Mexico (part tres)

These will just be pictures (and comments). I swear.

Yes, I did actually watch them polish these. They were by the entryway though, so I cut them some slack (and then promptly came home and polished mine....)



I think it looks like it was painted this way. The greens were absolutely beautiful. And SOMETHING around there smelled like freshly cut jalapeno. I am sure they thought we were crazy smelling everything trying to find it.  Never did.




This may have been jasmine but almost looked like an orchid of some sort.



YAY!! My favorite, Plumeria!



Okay, I know they sell these here and I think I remember killing quite a few of them as house plants....They were HUGE down there. This is literally the size of a giant hydrangea blossom.

Jasmine.



Plumeria. If they hadn't been so few and far between I would have picked them all!




I think it is a Bird of Paradise.



Okay, so much for the Flora. Now onto the Fauna...







This is a turtle trail up to it's nest.  We would see these every morning on the beach. Sometimes they would leave two nests, one as a decoy? I need to do some research on this.  Supposedly they had crews that would scour the beaches every morning and relocate the eggs in a safe place.  I never saw that happen but wasn't about to go digging to double check.



Reason Number One why I limited myself to short amounts of time in the surf. He was a good 10-12 inches from tip to - uh, tentacle?

This basically said that due to the presence of lakes and ponds on the property, that there was a chance you would see a crocodile and you shouldn't feed or "disturb" them. We never saw one but not because we weren't looking!



Caught this guy sunning himself, he was one of many we saw just kinda hanging out.





See the duck in the tree? Yes.  A duck.





Reason Number Two why I limited my time in the surf....keep in mind a good portion of him is in the sand going after his dinner.**shiver***


And back to flora....

Sure beats the pine needles we get in our pools around here....

Forgot this one in the Fauna section. Another Iguana, he raced out of the green bush at the bottom of the tree, thus his bright hue.

There were a bunch of hidden little grottoes like this off the beaten path. Kind of weird, because you literally had to climb through the bushes to get to them, but they were obviously groomed and mowed and such. They were super pretty, if not a bit too humid for my taste. Several had high rocks that the plants literally cascaded down. Idyllic site for a small wedding party or something.

Mexico (part dos)

So basically I am just going to post picture with blurbs. Honestly, we didn't do anything to really talk about other than lay around the pool, read, nap and drink all day. The second day we discovered a pool that was much less populated. We determined that this being the slow time of year, it is also the time when Mexican families take advantage of the lower rates, so the pools around our building that had all the kid friendly options like wave pool, lazy river and shallow areas were PACKED. We quickly decided it was well worth the hike to go to one of the outlying pools, plus it was right on the beach and the breezes were blocked by all the trees and bathrooms....We weren't the only smart ones, it was basically the same 10 people every day, just shifting around trying out different locations around the pool every day.

Shopping, resort-style.  For the record, he got us to come over by announcing he had all sorts of "cheap junk". Sorry, I think the cheapest thing in there was a $40 (american dollars) charm....oh well.

Jeff did a lot of "knitting", which was the only thing our bartender could think of to call it....

Yup, life was rough.

We did leave the pool occassionally, to go to the beach.  We learned quickly that you WEAR YOUR SHOES up until you are ready to step in the water.  We developed some near-blisters one day trying to run across the sand to where we had left them. Couldn't believe that sand could GET that hot!!

The ocean water was warmer than the pool water. And had a few more obstructions in it as well as you will see in later pictures....

Yup, guess who got a sunburn the second day?

This pool rocked. My hair hated it and it was a little hard on the elbows when you were trying to read in it (or drink) but for the most part, it was heaven!

View of the beach....from the pool.

Superman!



My elbows were seriously unhappy with all of the work I made them do, propping me up so I could read and tan my backside at the same time. I don't know what I was thinking....




OMAR!!! The man of the Happy Hour and almost every other hour as well. Yes, they would literally bring you a bucket o'beer. Or a margarita (or three).



