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.

Mexico trip day 4

Nuevo Vallarta

Woke up at 8:30 again.  Breakfast was egg burrito stuffed with veggies and eggs benedict hollandaise

Deanna went to get a massage at 10am while Steven fixed the air conditioner. The actual unit works just fine but while it’s on, there is an extremely bright green light that fills the room like if we lived across the street from a bar’s neon sign.  To illustrate this here's a creepy 60 sec exposure sitting under the AC light.

With a little ingenuity and a first aid kit, Steven bandaged up the lights and all should be well for good sleeps tonight.

After breakfast we took the van shuttle over to the beach resort and from there we walked to Paradise Village where the shops are. We bought a few items at the mall which, incongruously to the hot and humid weather outside, was fully decked out in Christmas cheer.

One odd thing was that we wanted to mail a postcard, something specifically requested by our neighbor who is keeping an eye on Bowie. We found what is equivalent to a UPS store but was also a bookstore and we assumed provided mailing service or something since they had PO boxes. We asked for stamps and they looked at us like we were crazy. They said stamps were sold at the supermarket downstairs. So we went back to the supermarket where we had already bought some other items and got our stamps. But now where to find a mail box?  We looked everywhere along our walk back to the Beach Club and saw nothing and I noted that in the past I’ve seen people ask their hotel front desk to mail things. We asked the hotel when we got back later that night and they said we could find somewhere to mail it in Paradise Village - which is where we bought the cards and the stamps and there was no mail box in sight. Oh well! We’ll find one eventually but now we’re likely to beat the postcards home.

So another day spent lounging on the beach. Yesterday we had nachos and pina coladas. Today Deanna had marlin tostadas with a banana smoothie and Steven had a chicken quesadilla with a pineapple smoothie.  Deanna is taking advantage of seafood opportunities while she doesn't have to share food with me.

Deanna got cold first so got out to take pics of Steven in the water.

 I found another sand dollar and brought it in to record for posterity.

In addition to the ocean they've also got an awesome pool at the beach club.  Not nearly as big as the resort pool but this one has awesome kiddy slides so that's a big plus.

Our favorite bell boy German (pronounced Hchairman, if you're clearing your throat you're doing it right) drove us back to the hotel and we asked him about the jaguars. He stopped the shuttle for us by the cages so we could snap some pictures. He told us how the jaguars were owned by our resort owner who also has lion cages and monkey cages around Nuevo Vallarta. He owns 3 or 4 of the resorts in town so he is very rich. German also said that although the jaguars are beautiful to look at, they are also sadly always sitting in those cages and should be free. Right on, German!

Those are really the only things of note today. We got in the pool for a while back at the resort and had our old friend Alejandro deliver drinks to us. We got dinner which was has been consistently worth over $100 and this time we got pictures of it. Steven got chicken, Deanna got tuna. We were missing our usual waiter, Carlos, who has the day off. He is great because he says he has the menu of the day up here [points to his head] but so far has always gotten it slightly wrong.

Spinach and peppers.

Chicken in a cream sauce

Tuna triangles in a triangular plate to keep with theme

Vanilla ice cream with fruity junk in it.

Chocolate cake.

This is Deanna trying to tell the difference between Cabernet and Merlot.  She failed.  So did I. We are not fancy.

After dinner we decided to relax and watch some Dr. Who for a while. But Deanna was still feeling full so we went to the gym to walk off some of the food brick.

Misc.  

Lobby has no windows and no doors.  I guess they never close.

They use “occidental” all over the place here. There's a newspaper, various businesses, and this hotel under renovation.  Maybe we'll get discounts as alums when it re-opens?

There are these creepy decorations on the way to our room. Steven is giving life to the mask that lacked clothing.

Mexico trip day 3

Nuevo Vallarta

This morning we slept in until around 8:30…which in LA time is actually 6:30am. We’re already accustomed to the time change I guess. Deanna went to 9am yoga and after that we went to breakfast. Steven ordered the omelet with everything and Deanna ordered something similar to huevos rancheros. Both were very delicious.

11am and it was time for Steven’s deep tissue massage. Along with our All-Inclusive resort package, our deal comes with $50 resort credit per day so a $70 one-hour massage becomes $20. Very sweet deal! Deanna’s massage is scheduled for tomorrow at 10am.

Soon after Steven’s massage we left for the beach. The resort is part of a group of resorts that is in this well-manicured mini city so not all of the resorts are right on the beach. Our resort is maybe half a mile from the beach…not far at all but we’re too fancy now to walk all the way there.

The beach club is great. We get the same free service but this time they serve us under our own island style type canopies. 

Deanna lounging.

View of the private beach club from the beach

The shallow water went on for what felt like miles. The waves were calm and it was so much fun to play in. The sand is also silky soft.

Automatic corona ad

At one point, Steven dove into the water and grabbed a bunch of sand to see what he could find and in his first attempt found a live sand dollar! He threw it back though. We didn’t want to kill it. We saw some other ocean life. Several sand dollars and at one point fish were jumping into the air out of the water not too far away.  These fish clearly wanted to jump in our mouths but we’d have to wait for dinner back at the resort to fulfill their wish.

