2008-08 Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico

Saturday
We had a couple of early frustrations on our first trip to Mexico. We had an early 6:45AM flight and had ordered a cab for 4:45. By 5:00 we still had no cab and no luck making contact with the cab company as everything went to voicemail. We quickly hopped in the van and headed to the park and ride. Fortunately our timing was good and only had to wait a couple minutes before we were picked up and on the way to the airport.

We arrived at a bout 5:30 only to find a long line for Frontier and only 2 agents at the counter checking everyone in. We did not make it to the front of the line until about 6:20 and just as we were about to go to the counter, our agent said she had to leave and go help at the gate. We did get helped next and got checked in fairly quickly, despite the fact that Ray and the girls had been able to check in on-line, but for some reason LeAnn wasn’t. We didn’t know what to expect, but it was not a problem. The extremely slow check in was due to the fact that they had changed flight numbers back in May and most of the people had not been moved to the new flight. It had ended up that we were, so ours went fast. So it was off to the gate. We found a security checkpoint with no line so that didn’t cause any problems. We go to the gate about 10 minutes before flight time and were relieved (somewhat) to see that they had not started boarding yet. The ticketing issues had caused them to delay the flight. With only about a 40 minute connection time in Denver, this was going to make it tight. We boarded the plane with Carmon the Blue Crowned Conure (a parrot type bird) on the tail and winglets and were surprised to find an all coach layout with nice leather seats for everyone.

We pushed back about 40 minutes late, but we did make up some time in flight and arrived at the gate with 15 until our next flight left. They made an announcement that they were holding the Puerto Vallarta flight as 16 people were making the connection. They asked others on board to let us off first so we all dashed off thinking we had to go from gate 24 to gate 51 and found out we were boarding at the very next gate! Because we were late, we missed our slot and landed at gate 53. We lined up and they started to check our documents and we got on board, this time we were flying on the Holly the Heron plane. We pushed off about 10 minutes late but were on our way despite the multiple close calls and potential issues. We all dosed on and off during the flight preparing for our upcoming week in Mexico.

We landed at Puerto Vallarta airport and had to take a cab to the Mayan Palace in Nuevo Vallarta, which is north and west of the airport. On the way to the taxi stand we were pulled into the timeshare gauntlet with people pushing their resorts with various offers including free taxi to your resort, free sightseeing trips, and free tequila. When we arrived at our resort, they said they would like to have us learn about the other locations they had in Mexico and would match any offers that anyone had made to us plus throw in some other discounts for us if we could spare 90 minutes of time our first full morning here, so we decided to do it.

As we were on the way to the resort, we noticed a few things about traffic down here. They use roundabouts and U-turn slots in many cases rather than traffic lights, but where they do use traffic lights, they have the left turn lane on the far right side of the through traffic lanes. When the turn signal is green, left turning vehicles pull across the stopped lanes of traffic in the direction they are going before crossing the intersection. This does allow large trucks to make u-turns or left turns through at the lights

For dinner, we went to Taco Break, which is just outside the gates and located between 2 holes on the golf course. The food was cooked over a wood fire and was hot, fresh and good. Unfortunately while we were there, it started to rain really hard. We had to wait for a shuttle to come pick us up because it was about a 10 minute walk back to the hotel, and we would have gotten soaked. The heavy rain flooded the greens and filled up the road from gutter to gutter in many places. Since it was raining, we ended up going back up to the room and watching the Olympics—with Spanish commentary and a little more world wide coverage than we see in the US.

Sunday
Our morning started with a timeshare presentation by the resort owners. We took our goodies and didn’t invest. We spent the afternoon at the pool and walking up and down the beach. The surf was rough today and not a lot of people were in the ocean. The water was very warm and would have been comfortable. It was easy to see where the river emptied into the ocean due to the brown water and sediment coming from the river. A very distinct line was formed out into the ocean and it worked its way down the beach as the afternoon wore on. A couple of boats appeared to be fishing along the transition line. A few people were parasailing, but all in all, the beachfront was pretty quiet.

In the late afternoon we left the resort area and took a taxi to Paradise Plaza to find a place to eat and pick up some groceries. We found both and had a very good variety of Mexican foods. We were curious about the cheese and found out is called Chihuahua cheese. Mariah conversed at length with one of the waiters and is enjoying getting to use her Spanish language skills in a real world setting.

