Wednesday in Mexico

Wednesday was a day we had been looking forward to--zip line day! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit nervous beforehand. It had nothing to do with heights, but because of the fact that we were in Mexico and I wasn't sure if the equipment would be top of the line or safe. I was also afraid that while driving through the jungle some crazy drug lords would take our bus hostage...I let my imagination run wild sometimes! Luckily, it was a fun, safe day! Total there were 11 zip lines. They started off with a couple "baby" zip lines to practice on, and they got longer and faster! We had amazing guides who were funny and entertaining (they worked hard for a tip lol).

Ready to go with our gear on!



Dan and I did some tricks including going upside down and the "superman" which was extremely uncomfortable, but a good way to see the jungle and the city below!

Our group was great fun. We had a couple from a Cruise ship, and a couple from New York.

We conquered Nogalito :)

Our photographer throughout the whole adventure--Kimi. He was hilarious, and kept striking this pose randomly all day. I decided to join him.


Afterward we got to walk around the jungle and enjoy the scenery.

We had some fun with the rope swing!

We took a short nap while waiting for our bus ride back to the hotel.

It's hard to say exactly which tour was the most fun because they all were, but this was definitely in a close run for first! If you go to PV make sure you do the Nogalito canopy zip lines! I wish they had something like it here in Utah. Park City seems like it would be a good place!

Coming up-Day 4 and our boat adventures on Kontiki...

Tuesday in Mexico

Tuesday (day 3) was our city tour of Puerto Vallarta. We figured it would be a good activity to do in order to get more familiar with the town and it's history. We started off the tour by driving into the new areas of PV where our tour guide started talking about the different condos and houses available in PV and I thought to myself "oh great another timeshare presentation." They really push the real estate there! Luckily, that part of the tour didn't last very long! After that we headed to the "centro" or central part of town. One side of the street is full of small shops, restaurants, clubs, bars, and any other store you can think of. The other side is the beach area. On the beach were these amazing sand statues. I was able to talk to the guy who creates them, and he told me each one takes about 15 hours to complete, and the larger ones take even longer. They were immaculate, and his attention to detail was incredible. He said he uses a mixture of sand and water and really packs them tight to avoid any damage from the wind. I am sure during the rainy season in Mexico they don't hold up very well though.

Some of the sand scupltures were colored

This one is one of my favorites! Look at all that detail. This guy has some major talent!

The Mayan Calendar. Again, this is all sand! Amazing!

The last supper. Are you kidding me? Incredible.

Also at the centro they had a show were these guys climb up to the top of a pole then swing up side down with just a rope around their waists. It was pretty neat to watch. They also have tons of statues and different places that are great picture backgrounds.

A picture with the guys from the show (which of course cost of a few pesos :)

I don't really know what all the statues were for or meant, but they made for good pictures :)

Our tour guide explained that this statue of a boy riding a seahorse is the symbol of Puerto Vallarta.

After el centro we went to the area they call the "malecon" where we got to walk through the cathedral. It was very different than any other church I had every been in--very graphic depictions of the crucifixion, and it didn't feel right taking pictures of it. But the chapel as a whole was beautiful, and I noticed that even though the city and residents of Mexico are generally very poor, they spend money making sure their church is beautiful and well taken care of.

Inside the cathedral

Also at the malecon is there main area for street shops. There were tons of them, and they all carried most of the same things--pottery, tee-shirts, hats, jewelry, and other souvenirs. I was surprised at the prices they were asking for, and their strict bargaining. Now, I am a pretty good bargainer, and I was under the impression that I would be able to get souvenirs for very cheap, but in PV because there is so much tourism they don't budge as much as you would think!

After shopping we headed south into the jungle and drove around the multi million dollar houses area. Again, our tour guide was pushing the real estate in PV, but it was neat to look at all the huge houses. There were also some look out points where we got some amazing views of the beaches and city of PV.

One of the look out points


The city below

We also stopped and got a tour of how they make tequila (one thing I did learn while in PV is that tequila is like water to them. Every body drinks it, and every body loves it...a love Dan and I do not share. They couldn't fathom it lol!) The tour was interesting though, and it was pretty hilarious listening to our tour guide who was drunk because he sips the tequilla all day!

As our tour guide put it, this tool is the" Mexican John Deer"--it's used to grind the agave plant

Next to Dan is the agave plant that is used to make the tequila

And in case you were wondering, or had plans of making your own home-made tequila here's how it's done...

as Lastly, we drove through a jungle city just south of PV called Nogalito and stopped at a nice restaurant for lunch. Not only was it nice, but it was expensive! It was the only restaurant for miles so it's not like we had other options, and our meal ended up being about $78-- for lunch! But it was a delicious "surf and turf" platter for two, and included lobster, shrimp covered with bacon, sausage, a steak, fried shrimp, rice, and a salad. We learned that in Mexico you don't get free refills (of course they don't tell you this when you ask for a refill). We also learned that the nice bands that come and serenade your table with music are not part of the restaurant and also cost extra! They just come over, start playing, and then ask for $80 pesos (about 8 dollars) when the song is over! Oh well, it was part of the experience, and they were pretty good!

Enjoying our $8 song!

We met some great friends, even though we will probably never see them again. They are from Peru, and I went most of the day thinking they were a gay couple, but it turned out they were brothers! When I found that out I didn't dare say I had assumed they were gay!

On to day number four...

Monday in Mexico

Monday (day 2) we spent the morning at the time share presentation. We were pretty lucky to score three activities for free! When we got back to the hotel we decided to go to the beach and just relax for the afternoon. We took a ride on a banana floaty with another couple from the beach. It was fun, but the water was so choppy and I was getting bounced around like crazy! Dan had to hold onto my life jacket with one hand and hold onto the banana with the other hand just to help keep me on the float! His efforts didn't matter though because the driver took a sharp turn and ended up tipping the whole banana over on it's side, sending us passengers flying into the ocean. It was a fun ride!

