Puerto Vallarta 2019

Trip List Calendar

2019-02-07: Dreamin' and Schemin'

2019-02-08: Arrive PV
Just stepped off the bus We took the public bus from the airport to the Zona Romantica and then walked to our accommodation. First moments - we're happy! View from our Apartment We're staying at an AirBnB in the Zona Romantica - Calle Jacarandas. We have to walk up a fairly decent hill to get to the building. It's awesome, the apartment is GREAT, and the view is phenomenal! Calle Jacarandas Looking down Calle Jacarandas from our place Stairs up to our Apartment We were promised 90 stairs up to our apartment. We count only 89. Brent is NOT impressed. ;) Convenience Store across the street There was always activity at this little place across the street. It was a favorite hangout for a bunch of the locals, who were very friendly and welcoming with us.
2019-02-09: Cerro de La Cruz Lookout
Today we walked through the Zona Romantica, then over to Old Town and up to Cerro de La Cruz Lookout. After the lookout, we explored Old Town, saw some acrobats on the Malecon, visited the Chocolate Museum, walked Isla Rio Cuale, and bought some provisions at the Farmer's Market. All before 3PM. Then, a snack, beer, siesta, and photo posting at our apartment. Breakfast of Champions The neighbor chicken and her chicks enjoy garbage collection time Inside Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Last Push The last bit of climb up to Cerro de La Cruz Lookout Cerro de La Cruz Lookout Lookout tower on the left, Puerto Vallarta on the right Cerro de La Cruz Lookout Looking back from the Cerro de La Cruz Lookout tower Walking Down Walking down from Cerro de La Cruz Lookout Open Air Apartment The top of the wall behind Brent is completely open - this apartment can't be completely closed in. I love it! Frida Bag Brent shows off our new Frida Callo grocery bag Winners! The winners of the Pigeon Olympics Happy Cow The best milk comes from a happy cow Acrobat Acrobats on the Malecon A Puerto Vallarta Neighborhood A Puerto Vallarta neighborhood from the Cerro de La Cruz Lookout
2019-02-10: Pitillal and Visit with Maggie
Today we took the bus out to Pitillal. We walked around Pitilla, then walked back from Pitillal to the Mega, where we met up with Maggie. Maggie took us for a walk. We got gelato, saw the sports complex and bought some roasted potatoes to enjoy later. I made a grievous error in choosing what shoes to bring on this trip. I brought \"pseudo-Keens\". Read: NOT Keens. These shoes are AWFUL. They have a moulded footprint in them that does NOT match my own footprint, so I am getting crazy blisters from the pressure points in the bottoms of the sandals. I tried to toughen my feet up and get them used to these awful things, but it's not working, and I'm not going to be able to do the walking that I want to do if I keep wearing these, so tomorrow is \"buy new shoes\" day. Today is Day 4 of my hearing loss episode. I had my first episode from December 28 - December 30th. Three days. On the third day, my hearing started cutting back in, temporarily, and over the course of a few hours returned completely. Yesterday (Day 3 of this episode), the same thing happened, but then in the evening my hearing cut back out again and I seem to be back to square 1. I thought this was TMJ-related, but it doesn't seem to be. I'm wondering if it might be Meniere's Disease, or perhaps MS (because of the \"mystery itch\" that I've had on my legs for the past few weeks). Visit to Pitillal Pitillal is a neighborhood of Puerto Vallarta which used to be a separate town. Today, Brent and I took the bus out there and had a wander around. Interesting Decrepit House We found this really interesting decrepit house in Pitillal Exercising near Rio Pitillal Walking back from Pitillal to meet Maggie, we followed the pathway beside the Rio Pitillal for a time. It was very pretty, and it had some exercise equipment, too. I love these open-air gyms! Visit with Maggie We met up with our friend, Maggie, at the Mega. She took us for a walk. We got gelato, saw the sports complex, and bought some roasted potatoes to enjoy later.
2019-02-11: On a mission for Zapatos
If I didn't make at least one grievous error in choosing what to take on vacation I don't think I'd recognize myself. For Germany 2017, my grievous error was the type of sleeping pad to bring. For this trip to Mexico, the grievous error was what type of shoes to bring along. I brought my \"pseudo keens\" (read: NOT keens). They are AWFUL. They have a moulded bottom that is supposed to fit the foot, but certainly does not fit MY foot, so I end up with all kinds of weird rub points on the bottoms of both of my feet. I thought I might be able to toughen my feet up so I could do some walking in these, but... uhhhhh... no. I'm just getting worse and worse blisters. So, today, Brent and I went out on a mission for zapatos (shoes). There are lots of shoe stores in Vallarta, but not many that sell shoes that are actually meant for WALKING in. I finally found a pair, and now my feet are happy. My right ear cleared this morning, too, so I'm double happy. I'm just happy happy happy all around, and I feel way better about going out for a walk around Yelapa tomorrow.
2019-02-12: Yelapa
Today we did a happy rerun. We went to Yelapa last time we came to Puerto Vallarta and wanted to go back, so today we did. We took the bus out to Boca de Tomatlan and caught the water taxi out to Yelapa. Unlike last time, we actually got to use a pier at Yelapa (rather than being punted out in knee-deep water at the beach). The town is more built up, and more touristy than we remember. It was very nice, but I think I liked it better the first time. We walked all the way out to the point beyond Yelapa this time, then up to the waterfall, then back to Yelapa, and inland along the river for a ways (to the Oasis, and the campground) before returning to Yelapa and Boca. Outside Yelapa Outside Yelapa Brent says that Puerto Vallarta is where you go when you want to get away from Canada (or the US). Yelapa is where you go when you want to get away from Puerto Vallarta. Outside of Yelapa is where you go when you want to get away from Yelapa. Looking back toward Yelapa Enjoying a cerveza at the cascada outside of Yelapa Cervezas at Cafe Bahia while we wait for the water taxi Water taxi back to Boca Boca de Tomatlan Looking down the Rio at Boca de Tomatlan About to post my photos for the day Narrow corridor at Yelapa
2019-02-13: Walk up Rio Cuale
We walked up the road along Rio Cuale from Puerto Vallarta to River Canopy Park today. We thought we would walk to Jorullo Bridge as well, but they charge admission even just to walk up to it now, so we gave that a miss. We had coffee while we watched the zipliners instead. It was about a 13km walk round-trip and was very enjoyable. After we got back to PV, we spent some time people watching along the Malecon, and then headed back to our place. We were accosted by our neighbors (Dave, Rod and Chad) who forced us to have a beer with them and swap stories and insults (they're from Calgary, we're from Edmonton). Suspension bridge over Rio Cuale Rio Cuale Zipliner at River Canopy Park Cool white flowers Jorullo Bridge in the distance Suspension Bridge of Laura's nightmares
2019-02-14: Hike to Las Animas
We took the bus back to Boca today, and we walked from Boca to Las Animas. It is a fairly well-traveled trail along the coast. When we got to Las Animas, the first beach pub that we encountered had a very keen proprietor with no customers, so we decided to have lunch and beers there (rather than in the umbrella jungle just down the beach). We considered walking back to Boca, but really we wanted to grab a water taxi, but we weren't sure what time they'd show up, so when we were done eating, we went and had a seat at the end of the pier. Within five minutes a boat pulled in and asked us if we wanted a ride to Boca for 50 pesos each (about $3.50). Hells yeah, we did, so we hopped in and we were in Boca before the first official water taxi even arrived at Las Animas. That was EASY! We had a beer and did some people/pier watching in Boca before grabbing the bus back to Vallarta. Boca De Tomatlan - just leaving for Las Animas Trail to Las Animas Bridge of Joy I renamed it on behalf of Laura to \"Bridge of Deep Unease\" Bridge of Happiness I renamed it on behalf of Laura to \"Bridge of Abject Terror\" Tree with red bark, enroute to Las Animas Trail to Las Animas Trail to Las Animas Lunch and Cervezas at Las Animas Back at Boca, watching the pier traffic Restaurant along the walk to Las Animas Along the walk to Las Animas
2019-02-15: Maggie and Rio Pitillal
Today was a low key kind of day. We got a bit of a late start, had coffee on the malecon and looked for whales that did not want to be seen, then walked over to Maggie's neighborhood. We met up with Maggie, saw her place and went for lunch at her favorite outdoor taco stand. She then walked us over to the harbour end of the Rio Pitillal walkway that Brent and I had walked the Pitillal end of the other day. Maggie then took her leave of us and Brent and I walked up to the end of the walkway (near Pitillal) and caught the bus back to Zona Romantica. Second Coffee on our Second-to-last Day Second visit with Maggie - with her favorite cool tree Cool graffiti on the Rio Pitillal pathway lookout Brent on the Rio Pitillal pathway lookout
2019-02-16: Quiet Day in PV
