Beach- PV, Mexico: Day Numero Siete

We just relaxed on the beach downtown for most of the day. While Ammon and Connor made sand castles, I lounged on a towel reading the Ensign. No sooner had I gotten into a story than I was interrupted by someone trying to sell me something. "No, gracias." Then I would get into what I was reading again and get startled back to reality. This would happen over and over. Finally I was saying, "NO, gracias!" Every minute there was someone else bothering me with jewelry, time shares, excursions, food, drinks, mexican blankets, braids, toys, pottery, anything and everything someone could carry. Ammon was also being hounded. He would flatly tell them he didn't have any money (a smart tactic- to not bring money to the beach in Mexico).

Finally, I decided it was time to get in the water (mostly to escape the onslaught of vendors). Because I thought we were going somewhere else first, I hadn't changed into my bathing suit yet and there was nowhere around to change. Ok, so yes I was crazy but I changed under a towel on the beach. Ammon blocked for me for some of my changing. Then we escaped as a family into the sea. No one bothered us there. Why didn't we do that sooner?!

Connor checking out the sand castles he and daddy made.

I'm standing in the tunnels that the boys made under their castles. I actually slipped into the holes and Ammon thought it was a great photo op. Ha.

If you'll notice, Connor is holding his finger in many of these pictures. This morning in the shower w/Ammon, the razor dropped. Connor went to pick it up and those five sharp blades cut his little thumb! It wasn't deep, just like little paper cuts but they still hurt. We put bandaids on his thumbs but being in the water at the ocean made them come off. That's why he's crying in this picture, he wants a new bandaid.

The bat story: That morning before heading to the beach, I saw a bat outside our room. It wasn't flying, it was sliding itself along the hall, apparently injured. That night it was in our room! I woke up in the middle of the night to a squeaking noise. Then it came out from under our bed!! Ammon jumped up and began shooing it out of our room. It just went under the couch. Ammon moved the couch and had me push it out the door. It was so creepy and tried to go the other way but we finally got it out. Thankfully Connor slept soundly the whole time. It wasn't outside the next morning so I didn't get a picture to prove it.

Crocs! PV, Mexico: Day Numero Seis

Tuesday Ammon wanted us to check out this neighboring town of Punta Mita. Again from the map, we thought it would be really close and ended up being about 2 hours away, one way. So, we just enjoyed the scenic drive.

View from the road.

I love how the trees arch over the road making this lovely canopy. This is how the whole drive looked. It is tropical down here after all. In fact, my Fodor's guidebook even told me Puerto Vallarta (abbreviated as "PV" from here on out) even said it's on the same latitude as Hawaii! No wonder it's so lush.I saw these beautiful flowers along the road and made Ammon stop. When Ammon got out to take the picture he commented how my shirt matched the flowers- I hadn't even noticed. Makes for a lovely effect, don't you think? Ok, so going to Punta Mita was pretty much a bust (it was all under construction and you couldn't get out to the beach). So, on the way back we stopped by this place that's not listed in any guidebook but I found online. It's the University of Guadalajara Ixtapa campus reptile estuary. The grounds were quite lovely.

Here we are under some banana trees.

On the bridge leading into the reptile grounds.

There were tons of turtles swimming around their own little island.

There were different sizes of crocodiles that we saw. These are the smallest, the "babies."

Here's the next size, the "children."

Here are the "teens."

And here's the daddy of them all, aptly named "Goliath." He was huge!

Outside the art museum just next door. It was locked so the boys stood at the window feigning great fear at the sight of this crocodile statue.

Crocodile hunted?: Ok, a note about crocodiles and it has to do with running. Just about every morning we were there in Mexico, Ammon and I went running. We would take turns of course so as to always have one of us with dear Connor. Since I wasn't with Ammon, I can only speak of my own experience. I ran through town the first day and didn't really like to be running past lots of people waiting for the bus and inhaling all those fumes. So the next day I found a golf course and, it being early, I figured no one would mind me running along the golf cart path. I was loving it- no one around, quiet, beautiful green grass. Then I started crossing several foot bridges that were over a series of lakes. As I was approaching another bridge, I saw a sign warning to beware of crocodiles!! I was absolutely mortified. I immediately turned around and booked it back the other way, frantically looking around for any approaching crocs. I recalled the Worst Case Scenario game question about how to escape an alligator/crocodile attack. You run in a zigzag fashion. I was all prepared to zigzag it up if I were being pursued! I was probably sweating more from the fear of that prospect than from my run. Needless to say, I stuck to the downtown streets the next day. The following day, however, I decided to run along the beach. That was kindof hard for various reasons including the uneven ground, dodging waves, crossing from one beach area to the next (most were separated by jettis, bridges, washes, rocks, debris, etc). I kept going though and eventually headed to a very remote area where I finally turned around- again, a bit scared because it was too quiet. As I was heading back, I saw that same warning sign about crocodiles!! I didn't see it on my way out because it was facing the other way. Man that really scared me and thankfully I didn't see any crocodiles. So, it was back to the streets for the last few days. No more seeking out peace and quiet nor clean air. Oh well, at least I didn't have to perform my zig zag.

