Honeymoon Part 1

5:00am on Monday morning Will and I arrived at YVR to leave on our first trip scheduled for our honeymoon.

The flight there was fairly smooth. Lots of clouds which made for pretty boring scenery.

But we brought along some entertaining literature to keep us occupied.

And occasionally the clouds would pass and we were able to view chunks of the Grand Canyon

After going through what seemed to be the easiest border security ever we were officially landed tourists in Mexico!

Our hotel lobby.

All the rooms (not guest rooms though, I mean the lobby and lounges and dinning rooms and such) and hallways were open to the breeze. The only door we had to go through to get to our room was our bedroom door. Other than that everything was open.

There were these lampshade thingies handing on the ceiling in the lobby and they would all sway together when a breeze came through.

View from our room.

We landed in Puerto Vallarta around 2 o'clock Mexican time and were at our hotel by 4. We were just 15 minutes from the airport which was nice because after sitting on the plane for 5 hours I didn't really want to be cooped up in a taxi for too long.

Art work in our room

On Tuesday we had a meeting with our Mexican travel agent, Roberto. (We had booked through Flight Centre here in Canada and purchased a package from WestJet Vacations who are partnered with Timon Tours in Mexico. So Roberto worked for Timon Tours.)

Roberto gave us a map of the city and told us how to use the bus and taxi and how much each the locals should charge us for that (just so we know we aren't getting swindled).

He told us where we could safely eat and drink, the best places for night-life, and told us about the Malecon (which just translates to 'pier'.) He said it was equivalent to Pier 39 in California and that everyone must check it out as it's the main highlight of Vallarta.

So Tuesday afternoon that's what we did. We hopped on the city bus (paid 15 Pesos for the 2 of us, which comes to roughly 97 Canadian cents) and went to the down town to check out the Malecon.

The above photo is of arches which look out to sea to welcome visitors to Vallarta.

We walked through a market on an island. the place was crowded with locals trying to sell everything from tequila, to Mexican blankets, to speedos.

These people were selling fresh clams right on the beach.

These flags were all up for Christmas.

We stopped at one of the many Catholic churches.

This one is Church of our Lady Señora de Guadalupe.

Back at our resort.

Wendsday morning we got room service to deliver us breakfast.

My first time ever using room service so that was pretty exciting!

The view is from on of the hallways in our resort.

Wednesday was a beach day so I don't have many pictures since we opted to leave our phones locked in our room.

Thursday was bright, sunny, and not too humid (about 84% humidity that day I think).

We quickly stopped for a buffet breakfast before leaving for a tour by Timon Tours that would be let by Roberto (but not the same Roberto we had talked with on Tuesday)

The first stop of our tour was at the real Port of Vallarta

Do not feed the crocodiles.

We were told that in the rainy season the crocs all come down the river from the jungle to the beaches... Glad we missed out on that!

This building has a restaurant on top but was built to look like a lighthouse

This guy has a tourism office right below the wannabe lighthouse. He was feeding all the neighbouring pigeons rice and he refereed to them as his pets.

We drove into "Real Vallarta" which basically is just 15 minutes inland from the coast, but no tourists go there because it's just cobblestone roads, stray animals, and concrete huts which most tourist people don't really care for.

We stopped at a church and had some time to walk around

This 15 seater was our tour bus for the day. Equipped with a microphone and everything.

We then stopped at the second oldest cemetery in Vallarta. The oldest was dug up and turned into underground parking, but they do have a memorial above ground and turned it into a little park of sorts.

I took a photo of this tomb stone only because I felt like it was as Mexican as you could get.

😝

The tombs were all very lavish. Flowers and Christmas decorations everywhere.

We were told that 95% of Mexicans claim to be Catholic and so they make quite a deal about all of it. They also have a week long party where everyone goes to the cemetery and feasts and drinks 'with the dead.' Apparently no one really sleeps during that time.

Back at the Malecon

The Town Hall. Once you got inside there was an open courtyard.

And see the church in the back ground there?

This artist had a huge fancy grave at the cemetery we had visited earlier in the day. He painted it to depict what Puerto Vallarta really all is about.

Stopped at Starbucks (which is wayyyy cheaper down there than it is up here). I got a raspberry smoothie which ended up being closer to a slushie but it was refreshing so no complaints!

Next we stopped at a Silversmith. We got to watch them resize jewelry and put stones into silver rings. Pretty neat.

We drove for probably a good half hour up the coast and into the jungle.

We stopped an authentic Mexican restaurant for a free lunch!

(Well, it was included in the cost of the tour, but still)

The restaurant was right along a river and you could walk down to the water

Oh, and the cobblestone roads.

The government doesn't want to replace them because it will take away from the authenticity of the streets.

They've paved the main road but there are brick and cobblestone roads on most of the side streets town down and then on every road once you leave town.

All over the place there are this ghostly looking buildings. Half built, barely built, hardly built.

We asked Roberto about this and he said that people will buy a plot of land when they can afford it, and then just build as they have the money. Most buildings then take 20-50 years to get built.