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.