As we were driving out of the University, we saw an army-like truck open in the back painted yellow, easily identifiable as a Sierra Madres tour jeep. Ammon and I, having been on one of their tour on our honeymoon, decided to follow the jeep to see where the hiking spot was they took us to. We had forgotten how far out it was. We kept telling ourselves that we've come this far, let's just keep going until they turn off. Finally, after an hour, they turned into the "Canopy." It's even nicely labeled (and we took a picture) so we can find it again next time. Talk about a rutted out road- I'm not sure if we could get up there, even if we wanted to, to go hike in there next time.

We saw this prison along the way and we remembered what the Sierra Madres tour guides had said about this as we drove by on our tour. Something about it being a "gated community" with "24-hour security," "daily massage," "all-inclusive" experience. Quite funny.

On our way back, we saw this landslide, still mostly covering the road. Ammon wanted a picture to show how back the road was..and that no one cleaned it up.

In the evening, we headed downtown for some family-friendly nightlife. We saw a mexican clown. It was neat to the mexican townfolk out with their families. They were really laughing hard at this goofy clown. Ammon said it was a lot of local jokes and a different sense of humor than we would think is funny.

We went down along the famous "Malecon" boardwalk. There are dozens of beautiful bronze statues all along it. Here is the famous seahorse statue which is the symbol of PV. (Sorry it turned out so blurry.)

A beautiful colored bronze statue of traditional dancing. I think it's cool how Connor is leaning into the statue getting a better look at it.

And here is the guardian angel statue. To the left you can see the outline of the pirate ship tour. Nightly they do a fireworks display. Quite enchanting.

Jungle Hike- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico: Day Numero Cinqo

Mondays' plan was to go on a jungle hike, explore around downtown and pretty much do whatever we wanted. Here's Connor checking out one of the 2 peacocks that live on the property. There is a traditional blue peacock in addition to this beautiful white one.

The approach.
The posing for the picture.
The escape (for the bird).
So, we headed down to the garage to get in our car. Wouldn't start. So Ammon asked the garage attendant to give us a jump. Thankfully we had jumper cables. There actually was another lady in the garage at the same time that needed a jump too so she borrowed our cables and this guy helped her out.

Beautiful downtown. The roads are all cobblestone and the jungle comes down the mountain to meet you.

Wandering through the streets along the beach and pretty much getting lost, we found this pretty cool looking house.

It took us awhile to find a place to go hiking. This is the direction the sign took us and, as it may be hard to tell, the road is in terrible condition. Ammon refused to drive up it so we left. Not being able to find another place nearby to hike, we returned but this time Ammon said he had to watch and film me as I drove the car up the rutted out road. Check out the film.

Almost to our hiking spot, I had to stop and use "the facilities." Check out the view of the jungle. You can't tell in the picture but right behind me, the ground drops off.The hikers.

Climbing up a steep hill.

My boys coming down the hill. I kept getting creeped out that, with no guide, we could get deep into the jungle and some scary thing would attack us..or drop down on us like a snake! Scares me now to think about it.

Brave little Connor; what a trooper.

Ok, so this was the point at which I told Ammon we had to turn around. When I walked into this HUGE spider web. The web got all over my face and arms, it was on Connor too. So gross! Connor and I booked it back the other way but Ammon stuck around and snapped this close-up of the offending spider.

As Connor and I were going back, we decided to cut through down to the trail we knew we followed below us. It was steep but we thought we could make it. Bad idea because we ran into the web of another freaking huge spider. We scurried back up that hill and stuck to the path we had come in on. Again, Ammon kinda thought we were funny little wusses and caught up to us to take the spiders' picture. Cheese!

Ammon helping Connor across one of the two streams we had to cross. This is on our way back.

Finally at the end of our hike. Here is Connor and I coming back across this cute little bridge.

Here's me right after my foot slipped into the water. I guess it's better that happened at the end of the hike rather than at the beginning.