Monday
This morning we took a taxi into the small town of Bucerias, which is located about 15 minutes south of the resort. We first went through the flea market, which was set up on the streets outside the elementary school. We did not know what was inside the walled area until we had gone 3/4ths of the way around. School runs in two sessions, with one group going from 8AM to 1PM and the second group going 2PM to 7PM. We didn’t find too much at the flea market, so we walked around the town and then headed for the oceanfront to walk down the beach. All the street signs in this town have advertising on them. When we found the street signs with Corona on them, we knew it was time for lunch. There were numerous restaurants to choose from, but none of them were very busy. We chose one that we could eat out on the beach. There weren’t too many vendors out in this part of the beach, so we weren’t interrupted very much.

After returning to the resort, we spent the afternoon at the pool before going out for pizza in one of the local malls. With all the walking we did, we called it an early night.

Tuesday
We had booked a tour on Tuesday that included snorkeling, kayaking, hiking to a waterfall and time at the beach. We took our tour on a large catamaran boat that held over 100 people. As we went to pick up other passengers in Puerto Vallarta, we saw a pirate ship which also does tours of the area. They must have a show on board also because we could hear cannon shots coming from the ship. Our first stop was for water sports where we could snorkel and/or kayak. The leader found and brought up some star fish and an octopus, and we saw a lot of purple and blue trimmed fish, a couple orange trimmed fish, some needle fish and an eel or sea snake. We all went snorkeling and then Hailey and Mariah went kayaking too.

The next stop was in Yelepa, where we docked and got off the boat and headed up the hills to a waterfall. Ray and Hailey jumped in and got a waterfall shower. It felt so good to be in the cold water after hiking up in the hot weather. Our next stop was the beach, and we hiked through village and had to wade across the river to get to the beach area. At the deepest, the water was only up to just above the knees. One person was driving across the river in a 4 wheel ATV pulling a trailer, so this was a crossing that was done often. The beach had nice sand, and the water dropped off very quickly. It started to rain while we were there and had to retreat under the roof of one of the beachfront restaurants. We had been out under a large umbrella sitting on folding sling chairs enjoying the ocean and the view. While we were in this protected area, we could see a large iguana up in the rafters. Earlier, as we finished wading across the stream, there were 2 men with iguanas who would let you take their picture with the iguanas for $5, so we got to see ours up close for free. Later that afternoon back at the swimming pool, we saw two more large (>5 feet nose tip to tail) iguanas out on the edge of the pool deck before they headed down into the open water behind the pool

Wednesday
First thing in the morning, LeAnn and Ray got up and went golfing. The sun doesn’t come up here until about 7:45AM, so it is strange how dark it is early in the morning during the summer. It gets dark about 8:30, so the long evenings are nice. The course is under renovation, so only 9 holes are currently open, so we went around twice. Seeing it the second time helped a little, but not enough. The ponds have been known to have some crocodiles in them, but we didn’t see any on our round. There were plenty of birds out sunning themselves on the edges of the water hazards, so any crocs could eat very well. The course and the greens were in nice shape, as they have been getting plenty of rain at this time of year. Mariah wasn’t feeling too well today, so we just did some relaxing at the pool and in the room.

Thursday
Our plan for today was to go into downtown Puerto Vallarta. We started on the melecon or boardwalk along the beach. There were sculptures every few hundred yards and the nice thing was it was wide open between the street and the ocean, so the view was basically unencumbered. This is not much of a swimming area, and at least at this time of year the ocean is relatively brown from all the runoff coming in from the rivers. There were a couple of sand castle artists doing their work right off the boardwalk. We stopped along the way at some of the flea market stands, but it seems like most of them were just as interested in getting you to go to time share presentations as they were at selling their wares. It was also a day that one of the cruise ships was in town, so we were told that prices were higher today.

