Viva Vallarta! (otherwise known as the longest post ever)

I've been an indisputable blog failure lately.  Here's a ridiculously long post to make up for the past month.

DAY 1:

We were all too excited the night before, and we had to be at the airport by 4:00 am anyways, so none of us got any sleep.  I somehow managed to cram all my things into a carry on bag, thereby saving myself the $50 it would cost to check a bag.  Pretty impressive, right?

Hailey, myself, and Jenn.  No sleep, no worries.

The view from the plane - this is the best part about taking off before sunrise.

We landed in Mexico, traversed the insanity of the airport, and checked into our GORGEOUS hotel suite.

 

 

Our view

 

We even had our own private little POOL on our deck!

We scurried into our swimsuits and hit the first beach-side restaurant we could find on the resort.  Just in time for Happy Hour!  

 

 

Then it was back up to the room to shower and change, hail a taxi, and head to Walmart.  Yes, you read that correctly.  There is a Walmart in Puerto Vallarta.  Two of them actually.  Normally I do not support this corporate monster, but we needed groceries and we needed them cheap.  My Spanish skills proved beneficial, as we were able to convince our taxi driver to not only wait for us while we shopped, but he actually escorted us through Walmart and assisted us in locating everything as fast as possible.

We passed out by 10:30 pm.  We were sleepy girls.

DAY 2:

We played at the pools (the resort had at least 10) allllll day.  This included water aerobics and many floats down the "lazy river" (basically a long and narrow wave pool that wrapped around the perimeter of the pool area).

I even managed to locate a cabana bed to lay in, which of course made me feel like royalty.

Andrea and I

When we had finally had had enough chlorine, we returned to the room to get ready for our BIG NIGHT OUT.  After several hours and even more wardrobe changes, we hitched a ride into town (our resort was approximately 30 mins outside of Puerto Vallarta).  

 

 The second we stepped out of our taxi, however, the skies opened up and dumped on us.  We walked for 7 or 8 blocks in the pouring rain to find Pipi's, a well recommended restaurant.  It was worth the walk - fresh guacamole prepared right at the table, margaritas the size of my head, and delicious food.  

After Pipi's, we walked a bit further and stopped in at a karaoke bar, where I channeled my inner Gaga.

We danced awhile longer before returning home.

DAY 3:

We broke the computer in our hotel room and had to call for tech support.  Which ended up not being such a bad thing since the computer tech was pretty cute - poor guy had no idea what he was walking into when he knocked on our door!  I discovered a click lizard on our patio, which is reminiscent of my time in Costa Rica.  Andrea and I also snuggled up with some books and enjoyed the nightly thunder and lightning storm from our patio.

 

DAY 4:

Andrea and I participated in Los Juegos Locos (The Crazy Games) at the activity pool.  They happen every day at 3:00, and we were not going to let another opportunity pass us by!

 

We asked one of the bellboys for recommendations for a cheap restaurant on the resort (where everything was incredibly overpriced).  He mentioned a taco shop near the entrance.  We took a shuttle out there (this resort is seriously huge) only to discover the food was terrible.  Not only that, we also got eaten alive by mosquitos while we waited for the shuttle to take us back.  Finally we gave up and just walked.

I won't show you the picture of our bug bites on here.  That seems more facebook appropriate.

DAY 5:

We decided to try our luck with the bus system, since taxis were far too expensive.  We did some light souvenir shopping and some eating as well as walked around the board walk. 

Hailey and I on the bus

DAY 6:

This was probably my favorite day!  We went on a Canopy Ziplining Tour, which just happened to take place on the set of the old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, "Predator."  Ironically enough, none of us have ever seen the movie.

on the bus on our way to the tour

"The Chopper!"

After zipping across 12 incredible ziplines (one of them I even got to do upside down since I spoke Spanish), we enjoyed the beautiful fresh water swimming area, complete with rope swing and natural rock water slide.

That night we had the most massive storm I've ever seen in my life.  It was raining so hard, we literally had to order room service because none of the restaurants on the resort were open.  This was a neat treat for me since it was my first time EVER ordering room service.  We got two pizzas for the low low price of $40.  Ouch.

DAY 7:

We had way too much fun playing with underwater cameras (pictures haven't been uploaded yet) and lounging around poolside.

 

 

That night, we decided to get dressed up and see if we could convince one of the bellboys to take us into town for our last night in Mexico.  Instead, we ended up running into one of our Canopy Tour guides, who took us on an adventure!

DAY 8:

I used my Spanish skills to barter with the front desk and allow us to check out of our room an hour later than normal.  We packed up and enjoyed our final over-priced (but delicious) lunch at one of the poolside restaurants.  Then we hailed a taxi to the airport... only to discover our flight was severely delayed.  We spent 6 hours sitting in the airport, lamenting over the fact that we could have stayed and played more at the hotel.  Instead we napped, watched movies on Jenn's laptop, and looked through our pictures for about the zillionth time, reliving this wonderful trip.

Can I go back?