Mexico - Winter 23/24

Trip List Calendar

2024-02-10 : Puerto Vallarta - More Recon and Dawn
Now they’re calling for a pile of rain in the area for next week. We’re supposed to be moving on to Yelapa on Wednesday to stay on the beach for three nights and then in the jungle for three nights. Uhhhh no thanks. I just changed us over to stay in Puerto Vallarta for our last week. Joerg and Barbara are here and they want to see Yelapa, so we’ll do a day trip with them (on one of the days where it’s NOT raining).
Today we did some recon to find our Plan B AirBnB in Puerto Vallarta. With the weather forecast being what it is we bailed on our plans to stay on the beach and then in the jungle at Yelapa. Sigh. That was the thing I was most looking forward to. But doing it in inclement weather just sounds too wretched.

So I canceled those reservations and got us a place in Puerto Vallarta for our last week instead. Brent and I walked over to find it. It is up in the hills several blocks from the ocean. We walked up to the street where it was supposed to be, but the number wasn’t there. There was a bit of street up a walkway beyond where ‘our’ street ended and we were going to go up there for a look when we ran into a woman who was just coming down from there. She said the number sequence up there was wrong, but the street continues again beyond. You just have to walk around to find it because the little uphill alcove is a dead end. So we walked around… up the hill, down the hill (that was stairs only) then up the hill and down the hill. When we got to the continuation of the road, the numbers were too high. We walked a ways further in case it was just ‘jumbled Mexican street numbers’ but no… the numbers just kept getting higher. So we turned back thinking it must have been in the alcove after all. Back up and down all the hills and then up to the alcove but no… the number just doesn’t seem to exist.

So we gave up and went on to the airport to collect Dawn who was arriving by plane from Atlanta. I messaged our Plan B AirBnB host and she said she just discovered that day that the number she had for the building was wrong. She gave us some updated info but I think we’ll walk back there tomorrow and make sure we can find the place before we have to walk there with our backpacks!


2024-02-11 : Puerto Vallarta Mercados and Food Tour
Early this morning, before we began our day of adventure with Dawn, we walked back to our a Plan B AirBnB armed with new information. Found it no problem.
Today we took Dawn over to the Mercado for breakfast at the little traditional restaurant and then we had a walk through the artisans Mercado. We wanted to go for a walk along the beach but it would appear that the king tide is here because there was almost no beach and the wind and waves were really high so we had to settle for nachos and drinks at MargaritaGrill instead.
This evening we went on a food tour with VallartaEats. We visited three taco restaurants, two taco food trucks and an ice cream store. The tacos were amazing but by the third restaurant, even though I was pacing myself, I was full to the rafters and I restricted myself to just one bite of whatever Brent had from then on. The tour was really great. Better than I expected.


2024-02-12 : Puerto Vallarta Walk and Chocolate
This morning we got a bit of an early start. I wanted to walk to some viewpoints on our way to our Chocolate Ganache and Truffle making workshop. We had a great walk and a FANTASTIC chocolate workshop. We then walked some more, looking at a couple of churches and then checked out the chalk art that is currently in Plaza de Armas, which Elissa told me about. We then had a great lunch at Fredy’s Tucan, also recommended by Elissa.


2024-02-13 : Puerto Vallarta Walks and Maggie
Today we went up to the Versalles neighborhood for a walk and then met Maggie for lunch and ice cream. This evening we went down to the beach for a walk, then a snack and a drink.


2024-02-14 : Switch to Plan B place in Puerto Vallarta
This morning we went for breakfast and some last minute souvenir shopping with Dawn. She shared her Uber with us - stopping along the way to the airport to get us super close to our Plan B AirBnB. The new AirBnB has a lot of character, including an odd bathroom with a very low ceiling.


2024-02-15 : Schrödinger’s Covid in Puerto Vallarta
Dawn flew home to Atlanta yesterday. It was great fun having her here with us, even though it was just for a few days.

Well, she started having an earache a couple of days in. She also found out that someone that she met with the Wednesday prior to coming tested positive for Covid. So, when she got home she tested… positive. Aw nuts. My lungs have felt ‘off’ for a couple of days, which I attributed to Mr. Underfoot. I’ve also felt more tired than usual for a couple of days.

Brent ran out this morning and picked us up some tests. I tested negative, but since I tested negative at first in Germany as well, we’re being cautious for now, and I’ll retest in a couple of days before we assume I’m ‘safe’. Brent got sick a couple of days behind me in Germany so if I’m sick, he’s probably also sick… just a little behind.


2024-02-16 : Naval Museum and maybe Covid?
Today is a rainy day in Puerto Vallarta and it’s also the first day since Dawn left that I’ve started feeling really sick. Dang it. I thought maybe I had dodged the Covid this time. Well at least we’re not camping out at Yelapa!

Before I started crashing we made it out for breakfast and to the naval museum.


2024-02-17 : Art Walk and Tilt
The rain days are over and so is the worst of my sickness. I tested negative again today for Covid, so that’s good. Brent is feeling a little off now though so we have to keep taking things a little easy. We went for breakfast this morning and then visited a few of the galleries on Puerto Vallarta’s official art walk. Our favorite was Colectika, which is really close to where we’re staying. It is dedicated to the evolution of Mexican folk art, and includes a small museum of old folk art pieces.
Brent found a fun-house museum (Tilt) to go to, and then Elissa suggested the same thing as a ‘rainy day’ thing to do. We didn’t make it there on a rainy day because I was down with Schrödinger’s Covid (spoiler: I didn’t have Covid), but we did make it out today with Joerg and Barbara.

Afterwards, we went for dinner and sunset at the local Irish pub.


2024-02-18 : Day Trip to Yelapa
Today we took Joerg and Barbara to do one of our favorite day trips - going out to Yelapa. Yelapa is a tiny village south of Puerto Vallarta. It is water-access only, which is fun and means no cars on the road. It is protect by the government for the original inhabitants, so the corporations and resorts can’t develop it, which makes it particularly charming. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. We were supposed to spend six nights in Yelapa on this trip but noped out of that because of heavy rains for a couple of the days. At least we got in a day trip.

It was fun to experience one of my favorite day trips through the eyes of some friends who’ve never done it before, including the ‘more exciting than it needs to be’ water taxi from Boca de Tomatlan. One thing that was especially cool for me was that Joerg brought his drone along and flew it three times to take video footage. Once near the Yelapa sign, once up at the waterfall, and once when we were waiting for the water taxi to take us back to Puerto Vallarta. See his video.

The weather was turning a little yukky so everyone decided to leave Yelapa at once, between 3:30 and 4:00. The pier was jam packed with people and we didn’t know how we were all going to get onto the limited water taxis to get back to town. Thankfully there were more companies operating than just ours and most of the people were cleared off in about 45 minutes. We were some of the very last people to get on the taxi to Boca after multiple taxis left for PV. The pier was now cleared right off except for a few unfortunate men who were left behind to wait for the next boat to Boca. One was a nice gentleman that we had spoken with a bit and one was a grumpy and entitled fellow. I feel bad for the nice fellow being left behind with grumpy and entitled fellow.


2024-02-19 : El Tuito
Today we did a little excursion out to El Tuito. It’s pronounced ‘El Tweeto’, like if Tweety Bird was a Mexican gangster. We caught the bus in Puerto Vallarta, which took us down the coast to Boca, and then turned inland. It’s a beautiful drive through the scrubby little mountains to the remote little town. The town was really small and you can easily see the whole thing in an hour. We had lunch in Restaurante Dany which cost less than $11CAD.


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