Our next stop was Senior Frogs for a quick appetizer and refreshments. It was our first visit to one and we had a lot of fun with balloon hats, funny signs and great decorations on the walls, chairs and ceilings. Some more exploring brought us to a tequila shop where we sampled a little merchandise and then to a local church which was grand in size and beauty. We took a couple of photos with a couple of travel bugs we had from our geocaching adventures to show that they had made it to Mexico. We didn’t get to do any geocaching as we just didn’t get close enough to any sites, which were few and far between down here. Our final stop after a long day of walking and sightseeing was Hard Rock Café, where we try to go anytime we are in a city that has a restaurant. We squeezed into a standard cab for our ride back to the resort with 4 in the backseat and one up front. The cab kept stalling every time we had to stop, but it would always start back up and we made it home safely. We took a quick dip in the pool to cool off once we got home. As we were leaving the pool, we saw 4 iguanas up in a tree, just relaxing on the limbs. There were 3 of the very large brown ones we had seen earlier, and one smaller green one.

Friday
On Friday morning we got up and headed off to the Sierra Madre Mountains for a new adventure. We boarded a large yellow people transport vehicle which took us out of town. It reminded us of a Jeepney in that we sat sideways in the back of the bed on benches. It was an open air vehicle, so it was loud in back. As we crossed one of the state lines, we had to stop and they sprayed the vehicle to prevent the spread of insects that are destroying the fruit crops in parts of Mexico. The bugs attach the mango fruit and have been hard on the trees in the coastal areas. We rode for about an hour and then were at our starting point for our canopy adventure. We were going to climb, zip line, and repel through the woods from tree to tree. We had to put on our gear, which included a harness, pulleys, carabineers, gloves, helmet, and repel loop. We walked up to the first platform and then the guides hooked us on the zip line and safety line and we all went one at a time. We had to keep one hand on the zip line rope, and this was used to brake as we approached the landing platforms. It was also used to keep your body from twisting. If you got your hand too close to the sliding pulley, you could start to spin. The other hand was kept on your safety tether.

There were 5 guides who did all the work and kept constantly moving ahead, leading and following everyone. We couldn’t bring any cameras with us, but they had a photographer who took pictures of us in action. He would be places where you least expected, both above and below. We zip-lined almost 2km, did a Tarzan swing from a suspended rope, and repelled down 75 feet from the last platform. We also got to cross a suspended platform. Despite some concerns before we started, and getting past our fears of heights, we all had a great time and talked about doing this again some time. They have a longer tour that also includes hiking, waterfalls, rock face repels that we would like to do if we ever get down here again.

On the way back from the pool today, we saw a total of 8 iguanas, 6 of the large ones and 2 small ones. Everyday we see more iguanas down by the pool, so I’m glad we are just about to leave, otherwise the whole pool area might be filled with iguanas. As we headed to dinner, the bellboy got us a small cab again for the 5 minute ride to the shopping center, but this cab driver did not want to take 4 in the back seat as he said he could get a $60 ticket, which was interesting because when we questioned the driver the other day on the 30 minute ride from downtown, he told us no problem.

It rained again in the late afternoon as it has done almost every day. The mornings and early afternoons have been beautiful, but the late afternoon evening rains have been anywhere from light to heavy long downpours.

Saturday
It was time to head back home today. We were sad to see it end, but are always ready for home. We grabbed a cab and made it to the airport before even the ticket counter was open for our mid-afternoon flight. We got checked in much quicker and had plenty of time to kill, and fortunately there was no one trying to sell us any more time shares. We picked up our photos from the tour operator’s store in the airport and got a chance to look at them before we boarded. Our bags were hand inspected at the gate and we were on our way. Our plane had Woody the Wood Duck on the tail this time going to Denver this time, and we got to fly on Holly the Heron again going into Minneapolis. Not having a tight connection in Denver gave us more than enough time to wander the airport and read, organize photos, or listen to music.

2008-08 Pests

We've had a series of pests this year, ranging from box elder bugs crawling all over the sunny side of the house, to voles digging tunnels and trails through the yard, to our latest surprise--a big hornets nest. Hailey was getting dropped off late one night and when the porch light went on, it shined right onto a hornets nest that had been constructed in our front tree. We had seen some activity around the back of the house, but we seem to have some of that every year as they try to find ways into the attic through the eaves.

The nest is about the size of a soccer ball with a 3/4" entry hole near the bottom on one side. It is a light grey in color. We aren't sure when it was started or how long it took to build the nest. Hornets only use their nest once and will abandon it this fall when it gets cold. So for now it is going to stay.