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 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.

Mexico trip day 1

Guadalajara

In preparation for the Thanksgiving weekend travel rush we got to the airport 3 hours early, as they recommend for international travelers. As luck would have it, we beat the rush and were sitting at our gate within 10 minutes of being dropped off at the airport. Oh well. That left us time to watch a show. We picked up where we last left off with a Doctor Who Christmas Episode. So good. Definitely in the top 10 of Who's. Lots of the Doctor, very little Amy Pond is how we like it.

The flight was uneventful though we've had better experiences on other airlines. We got a meal but it was a ham and stinky cheese-wich. Stinky cheese doesn’t mesh well with enclosed airplane cabins.

Customs was fine though Deanna got picked for extra screening. It was touch and go for a minute there with her ibuprofen but she got through.

The original plan was to be adventurous and take the bus to the hotel but we couldn't figure out what bus to take so we reverted to American tourist mode and got a taxi. I haggled though and talked him down to 200 from 280. By haggle I mean:

Steven: Cuanto para ir a Hotel Morales?

Taxi Driver: 280.

Steven: 200?

Taxi Driver: Ehhh, vamanos!

We saw lots of interesting things on the taxi ride. Crazy driving. Goats. Car models they don’t have in the US, like a VW coupe with a truck bed. Entire families riding in the front seat of a truck. The most bad ass walk signs ever. The walk signs seriously deserve their own post. You know how in America we have the walk guy and the stop hand?

Boring.

Well here they've got an animated bright-as-hell LED walk guy AND a countdown timer. PLUS, the walk guy speeds up as the time counts down becoming the "running furiously guy". It doesn't stop there though; the STOP GUY has a countdown timer too! It's amazing. It's all the data you need to make an informed cross/jay walking decision. Course everybody here jaywalks anyway....

Sorry for the shakes, there was jostling amongst the pedestrians.

The hotel is pretty awesome. We went fancy for the first night. It’s well reviewed online with good reason.

Next was our walkabout and dinner excursion. Deanna had a friend who recommended El Sacromonte It was 1.3 miles away but we decided to be adventurous and walk while checking out the shops along the way. Despite having GPS and a compass and Deanna, who is freakishly great at directions, we ended up going perpendicular to our destination for maybe half a mile. Oh well. [Deanna insert – I wasn’t paying attention. Just walking and window shopping.]

We eventually made it to the restaurant. The food was amazing. We got appetizers that called themselves quesadillas but were more like calzones. In addition to the cheese there were rose petals inside and it was all drenched in a strawberry aioli. For courses I had pollo el delirio which was chicken breast rolled up with cuitlacoche (some kind of corn and bean type thing) inside and smothered in a sesame sauce. D had spare ribs cooked to perfection (falling off the bone).

We're both quite bad at Spanish, though I'm doing better than I thought I would. I was able to talk with our grandfatherly waiter enough to get the food ordered and get the attention of the fabric store attendants. Oh right, fabrics:

This portion is now penned by Deanna.

FABRICS!! So many great and not so great (Virgin Mary prints on fleece?) fabrics!

I’m most excited that I found something that I’ve been looking for which are really authentic Mexican looking fabrics. Maybe I’m crazy and you can find them downtown or something but I haven’t seen them. Anyway, here’s a pic:

They are so brightly colored and my favorite is the one with the little dude and his donkey.

I’m thinking of maybe making a simple dress out of the black one and some cool looking bags with the other brightly colored ones like this one…plus I already have some leather.

I got some other amazing fabrics I can’t wait to go home and use.

On the far left is some amazing polyester fabric which is the same fabric content as my favorite dress. It’s my favorite dress because it’s cool and flowing and quick drying (for the hot sweaty days of summer when Steven decides to catch me with the garden hose…true story), and is easy to wash and never stains or wrinkles. It’s the world’s most perfect fabric for $3 a yard. The print on it is amazing too and my favorite color blue.

The middle one is for a yellow polka dot bikini. I have a bikini pattern and I thought it would be something fun to make. The fabric was like $1.50 or something so why not?

The purple one on the right is silk charmeuse that is super soft and oh so flowey. I’ve never worked with anything like this and will probably need a steamer but it was too pretty to pass up at less than $3 a yard (probably not real silk but still soft).

And finally there’s a wool and poly blend plaid that I got specifically for a coat pattern I just bought from Sewaholic.

I’ve never sewn a jacket and I’ve only worked with one plaid that didn’t matter if it lined up so this will be a challenge. This one was something like $2 a yard or something crazy! It’s soft and warm and is perfect for a coat.

So Steven and I got back to the hotel and calculated the damage I did to my wallet buying fabric. Only $47 for a total of 22 yards of fabric. That’s an average of $2.13 a yard! That’s the only souvenir I wanted so I’m actually under budget from what I thought I would spend. I think I'm getting better at buying fabric already having something in mind with how I'll use it.

We got back to the hotel after shopping and are already beat. We walked about 3 miles today after waking up super early and spending 2.5 hours in the air. There was a party going on at the rooftop bar of the hotel but when we went to check it out there were signs that it was a private party tonight. Oh well. At least now we’re forced to turn in and get an early start tomorrow.

Random observations:

• No kids in strollers. The only ones we’ve seen in strollers were getting off of the plane. While this does work the kids out more it also makes them more likely to be stepped on.
• We keep getting 2 second bursts of fireworks every hour or so. It's a very lazy fireworks show.
• They have a Mexican version of the E! show The Soup called La Sopa.
• Our fancy hotel not only has the regular soaps and shampoos but also has complimentary shoe shine and sewing kits.
• The hotel has a master power switch for the room that you activate with your room key. This prevents you from wasting power but also makes their alarm clock useless.
• Diet Cokes are called "Coke Light". We like "light" better than "diet" but it's confusing that they use "light", an English word, as the Mexican version of the soda.


• There are bike racks all over and some even have travel time estimates.

• There’s an armoire in the hotel room that Deanna could live in. Steven could almost live in it: