We loved Mexico and had so much fun seeing our friends, hanging out, swimming in the ocean, with the dolphins, and zip lining. We started out our first full day visiting North of Puerto Vallarta in Sayulita and San Pancho (where our friends live). Sayulita is the cute little surfing town that was packed and provided great people watching. San Pancho is a quiet town with the magnificent sunset and amazing burrito's!! It was great to see Jeremy and Nicole's new adventure and how great they've grasped the culture, learned the language, and met a ton of equally adventurous people who've picked up and packed their belongings to this wonderful little town. I think i've convinced myself that living their one year would be a great adventure, now i just have to convince Jason! :)
On Tuesday we swam with the dolphins (awesome) and hung out in Puerto Vallarta. Little did we know, Easter is a two-week celebration in Mexico. The schools are closed and the inlanders head to the beach towns...so the places were packed! Again, great people watching and suddenly I realize all the things I didn't take pictures of! There was the guy balancing rocks on the beach which i did get, but there were some incredible sand sculptures, these creepy live statues, and a fun amphitheater with a large gathering to watch the pantomime (non of which we took pictures of?). One thing Puerto didn't deliver on was great food! We were desperately looking for great authentic Mexican or tasty fresh seafood....and we struggled to get either there! We did eat at Icarumba's which overlooked all of the bay so at least there was great scenery which helped pass the 2 hours it took to get our flaming fajitas!
Wednesday we headed back to the busy little surf town and spent the day laying on the beach and shopping for gifts for B to take to her friends. She loved all the bracelets and trinkets so we didn't have the heart to tell her they were made in China! :) That is the same day she learned the valuable lesson of never hesitating when approached by someone on the beach to buy something. She contemplated having her hair braided and as soon as the Seniorita saw there was a chance, she followed us down the beach and approached us 4 times before B finally gave in and got her cute little braids. I think it took the lady 30 seconds to do all the braids.
Thursday was our last full day and we headed out for the zip line adventure. After our cab driver nearly got us into a fight with another car load of rather large Hispanic men... we arrived safely at our meeting point. Another hour drive south down the coast we saw some beautiful real estate and more little villages before we actually got to the zip line tour where our driver, Carlos, says to us, "after the zipline we'll hang out for an hour & a half. I am your driver, I'll stay parked right here, and we'll meet here." So, we got fitted for our harness, had a lovely family photo taken in Sombrero's (unfortunately i wasn't able to scan that picture in, dang!) and headed out for 10 different zip lines all weaving back and forth over the rocks and water you see in our pictures. The zipline was awesome - i wish i could have taken my camera and got some pictures there, it was crazy fun!! After we were done we had some chips and salsa and headed out to the rocks and river. We spent an hour or so and headed out to our van - no Carlos. we walked around a bit more, still no Carlos. Finally, the photographer tracked us down to inform us that the plan had changed (unbeknownst to us) and the rest of the tours had already left..... hmmm, ok. Finally, a sweet local man who worked for the zip line took us in his own car the 1-1/2 hour drive back to our hotel so we didn't have to wait. Super nice guy...Hindsight, glad it all worked out ok! Not sure that i would ordinarily recommend getting in to a strangers car in a foreign country! :)
Since it was our last night we showered up and hopped back in a cab for another hour drive north to spend our last night on the San Pancho beach, having another tasty shrimp burrito, and hanging with Jeremy and Nicole at Panchito's (their palapa). It is the best to listen to their stories of starting a business in a foreign country! Between being offered to have their power re-routed to someone else so they don't have to pay for power (because everyone does that), to having the beer distributor skip town with their $400 liquor license deposit, ... and one of the best was hearing about how he was going to try and pay his power bill since A) someone stole the ATM machine from the main courtyard in town for the second time by quietly blow-torching it, and B) the power company moved - but didn't provide a new address! .... thank goodness for online bill pay in America!!
It was a great trip and nice to spend a whole week with mi familia!! :)
