Well, only 34 pictures on the first blog post after the vacation. We had a blast as a family. We flew out on Saturday at 6:30 AM to Santa Ana with David and met Jen, McKenny and Samantha later in the morning. We grabbed some breakfast with David and then met their plane. We all got some lunch and brought it on the plane for our flight to Mexico. Darla and I shared a sandwich, David got some Chinese food and Jen got sandwiches for their gang.
The flight was unremarkable and we were in Puerto Vallarta within three hours. The airport was packed like I've never seen it. There were flights backed up and the baggage claim and Immigration were jammed. We were able to get our bags and finagle our way into a relatively short line and get through pretty quickly. They have a system in PV whereby your push a button and it randomly comes up green or red. Green you go on happily about your day. Red and you get your bags searched. we've been to PV about six times now and never been searched. Jennifer has been there once and got the dreaded red light. There was no issue, but she had to go through the invasion of her bags by the Mexican authorities.
Dan and Becky had arrived about 11:00 AM and met us outside the airport and we met our transportation, which was a nice Chevy van that drove us into the resort. The kid's heads were on a swivel as we went through the entry of the resort and into the reception area. We took a shuttle right over to Tower 4 of the Grand Luxxe, which is the newest building. I was told that we could not get into the spa tower again. We upgraded two years ago, but we were in Luxxe 1 the last time we came over. The tower was still under construction at the time. Something must have cleared up because we ended up in the new building, which includes an alcove on the balcony that has a spa table on it. We didn't get in until after 5, so just got checked in and had dinner. The boys decided to go to the Taco Break restaurant for dinner while Jennifer and I ran to the on site market and grabbed some eggs, milk, cereal, bread and lunch meat to tide us over.
Sunday, we took a cab into Nuevo Vallarta and spent $375 on groceries for the week. We were able to eat all of our lunches and most of our breakfasts in the condo and also had three dinners, including tacos and burritos one night and breakfast for dinner another night. Darla and I also bought two meal plans so we could treat the kids to two dinners and two breakfasts. Darla and I split our meals and Jennifer and McKenny did the same. Daniel bought an extra meal. Dad and Shirley came in that night and met us for dinner.
I treated Samantha to a Dolphin Experience for her 8th birthday on Tuesday and she chose to do it with her Mom rather than go to the Kid's Experience. The fun thing about the swim experience is that they were able to swim with the dolphin. You can see Sam in the one picture on the dolphin. The dolphin swims upside down and the swimmer climbs on top and holds the fins as they cut through the water. The dolphin center has quite a gig set up whereby they seat us about 80 yards from the pool in a viewing area and then put camera people in the water with them to get pictures. They got some outstanding photos, but the package of photos was $159. The cost of the actual swim for both of them was a total of $94. We had a zoom lens and was able to get some decent pictures.
The Majahuitas and Yelapa adventure that we took with the same company was much more reasonable for their photo package. They wanted $79 for the photo stick and a group picture and any picture in a metal print. We eschewed the metal print and got the cost down to $40. That trip was fun, but we had to be at the Dolphin Center at 7:30 AM on Wednesday. Not a fun thing on your vacation, but we made it work and Jennifer was able to get Sam to bed early. She was so excited to go snorkeling and kayaking that she was up and raring to go in the morning. We had a decent continental breakfast with fruit and pastries, juice and coffee. Unfortunately, McKenny had to work and missed the trip and it was his loss. We had a blast. The boat went first to Puerto Vallarta where we picked up more passengers and then on to Los Arcos, where we slowed and a speed boat delivered a couple who were staying at a resort near the arches. We traveled about an hour and 40 minutes to Majahuitas, where we dropped anchor and spent an hour and a half snorkeling and kayaking. I was in the water for about fifteen minutes and up and out and back in the boat. Looking at fish for me is fine, but ten minutes is plenty of time to spend. Sam was a little fish and spent most of the first hour with her mask in the water looking at all there was to see. They came back up and were the last ones to get a kayak and David joined them.