Our last day of vacation, but at least it's \"only\" going to be -17 when we get home tomorrow. We are enjoying a relaxing day today. We went down to the water first thing where I fed our left-over bread to the pigeons, and Brent tried to spot whales. There were no whales to be spotted, but lots of pigeons to be fed. Then we had breakfast on the beach... boy was THAT nice. Then we went for a walk and Brent bought some vanilla for his boss who asked him for some. Later today we'll get some tacos from the taco lady who lives on our street and runs a little taco kiosk out of her house on weekends. \nI bought my Windows Surface 2 (not even Pro) in 2015, before Brent and I went on our six-month cycle tour. It has Windows RT as an operating system, which is terrible. The Surface itself, though, has been a real trooper. In 2015 it lived through all the bumping and jarring, moisture, heat, cold... everything that we encountered on that trip. I didn't really expect it to survive, but I hoped it would at least make it to the end of July so that I could use it to do my fiscal year-end accounting (for my business) that year. Not only did it do that, but it lived through the whole trip, and has come on every vacation since as my travel internet tablet. I've thought about replacing it, but I'm a little bit cheap, and a whole lot stubborn, and I've thought it would sure be cool to see just how many trips I can push it through before it simply doesn't work anymore. I have been thinking that this would be its last trip, because the browser has been crashing a lot, and has refused to upload more than three photos at a time to Facebook. I tried everything I could to clear off some files from the machine, thinking that maybe it's a memory issue (the machine was definitely low on disc space), but no matter how much I cleared off, I couldn't free up more than 5GB (with no photos on it). Today, after making sure my backup photos were safely uploaded to OneDrive, I decided to reset the machine back to factory, and possibly just leave it behind here in Mexico and then I'd replace it when I get home. But... lo... resetting the machine cleared up 18GB of space, and now the browser is performing faster and is not crashing constantly. It even uploaded 12 photos to FB at once.\n\n So, now I'm back to full-on stubbornness. Can this machine get me through our upcoming tour to France? I'm a thinkin' so...\n Pelicans Pelicans are REALLY cool beasts. I could watch them for hours. I love to watch them dive, and I love when they fly in formation just above the water. Puerto Vallarta malecon first thing in the morning Breakfast on the beach Brought to us by Pablo Diablo
2019-02-17: Depart PV
I was a little worried about how we were going to get to the airport on time for our flight at 7:30. Our AirBnB housekeeper said she thought the busses started running at 6AM, which was not early enough to get us to the airport on time. We met a taxi driver on our street on our first day in town, and I asked him if he'd come at 5AM on the 17th to drive us to the airport. He said he would, but I wasn't comfortable with that being our only plan, so I had some backups worked out. If he didn't show, we could walk down the hill and look for another taxi, hopefully along the main road. I contacted the taxi driver the day before and told him we had to leave at 4:30 (instead of 5:00), to give us some contingency time to find another taxi if necessary. The backup to the backup would be to start walking and hope that an early bus would be able to get us to the airport. Well, Diego the taxi guy showed up... not just at 4:30, but actually at 4:15, so we were at the airport PLENTY early. Better to have the time and not need it, than to need it and not have it... We weren't sure if we'd have to pay a departure tax when we left the airport. There is conflicting information online about it. The most reliable source we found indicated that, for flights between Mexico and Canada, the tax is included on your airline ticket. I checked our tickets, and there was an item on the invoice that looked like the departure tax. Note for future Rhonda: the departure tax IS included in the airline ticket. We had flown directly down to Puerto Vallarta from Edmonton, but our return trip included a 3-hour layover in Calgary. Boo. It would have been nice to get home a little early and have some time here to do stuff, but we'd still be home late afternoon. Well, our flight from Calgary was delayed 90 minutes, and then we ended up on the tarmac (including de-icing time) for an hour, so we didn't end up getting back to Edmonton until nearly 8PM. The Airways parking service ended up being really good - we were very happy with them. We used them for this trip as a \"trial run\" for using them for a month when we go to France. We're thinking that we may use Jumbo to get our bikes to the airport, and then leave her at Airways. Anyway, they worked out really good. \n Their luggage compartment in their van is large enough that, if we buy those folding bikes for France we won't even have to pre-drop the bikes at the airport - we should be able to take them right on the shuttle van. Otherwise we do the fancy bicycle pre-drop at the airport. Either way, they're about half price for a month of parking than the other airport parking places.