We flew out on a Saturday and came back on a Saturday. Long travel days, what with shuttles to/from the Cities, airport waits, 4 1/2 hour flights (on time AND early! Woot!), security and customs, but I got a lot of reading done and finished a few more knitting projects.
Puerto Vallarta was 75* and humid this trip. The kind of humid where you sweat just walking to breakfast, so lots of sitting and lounging poolside.
But I should back up a bit. As I said, we flew out on Saturday morning, bright and early at 6am. Which meant that yes, we had to be at the airport by 4am. What time did we get up? 3:15am. Ugh. Our flight south was on-time and early, so it was 11am by the time we cleared Mexican customs and checked into the resort. Since we were waaayyy early, our room wasn't ready yet, but I found a chair poolside that was kinda in the shade, so we just hung out and sweated until we could get into our room. Then some Zzzz's...
On these long vacations, we make a point of resting on Sundays. Claimed a spot in the shade and just, well, sat there. Like one of the many iguana's roaming the premise.
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| Our poolside view. This is the "upper pool" about 730am. |
Same with Monday...
Now, we were warned when checking in that it was very busy at the resort (Velas Vallarta), perhaps a bit moreso than usual. The reason was Mexican Revolution Day, which commemorates the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, a Civil War which pitted Mexican's against Mexican's. A national holiday that runs the weekend and culminates in parades and festivities on Tuesday. So the resort was packed.
But! We heard there was going to be a parade on Tuesday - how cool is that! We made our way to downtown Puerto Vallarta, scored a spot on the third floor of the Cheeky Monkey, and sipped margaritas while watching a Mexican parade.
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| Firefighters doing a rescue demo right in the street! |
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| Navy showing their colors |
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| Kiddo's celebrating Revolution Day |
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| Adults celebrating Revolution Day |
Wednesday was back to imitating an iguana.
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| A picture of the Sierra Madre Mtns from a bridge over a very deep gorge on the way up to San Sebastian | . |
Thursday we signed up for a tour of San Sebastian, a very old silver mining town that was founded in the 1605, saw several revolutions, and remains somewhat unchanged even today but minus the mining. This tour was about 7-8 hours, we climbed about 5000 feet in elevation along some rather harrowing roads, stopped at a small coffee plantation, a tequila distillery (pretty standard on these tours), had lunch with homemade tortillas and got a tour of a personal collection of historical artifacts from a decedent of one of the original families of San Sebastian.
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| The church in San Sebastian. Still a functioning sanctuary. |
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| One of the buildings on the plaza. About 95% of the buildings date are original. |
Friday was back to imitating an iguana.
Saturday we had to be at the airport before 9am for an 11am flight so it was a more leisurely morning. The flight was early landing in the Cities, we were amongst the first to get through customs, and there was room on an early shuttle back to Duluth. What caught everyone by surprise was the greasy snow that suddenly hit about 40 miles out. A bit of a white knuckler for the driver coming over "Thompson Hill" into Duluth proper. By 11pm at night, we were back home, unpacked and in bed.
A great trip and I'm glad to be back - ice, cold, snow, still glad to be back.
1 comment:
Looks like you had a very colorful time!
That's a great way to spend the holiday!
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