From there, we pulled anchor and lunch was served. They had cold cuts, fruit, salads and an open bar. We traveled about 45 minutes to Yelapa. The town of Yelapa is a fishing village that is only accessible by boat because of the jungle terrain surrounding it. The word Yelapa means "where the sea meets the river". The river does empty into the bay at Yelapa. Becky got sick while she was snorkeling to Daniel's dismay. She unfortunately got sick as they were getting back on the boat, right at the ladder. We got her some Dramamine and she felt better, but decided to skip the hike up to the waterfall. Daniel stayed back with her and Darla decided to visit with Dan and Becky on the beach, so David, Jen, Sam and I headed up to the waterfall. It was an easy hike up a sidewalk to the waterfall. You can see how beautiful the waterfall is. David took the pictures which turned out great.
From the waterfall we hiked back through the little village of Yelapa to the bay. Sam counted 23 dogs, including four puppies all from the same litter and all with different families. The school let out as we were walking back and the children were all in their school uniforms. We saw one father with his kids and a mule ladened with fruit and vegetables. We also saw several men on 4 wheelers with supplies brought in by boat. They also had the requisite Catholic church that looked like all of the town's money was sent building it.
We spent about 90 minutes at the beach and Sam made friends with a little Mexican girl who didn't speak English. It was fun watching them interact. Jen bought Sam a water and we offered Daniella a drink. She didn't want any, but kept saying "agua". We finally figured out that she wanted Sam to go back into the water. This is a picture of the girls together:
Wednesday night we celebrated Sam's birthday and Shirley's birthday at our condo. We fixed tacos and salad and beans and chips. Shirley was really touched as we all made her cards and bought a cake for her and Sam. She told me afterward that she was so touched, she had trouble sleeping that night.
The rest of the trip was fun and mostly spent on the resort. Daniel, Becky, Jen, McKenny, David and Darla went into PV on Monday and I stayed behind with Sam and we went on the lazy river, went on the water slide and I took her to the Kid's Park at Grand Mayan. You can see a picture of Sam eating ice cream. That was on our Monday and I was being Grampa..or Papa as she calls me. We had a ball together.
The kids went into PV and shopped a bit in town and then had lunch at PiPi's, a famous local restaurant that we have visited many times. They also went into the Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Puerto Vallarta. They had a great day in the city.
You can see the crocodile that we saw in the river outside our condo tower. I had seen the croc early in the week. Darla went to a massage with Becky on Thursday morning and Jennifer, Sam and I saw him again that morning and luckily Jennifer had her phone. The river is man made and fed by the Rio Grande de Santiago. I think the crocodile must have been sucked into the man made river by tubes that feed it. The croc is really young and only about four feet long. He stuck his head in the water inlet tube while we were watching. I'm guessing he eats the iguanas which are in great abundance at the resort. Sam counted 34 during our trip.
Sam went Thursday night to see the turtle races. It is a fun thing for the kids, but is actually the sea turtle release by the municipality of Nayarit. The sea turtles arrive in early November and lay their eggs. Forty five days later they hatch and the turtle refuge group releases them back to the sea. It is fun for the kids as they watch the baby turtles run to the sea. Sam swears her turtle won the race among the 50 or o turtles released.
Darla unfortunately became ill on Thursday night, having a bad night sleeping and then ending up with the flu in the morning. She was not in any shape to do anything on Friday and spent most of the day in bed. It was our last full day of vacation and the rest of us went over to the Grand Mayan, played pool volleyball, hit the lazy river, went down the slide and spent the afternoon at the beach. It was supposed to rain and the storm arrived at about 4 PM while we were in the ocean. The ocean is 85 degrees in Nuevo Vallarta and the warm temperatures have quite an effect on the weather. The recent hurricane intensified dramatically because of the warmth of the ocean. The rain falling was really pretty cool as we body surfed. Unfortunately, the storm intensified and, although it was still 70 degrees, we got soaked to the bone. We were leaving the next day and had to take the blow dryer to the backpack I was carrying as it was drenched.
Well, I will continue with more from our vacation next week. Dad and Shirley are still in Nuevo for another week and I'm jealous. We left them with a fridge full of leftovers, so they are set for the week. Be well. Ciao.
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