have any clue what we were talking about. Instead she gave us a BOGO deal of two for the price of one on a zip-lining tour today and a full day tour bus trip to Puerto Vallarta tomorrow. We got both tours for $105 total, so $52.50 each! Not too shabby since we already wanted to go zip-lining and take a tour of Puerto Vallarta.

So we made our reservations, and less than an hour later we were off on an adventure. We drove through and past Puerto Vallarta and up into the jungle laden mountains. Our shuttle driver was very funny. He was from San Bernardino and had a lot of corny jokes that fell well on the ears of those longing for some English.

We were dropped off with a couple from Seattle and they were our tour mates for the rest of the trip. They put us in harnesses and off we went into the jungle. Neither Steven nor I had been zip lining before and man was it fun. There were 12 lines in total that seemed to fly by (no pun intended). The last line run was a head to head double cable run. I beat Steven down but I got a bit of a head start.

One thing we weren’t prepared for is that they don’t allow cameras. They have their own photographer who sets up at all the best spots (some seem impossible to get to) and snaps pictures of you throughout the tour. That means we were at their whim for any price they wanted to charge us for those pictures and of course we got suckered. Well, I won’t say suckered. He was a very nice dude and the pictures were beautiful and when else are we going to go zip-lining? We might as well fork out some cash for the pics.  Unfortunately, they won’t be delivered to our hotel until tomorrow or maybe even the day after.  Here's some pics of other people zip lining though:

and we do have pics of a crazy spider. It was HUGE!  Like eat your face huge:

And some butterflies which are all over the place but extremely hard to catch on camera

We got back to the hotel, lounged and ate lunch poolside and then I had a mani-pedi scheduled. I got some nails to match my Christmas party dress. AO! Since the zip-lining tour didn’t use the $50 credit, I used it on the mani-pedi and basically got it for free except for the tip.

Shortly after the mani-pedi, we went to dinner. This one wasn’t anything to write home about – though I will anyway. Steven had some steak that was supposedly medium but looked more like medium rare or even rare to the both of us. Maybe we’re just not versed in this stuff  (or maybe we’re right. Just looked this up and yes, Steven’s steak was somewhere between medium rare and rare when he asked for medium…or it could just be that Carlos is back and he might have gotten the order wrong as he does). I had some chicken that was just eh.

So now we’re back at the room trying to play catch up with the blog. It’s a hard life trying to keep up a blog when you’re so busy not caring about anything.

Misc:

The trees around here are awesome.  Very jungley:

They call this tree the gringo tree because it turns red and peels when exposed to the sun.