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February, 2009 My Mexican vacation was pretty amazing. I started
it off feeling some strong jet lag. My parents and best friends were
waiting for me at the airport, and we had a great evening of food
and games which all came to an abrupt stop at 9pm sharp, when I laid
on the couch, pulled a blanket over myself, and was dead asleep for
the next 7 hours. I woke up at 4:15am every morning for almost the
entire vacation. What a great time we had! The chips and fresh Mexican
salsa was flowing freely, and everyone was so happy to be together.
The resort where we stayed was pretty humongous, with a ton of swimming
pools, a lazy river, a water slide coming out of a Mayan-style pyramid,
and a couple of wave pools. And then, of course, we had the beach
and the ocean. The problem was the resort was laid out in such a beautiful
garden style that we were constantly getting lost along the paths
during the first week. We had a good time exploring, but it was kinda
confusing. Here are some pictures of the place that we took from our
hotel room, as well as other spots on the property. Probably the water activity we all enjoyed the most
was the lazy river. The wave pools were pretty tame but the water slide
was surprisingly fun. I haven't been down a water slide for so many
years, but this one was worth several trips! The weather was a perfect, sunny 85 degrees every
day. It couldn't have been better. The resort even had a landscaped
river going through it, with little boats you could ride. It also
had a train, which we often rode back and forth when we needed to
get to the far side of the property to go to a fancy dinner or breakfast
buffet. Could this place get any more luxurious? Early in our trip our whole group went on Vallarta
Adventures to go zip lining and rappelling through the jungle, after
riding an off-road truck and mules up the mountain. It was really
fun, but the company was charging crazy prices for pictures, so we
didn't get any of our activities. Here are some before and after the
day of adventure: We were staying in Nuevo Vallarta, which is about
20 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. We didn't go down to the city
too often because the taxi prices were really expensive. But we got
a tip on a great restaurant downtown, so we ate there both times we
make the trek. It didn't take long before mom was coming at me with
her scissors. After the first week of vacation I got a HUGE surprise!
My grandma Mary flew down to join us for the rest of the trip! I was
so excited about this and was touched that she would travel that far
to share special memories with me and my parents. She made the vacation
so much more special and a ton of fun as we played cards and games
together every day! And she was a total professional at laying out
by the pool reading books with us girls. Grandma Mary was a great
sport when we got creative and wanted to ride the public busses up
the coast to explore small Mexican towns. She fit right in with our
vacationing style that we've perfected over the years. The first day
she arrived was Renee's birthday, which was a great treat! The next day Grandma kept mom company at the pool
while dad went golfing. Cory, Renee and I took a boat 20 miles off
the coast to the Marietta Islands to do some scuba diving and snorkeling.
We got to see some humpback whales and dolphins during the 2 hour
boat ride out there. It was pretty exciting and I saw one jump up
way out of the water twice! It was so cool and kept us entertained
the whole way. Scuba diving was not great at this location, as the
visibility was down to about 10 feet or so. But it was a pretty day
for an adventure! As soon as we got home from our day at sea it was
time to get dressed up for our Mexican Fiesta dinner. It was fun getting
dressed up and having a great dinner together. They put on a great
show which included some great dancers showing us the Mexican culture
of the Mayans as well as the more modern cowboy style. We saw a great
lasso man, Mariachi band, and some flying men who climbed a really
tall pole and then flew around it as they spun all the way back down
to the ground. It was really cool and a professional show in every
way. The food was great too, and it was all done on the beach at our
resort! Wow! The next day Cory and Renee flew home and we still
had a week left of vacation! I have never had a two-week vacation,
but now that I've experienced it, it will sure be hard to go back!
We found a cool restaurant where the locals like to eat in Nuevo Vallarta
called Claudia's Place. We heard a rumor that there was another one
up the coast in a small town called Bucerias This town is right on
the ocean and is supposed to be really pretty so we went to check
it out. We traveled with the locals on a public bus for a couple bucks.
The restaurant was right on the beach and was beautiful. We did some
shopping at the stalls where local people were selling typical souvenirs
and art. It was a fun day! A lot of things about this town reminded
me of small towns where I live in Asia. Once we left the tourist city
of Nuevo, we saw a bit more of "real Mexico". We enjoyed our Mexican Fiesta so much that we decided
to check out the Polynesian Dinner the second week. The food and entertainment
didn't come close to the Mexican Fiesta, but the location was beautiful
and we had a spectacular sunset that night. In typical Davis style,
we used the lighting to take a ton of beautiful pictures of ourselves! |
(This last picture is just 1/3 of the resort)
