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.