We were all so excited to arrive in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on April 4. The sun was out, the weather warm and lovely, and we were itching to go ashore!
Just before going on our cruise, I realized that Puerto Vallarta might not be in the same time zone as ship time, and so I looked it up, and sure enough, they were an hour ahead of Ship Time. That meant that I booked our tours for an hour before I meant to, because I checked them against ship time. This was my first time booking excursions outside of the cruise line, and I was nervous. We were supposed to arrive in port at 9 a.m. ship time, which was actually 10 a.m. local time, and I had booked our first excursion for 10:30, and it would take us 20-30 minutes to get there. Thankfully, our ship arrived early, and we were able to get off the boat. We had some confusion about how to find a taxi, which cost us about 5 minutes, but then we got a taxi that all of us could fit into and headed on our way, my heart pumping just a little bit about all of this coming together.
The seven seat taxi was pretty cramped. I had never even heard of the type of car he was driving, though I do think it was a Toyota.
On our way, our tour place called to make sure we were still coming, and it helped having made contact with them, especially since this excursion was non-refundable, and I was nervous about it being some kind of scam. It wasn't. We arrived, checked in, signed the waivers and filled out the driver information, had an orientation, and then we got to load into our UTV Razors! When I heard about this tour, I REALLY wanted to do it. It sounded like a good way to see parts of Mexico that weren't right on the coast as our three hour tour promised to take us up into the Sierra Madre Mountains.
We joined another family and a couple for this tour. We brought up the rear. They gave us goggles and a neck gaiter to help protect us from dust. After figuring out how to run the vehicle, we headed out, girls in one RZR, the boys in the other.
We followed our guide through the narrow cobblestone streets, and then across larger roads. We also had a photographer who would zoom ahead of us to get all kinds of shots of our adventures. Our photographer would help stop traffic for us so we could all stay together.
(The picture below is mirrored for some reason. I was driving, and my mom was taking the picture.)
Our photographer was amazing. Apparently, he used to take photos for National Geographic, and I loved how he knew how to frame shots. I had a REALLY hard time narrowing down shots for this post.
My Mom took this one of the cobblestone streets and this cute little hacienda.
Our photographer would get down on the ground to get interesting angles
as well as climb trees. The tour place called him "Ninja".
After driving through the streets, we eventually ended up on a dirt road and headed up. We traveled along by the river
And our guide even let us drive through a stream.
Since we were the last two vehicles in the caravan, we all got really dusty.
Our first stop was Rancho Las Pilas. We got to go through a little bit of jungle to walk up to this little outdoor restaurant with a waterfall and deep pool. We had to pay 50 pesos to use their swimming area, or buy something from their restaurant, so Brian bought some bottled water.
We came near the end of the dry period, so the waterfall wasn't as full as normal. We all enjoyed playing in the water, especially the kids.
In addition to the natural water, they had these swimming pools as well that Rachel and Gabe hung out in for a bit.
Here we are with the other family.
You can kind of see how the manmade pool is next to the natural stream. Brian is on the bank of the stream.
Here's the waterfall. The pool beneath the waterfall is really, really deep. So deep that when our photographer did a backflip off the rocks above the waterfall, he didn't touch the bottom.
When we went to Europe in 2015, our group took a long walk around part of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It was incredibly hot, and the lake was incredibly enticing. Brian really wanted to jump in the lake like many of our fellow tour mates were doing, but I convinced him not to because I didn't want to have wet clothes on the very air-conditioned bus back to our hotel. We have regretted that decision ever since. So, knowing we only had a limited time at this spot, Brian decided that he wanted to take full advantage and jump off the rocks into the pool. He said, "I don't want this to be Lake Geneva." Lake Geneva became our mantra the rest of the trip. He climbed up the bank to above the waterfall and jumped in!
It was a narrow target, and I was a little nervous, but he did it!
Just before leaving, Michael decided he wanted to jump too.
My Lake Geneva was going all the way under the water, so I did that, swimming over the deeper pool.
All too soon, we were back in our RZRs, heading for the next stop.
Our second stop was a family owned tequila distillery, DestilerÃa Buggy Bord Sierra Vallejo, for a tequila tasting. The spot was so beautiful.
It overlooked a valley, and there were flowering trees there as well.
Rachel had developed a headache from the noise. Next time, we need to remember ear plugs for her!
We felt bad knowing we wouldn't be helping this little business out by buying (or tasting) the tequila, so we were happy to know they also served smoothies. Mom treated us to some. We got to try three flavors (sharing the smoothies). They tasted more like shakes to me! So yummy!
We were happy to learn that the other family in our group also didn't drink, so we told the young couple that we were going to taste the tequila vicariously through them. We all watched as they tried the pomegranate and other exotically flavored tequilas.
Side note: Every excursion the cruise line offered involved some kind of tequila tasting. We couldn't help but crack jokes about it in the weeks leading up to our cruise.
After the others bought bottles to take home (or give as gifts as in the case of our sober friends), we headed back to the RZRS.
This time, Rachel rode with Brian and Michael, and Gabe rode with Mom and I.
Our final stop was lunch at Moro Paraiso, an open air restaurant on the banks of Rio Cuale. Gabe loved playing in the water while we waited for our lunch. We had to laugh to discover a mother hen and her little chicks hanging out nearby.
The food was so good! I've always been a sucker for good atmosphere. I think a quiet, lovely place to eat is more important than how the food tastes. Thankfully, this place had both lovely atmosphere and delicious food.
The lemonade came in these giant glasses.
We were too busy eating our food to take a good picture. After Gabe finished eating, he was back in the water.
All too soon, we were back in the RZRs, heading back into the city. This time, Mom drove.
In the weeks prior to our cruise, we read about all kinds of travel warnings that started being issued due to four Americans being kidnapped in the beginning of March. Two were found dead on March 7 and two were rescued. Most of the things I read were that Americans were strongly discouraged from traveling to Mexico. We'd read that the visiting Mexico, particularly the ports we were going to, were considered relatively safe as long as you traveled there by air or cruise ship. We also knew that security in Mexico would be heightened at this time due to the incident, we weren't really worried. The only thing I was a little nervous (prior to embarkation) was this RZR tour, since we were going to be further away from the port. Mom, Brian, and I agreed that these tour groups probably knew how to avoid the cartel, and we'd be fine. It wasn't until we were nearly back to the tour headquarters that I remembered about the cartel issues. We had such a great time and felt so well tended by our guide.
We loved this tour. We got to see some of the streets in Puerto Vallarta (as well as drive through them) and see some of the country and mountain sides. After arriving and returning our goggles and neck gaiters, we looked over the pictures Ninja had taken and knew we had to buy the package, especially because his prices were so reasonable. While Brian was working on that, Mom, Gabe, and I headed a few doors down to a pharmacy to buy some Tylonel for Rachel's aching head. After we all used the restroom and got our photo flash drive, our tour guide flagged down a taxi for us, and we headed to our next adventure, clear on the other side of town.
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