Puerta Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta is beautiful. There is a thick canopy of forest that is fairly tropical inland and tons of palms right along the beach. Also the beaches have white sand and look great. The water is fairly warm. The city is very large. It surprised me how big it was. I was still expecting a small little town like little Ziwataneo. But this town had every American store you can imagine. There were restaurants, stores and even a costco.

We had a van taxi take Mike, Sue, Wade, Melissa, Cameron and I to a beach called Mismaloya beach. It is at the bottom of the jungle and a river ends in the cove. One end is a private hotel and the other is covered with little umbrellas and a nicer restaurant. The restaurant was made with a stone floor and a large thatched roof. We were attacked by people who thought our only purpose in being at the beach was to spend money. Everyone asked if we wanted to snorkel. Finally one lady told us she would take us for an hour and half out the the rocks for 50 dollars. That sounded good to us so we loaded up our stuff and went out there.

Snorkeling is lots of fun. We saw a ton of fish and were able to feed them bread. When some took it right from my fingers they bit me. I am glad they didn't have too many teeth! He also took us on a tour of the area. The caves were really impressive.

Back at the beach we relaxed on nice loungers. We enjoyed a wonderful fajita lunch right under our own umbrella. It would be nice if we had those services at our beaches in California. We also relaxed and took a nice walk along the beach. Soon it was time to go back to the ship.

Once on the ship we went to the Tex Mex restaurant and had Mexican food. The food on the beach was much better. I guess the Asian cooks have a hard time doing Mexican right. Or maybe it was the fact that we had just had the authentic Mexican food. Dinner was its regular almost two hour ordeal. It is fun to sit and visit for that long with each other.