After our high adventure in the jungle, we were hungry little beasts. We went back through the downtown hoping to easily make our way to a restaurant we went to last time with my parents called Pipi's (say "pee-pees"), yeah, pretty funny name. So, we didn't "easily" find it; it took us about 20 minutes winding around the streets trying to find it. We didn't have the address, just kind of remembered the setting. We finally asked for directions (twice) and were able to find it. But on the way, this is what we saw:

This whole truck just drove off the side of this bridge! I don't know quite how it happened but if I didn't see it, I wouldn't have believed it.

Finally at Pipi's. Here's me scraping the rest of my food into a doggie bag. I ordered the "macho platter." The waiter teased me about being a macho woman but I didn't care, I was hungry. In looking at the menu, I saw there was a lot of food for only a $1 more than the fajitas Ammon ordered. Boy was there ever! I could only eat a very small portion of the food, yeah my eyes were much bigger than my stomach. It was a good thing though because now we had food to eat the rest of the week. Yummy!

Ok, so once we left Pipi's, we went out to our car and it wouldn't start again! You know, I have to say that was the best place it could have died on us because what if it wouldn't start when we were out in the middle of nowhere for our jungle hike?? At least here there were lots of people and cars around. Ammon found another kind soul to come over and give us a jump.

Right after that, we drove right to Costco (yes, they have a Costco- a new addition since the last time we were in Puerto Vallarta). We spent much of the rest of the day getting the right battery, having them install it and getting food, to go with our Mexican left-overs, for the rest of the week.

Peaceful Sunday?- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico: Day Numero Quatro

This is our hotel, Velas Vallarta. We bought a timeshare here 7 years ago on our honeymoon. It's a gorgeous 5-star hotel right on the beach. We always enjoy returning.

This being Sunday, we headed off to Church. We had been to this Church location twice before (on our honeymoon 7 years ago and 2 years ago with my parents). But, we had been driven there in taxis so driving there ourselves was a different story. Before we left the hotel, we asked for directions but, they obviously were not good enough because here is Ammon asking directions again from a taxicab driver.

(As you can see, we forgot a white shirt for Ammon. Thanksfully I'd at least packed him a button-up shirt.)

Church was great. Because Ammon has spoken Spanish to Connor since day 1, we were able to have Connor go to Primary with no worries. We did check on him a few times but he was doing fine. He kept commenting to us, however, that "everyone here speaks Spanish!" It was a good experience for him.


We just relaxed for most of the rest of Sunday. Here we are on the rooftop. We were on the 8th floor (the top of our hotel).

Cute Connorboy giving me kisses.

Strongboy Connor.

Most of these pictures you will see of just Ammon and I were taken by Connor. Pretty good for a little 4-year-old!

This is a little jetti out from our hotel where they do massage in these tents. What a soothing experience that must be, right there on the beach.

It was pretty overcast this night but thankfully it didn't rain the whole week we were there (just on the drive down, being one of the reasons it took so long).

Connor building sandcastles. I'm glad I brought his sand toys!

Ammon wrote "Te Amo" ("I love you" in Spanish) in the sand and took a picture for me.; how sweet. I was up under those white tents you see in the distance reading. Connor found this big stick on the beach and kept up with it for much of the rest of our stay.

Ok, so after this nice peaceful day and evening, we returned to our room. Ammon then left with Connor to go downstairs and talk to our concierge. I heard this yelling going on and peaked out of our room. I thought it was coming from down the hall but as it got louder, I realized it was closer and finally found out it was from next door. As it got louder, I called down to the front desk to report it. Then Ammon and Connor came back. I asked Am if he could hear the yelling and he said he heard them before he went downstairs. We went about our business a bit longer and then we heard it escalate even more. Ammon jumped up and put on his clothes intending to go see what was going on. I was a bit scared so I called the front desk again requesting that someone like security get up here right now. I hung up and then I heard Ammon yelling at the guy to get "away from her" and "how dare you hit a woman!" Yeah, sadly the woman was being beaten by her husband. (Ammon told me later that he walked by and the door was open and the husband was on top of the wife hitting her). I frantically called the front desk again, practically screamed at the woman who answered and said "where is security?? They need to get up here now because she's getting beat and my husband went out there to break up a fight!" I was so worried. I had visions of us in the emergency room in a foreign country, scary! Before the security got there, Ammon had broken up the fight and we'd invited the battered woman into our room. She said they'd been married for 15 years and he'd hit her before and had been told she should get out (no duh!). Well, security and hotel management finally sorted it out, got the woman her ticket home, arranged for her to leave the next day and got her another room for the night. So, we thought that was the end of it. No, sadly a few days later, I saw the woman come out of that room...followed by her husband! So sad. That woman went right back into it. I fear for her.