Later in the afternoon we took a stroll down the beach to look around. It was pretty funny because Dan and I were sitting on a bench taking a picture of ourselves when this lady came over and offered to take it for us. She took one, and then she was like "okay lets take one on this side so you have the ocean in the back ground", then, "oh lets take on one this side with the river in the background", and again, "oh and now one in the middle of the bridge" it was pretty funny, but very nice of her!

It is pretty much the same picture, but a different back ground!

This guy was just out of the beach trying to make a few pesos, but we thought he looked pretty cool, so we paid up and took some pictures :)

I don't know how he can put up with the sand being over every square inch of his body all day long!

We ended the day by watching the sun set and eating Oreos.

Next up day 3 and our city tour!

Viva Mexico Day 1

Mexico, Mexico, Mexico. Where do I begin? There is so much I want to blog about, and I don't know where to start. I am going to document our vacation by days since that seems to be easiest; otherwise you would be reading this post for the next five hours.

Day 1- We woke up at 5 am, ecstatic that our trip was finally here! Dan's parents were nice enough to drive us to the airport, and watch Yuki for the week. What would we do without them?! Once we got through security we still had about 2 hours to kill so we ate breakfast and found our gate. I had just downloaded a new book on my Nook so I started reading, and Dan played games on his phone. We flew from SLC to LAX and had about another 2 hours to kill before we took off for Puerto Vallarta. Our flight landed at about 4 pm. We went through customs, got our baggage, and before we could even make it out the door to our shuttle this nice "amigo" came up asking if we needed help, and insisted he could help us book some of the best tours/activities PV had to offer at "close to nothing". He then went into his sales speech about a timeshare presentation and that if we would attend he would give us three activities of our choice (more on those later) for only $40. In all honesty that was a dang good price considering each of those activities cost about $80 per person. We agreed to meet him the next morning outside our hotel lobby where he would take us to the presentation. However, once we got to our hotel the consierge started going in to the same speech and offered to give us all those activities for free! So of course we decided to go for it--skeptical of any Mexican who approached us offering us "free" things. We were approached by several other people wanting us to attend their timeshare, and we figured they must make pretty good commission if they invite people to attend because everyone was so pushy about it. The next morning we went to the presentation. It was actually pretty painless, and in the end, despite us not buying the timeshare, we did get all three activities as promised for free, and a nice breakfast! I felt bad for having doubted them in the first place! I would definitely recommend you attending one if you ever go to Mexico!

Anyways, back to Day 1--The first day was kind of a culture shock. The city is pretty Americanized in the down town area, but on the side streets and in the older part of town everything just looks so poor and beat down. The people are very friendly and funny, but they expect to be tipped for everything, and they try to get you to pay outrages amounts of money for services. They think that just because you are American you are rich. We got to our hotel and were pretty shocked because it didn't look anything like the pictures we had seen online. There was no safe, no fridge, no dead bolt on the door. Our door didn't even close all the way. The floors and walls were worn and dirty, and there was mold in our bathroom. I almost started crying wondering what we had gotten ourselves into...but once the shock of it all went away we realized we really wouldn't be in our hotel room much anyways, and we got it for such a good deal I don't know why I expected anything nice. Let's just say a Mexican 3 star hotel is like an American 1 star hotel lol. The rest of the night we spent on the beach relaxing.

The bathroom. There was no tub just a nice 3X3 foot shower. You had to flush the toilet about five times before anything would go down. But we did have hot water :)

Our king size boxspring...I mean mattress. But honestly it felt like we were sleeping on the boxspring.

Us taking it all in...

They did have an awesome pool/patio area. They had two kid pools and one adults only pool. They also had activities going on all day like water aerobics, kayaking, beach volleyball, dancing, etc.

We also had a nice patio area that was shaded.

Our first sunset in Puerto Vallarta

Stay tuned for day 2 :)

Santaquineans

Well, Dan and I are going to be homeowners soon! We are building with Edge homes in the Oak Summit neighborhood in Santaquin! We never thought we could live in Santaquin, I mean it seemed SO far out there in the middle of nowhere! But we have timed the drive several times, and it takes less than 20 minutes to get to our house from Provo! Another thing that sold us, was the neighborhood; is so nice--it's up on the East bench. We will probably have the smallest house on the block, but I have heard that's a good thing :)

Our closing date is scheduled for the first of August. Everything worked out great because we are able to stay at our current place until then, and August is when we were planning to leave Watchman anyway so that I can finish school! We almost bought an existing home in Spanish Fork for a very good price, and it was very nice on the inside. The only complaint I had was that I didn't like the outside of the house... and we would have had to quit Watchman a lot sooner than planned. So as bummed as I was at the time, we just decided to pass. Well, after looking at a few more existing homes we met with an Edge representative, laid down the law and told them exactly what we wanted and were willing to pay, and after some negotiating they gave us everything we wanted! It's funny how bigger and better things come your way if you just have faith and are patient! August can't come fast enough!

Zumbalicious

It's been a while since I have blogged, so I am going to blog about the only thing on my mind tonight...zumba! I just got back from class--tonight we had a film crew from Miami come and film our class dancing to a few songs. Okay, they mostly filmed the teacher, but they did get some panoramic shots of the whole class, and I was on the front row so I'm hoping my booty shaking was caught on film for a split second :) JK. Sorta. I'm sticky and sweaty and about to jump in the shower and head to bed, but first I will post some pictures!

I have a Gold's gym pass and love the zumba teachers there, but on top of that I buy a pass to the zumba club just to take this specific class with this specific teacher. She is the bomb. If any of you live in the Orem area you should definitely try her class!