There were people hawking their wares up and down the beach.  Hatman was our fave.

Rockin' the 'stache hard

We got picked up and on the drive back to the resort noticed an odd cage like structure at the entrance to the driveway.  At first it seemed odd to be enclosing a couple of palm trees but as we panned down  we discovered a couple of jaguars lounging on the grass.  Jaguars!  What? Why are there jaguars?  This isn’t part of a zoo or anything and it’s a ¼ mile from the hotel itself.  Maybe they’re mascots?  The worst part is we must have walked right past their cage yesterday after the bus dropped us off and we didn't even notice those beasts!  We could have been eaten.  No pics of the kitties yet.  We'll work on that today.

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Post jaguar discovery it was back to the room to lounge then over to the bar, where we were the only patrons, for a couple pre-dinner drinks.  This is truly the off season.  We haven't seen more than 5 other groups at any one time.  

Then it was off to dinner.  Steven got some chicken curry action though the curry seemed more likes salsa.  Deanna got mahi mahi and ….. We were too stuffed for dessert but at our waiter's insistence we got them to go.  Life is tough.

Then back to the room, more Doctor Who, and sleeps.

Misc: In Mexico, I am known as Steven Bornn-Heeeelman.

Here are some random resort pics for you to enjoy

Fitness Center. Behind the white wall is the yoga studio, the reddish wall on the left is the gym.

Orange wall...just like at home.

The light blue moat protects the dark blue swimming pool.

Escher style architecture

Just outside of our room

Mexico trip day 2

Guadalaja -> Nuevo Vallarta



Our second day was mostly about getting from Guadalajara to Nuevo Vallarta, about 4 hours away.  We got up, talked to the concierge about how to get to the bus station (taxi) and went to breakfast.  In keeping with our adventurous theme we didn’t eat at the hotel restaurant.  Instead we went all the way across the street to a little restaurant.

I got huevos con chorizo.  A little too salty but quite good.  Deanna got chilaquiles but apparently they don’t come with eggs automatically in Mexico so they were mostly just drenched tortilla chips.  Boo.

After breakfast we went up to the roof and took a few pics.

Rooftop pool.

Then it was the taxi to the bus station.  Along the way:

Giant basketball statue to celebrate the Pan-American games.  There are posters all over the place for this.

We hit up this bike shop yesterday on walkabout.  The best part was they had this mini-pick up truck with a bike rack on it so they could go get your bike from your home and take it back to the shop.  All you road bike fans would be disappointed (Chris), this place was 100% mountain and hybrid.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any drop bars here at all, possibly because of the bad roads.

Next was waiting at the bus station.  We arrived at 11:20 and it took a few minutes to get tickets so we just missed the 10:40 bus, naturally.  Given that knowledge we were prepared for our 11:40 bus to be late as well and we weren’t disappointed.  We hit the road at about 12:15.

We passed by the city of Tequila so there were plenty of Agave plants about.

As we moved west the plant slowly changed from grass and tree

to full on jungle.

4.5 hours later the bus arrived in Mezcales, the closest official stop to our destination.  We found out later that there was a closer unofficial stop…but since it wasn’t written down anywhere we didn’t know.  With the help of an English speaking family, also from LA, we got onto a taxi/van which took us to the driveway of our resort.

We checked in and got to our room which is mega-fancy.  Bedroom, living /dining room with kitchenette, and two full baths!

Kitchenette

Bedroom.  Deanna jumping on bed included.

Living/dining room.

Two full baths!

With appropriately high shower heads.

Since it was early evening and the shuttles stop beach service at 8pm, we stayed in and explored the hotel. We hung out on our very own poolside canopy bed and took a dip in the pool. The pool is SOO long. As a challenge, we “tranquilly” swam across it without touching the floor. It felt like the one way trip took over 5 minutes and we were winded by the end of it. Deanna did the return trip across the pool but Steven was too tired and was too busy searching for our server, Alejandro, for more drinks. Drinks are brought  right to the pool.

Tranquility is requested at this wellness resort. Don't worry, there's a kid's pool the same size on the other side.

Later we showered and went to dinner. I think our eating schedule is different than everyone else’s around here. We were seated at around 7pm to an empty restaurant. The dinner crowd didn’t show up until around 8:30 or so.

We stuffed ourselves with all 4 courses of the meal. They brought us our “bill” to sign off on. Our package is all-inclusive, of course, but it was cool to see what our total would have been. Our free meal would have cost us over $100. We’re glad we splurged for the all-inclusive.

The rest of the night we stayed in and watched a movie (Shawn of the Dead). Deanna fell asleep and shortly after we went to bed in our massive bed.

Misc: Mexico’s road turtles are far superior to ours.  They’re metal so with a little wear they get shiny instead of cracked and they’re like 6” x 6” x 3”.  A bunch of them in a row is basically a speed bump.