Detoxing.

I can't tell if this is morning hair or after pool hair.  The coffee cup doesn't help as it pretty much lived out there the entire week.



The sunsets were gorgeous EVERY SINGLE night,

The camera really doesn't do it justice.



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Mexico (part uno)

First of all, I need to give a GIANT thank you to those who made this vacation possible, namely Mark, Jeff's boss who gave us the use of his timeshare, AND my parents, who stayed with all of our two- and four-footed monsters for the entire week and lived to tell the tales.

MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS!

We left for Mexico dark and early Friday morning with a stopover in San Francisco and then on to...PuertoVallarta.  Well, technically, we were staying in Nuevo Vallarta which is a little north of the town. This being our second time doing the "resort" thing, we were better prepared to ignore the gamut of timeshare hawkers and rouge taxi drivers who are willing to promise you anything to get you in their car. It was still a bit unnerving but we kept our eyes straight ahead and peeled for the driver in the blue shirt. Thank GOD there was only one!

Our next challenge was to decline, decline, DECLINE the free breakfast and discounted drinks we could have if we sat through the sales pitch one of the days of our stay.  We learned the hard way last time that even though they drive a hard bargain to get you in there, it was pretty much a waste of an ENTIRE day basically repeating word "no" over and over again to sleazier and sleazier dressed sales people. Plus it was HOT and last thing I wanted was to be traipsing all over the resort watching people relaxing while I was sweating and getting grumpier by the second.  Been there, done that. NO THANKS. 

But by dinner time we were sitting on the beach, looking a little worse for wear, but drinking our first Mexican beverages by the beach.

The rest of the week pretty much followed this schedule:

Up by 8 or 9 a.m. and cooking eggs and coffee in our room (we had a full kitchen, TWO full suites and a living room that would have slept about 8, I think, so don't think we didn't consider calling EACH and EVERY one of you all to come fly down and join us!).

10 a.m. - Head to the pool.

11 a.m. - Partake of the special of the day (beverage) as supplied by our friend and waitstaff, Omar, while we watch the hardcore ladies participate in water aerobics.

1 p.m.- First happy hour.

4 p.m. - Second happy hour.

5 p.m. - Back to the room for a shower/nap

8 p.m. - Dinner somewhere.

10 p.m. - Bed.
The following pictures are of our surroundings while we were there.

The Lazy River that was right outside our room. They had inner tubes for sitting in while you drifted around and around. It was actually quite gorgeous if you could avoid the waterfalls....and thankfully they shut it down about 8 p.m.

Yes, that is a swim up bar.  No, I did not swim up to it. I preferred to watch the people who did as they attempted to stay on their stools, three sheets to the wind.

Breakfast day one.  The rest of the week we cooked breakfast in our rooms and it was not NEARLY this yummy.

In the Lobby there were about 6-8 of these monolithic statues lining the walls. The lights were very dim (especially if you were still wearing your sunglasses) and they were playing a rather eerie Aztec inspired soundtrack.  We watched as several children walked in and then ran right back outside only to have to be carried in hiding their eyes and covering their ears in order to get through it!

See me? They were really huge!

Sorry, another view of the bar as well as our "hotel".

Most of these buildings belonged to our resort, although several of them were closed due to low traffic or remodeling. I can't quite figure out where Jeff was standing when he took this picture.....

Looking south toward Puerto Vallarta. It was hazy like this most mornings but it created the most beautiful shades of blue in the mountains and along the shore.

Part of the "trail" to our favorite pool.  The plants were gorgeous. Hard to believe they are the same varieties we can buy at the grocery store and kill in three days.....

One of the walkways in front of one of the buildings.  This one was actually fresh water, not pool water. Your nose could tell the difference.

Yes, in case we didn't get enough of the pool during the day, we had a soaking pool on our patio.

 

This was a huge sculpture of an origami crane in the lobby of one of the buildings. See the couch at lower left for scale.