Ever Expanding Sayulita

Trip date: October 2018

Girl's trip to Sayulita!

We were also down to experience Dia de los Muertos which you can read about here. The girls and I had a 4-hour direct flight on Alaska Airlines in Premium class where we enjoyed complimentary drinks. As it was a morning flight, I ordered my prosecco two at time when the flight attendant told me she only had 6 mini bottles for the entire flight! Lackluster inventory skills! Angela was the lucky recipient of a complimentary First Class upgrade so at least Gail and I didn't have to compete with her for prosecco! ha!

Our Airbnb offered to send a car to pick us up from the airport, which we happily accepted. Somehow we missed that they were charging us $150. That is entirely too much! We pulled cash from the ATM at the airport and had our driver stop at the big Mega shop to load up on groceries for the week.

When we got to our house, Casa Kukana, they were having problems with the electricity and nothing was working. The manager went about trying to get everything fixed and lent us flashlights as it was getting dark. The house was beautiful; a very large 3 bedroom/ 3 bathroom home with an amazing garden area, balcony, and a nice, albeit small, pool. It sits high on the hill that looks out over the bay so there are views in a few directions. Also being up high on the hill and on a dirt road which was very dark and muddy, we ended up taking a taxi home from town most nights.

The big thing that was different on this trip, from our trip the year before, was all of the construction going on around town. Sayulita is going through big, loud, growing pains. The Amor Hotel, which our house looked at the back of across the road, was adding more rooms and the construction noise was non stop. Gail even went and spoke with the crew to see if they could start later and wrap up sooner.

There was also a lot of construction going on all the way down the hill into town, sometimes creating traffic jams as the road was being congested with heavy equipment. And we found the same in the main part of town, roads being dug up for what I could only hope was new sewage lines to deal with the additional constraints of tourism.

In the mornings I worked with a coffee, a mimosa, and the pretty views from the big deck. In the afternoon we would swim in our pool or escape the noise of the construction at the beach. Coco's is still the best place to rent a lounger with an umbrella, listen to music, order Micheladas or beers, and swim in the ocean.

Of course we went back to the Turtle Rescue! We went at sunset as we had done in the past, and Erick was working at his fab little margarita bar, as he had in the past. The only difference is that the turtles are released at night now, giving them a better chance against the diving hungry seabirds.

So we sat and had a few drinks, chatted about turtles, and kept the resident cat company. The drinks are great and the sunset was gorgeous! And we still got to watch the squirrely newly hatched turtles as they collected them into the release bins.

We had dinner at Mary's Traditional Mexican twice this time, stopped for street tacos at Ivan's, which is doing roasted mushroom options for vegetarians now, and had the delicious fried cheese taco at El Itacate.

We went back to Barracuda once for lunch and once for dinner, happy to see the place that had just opened when we were there last still going strong and the fish tacos still great. We also had an ok lunch at Don Pancho's and a good dinner at Yeikame one night. Sadly our beloved empanada lady's spot is now a French themed cafe. I heard she sometimes sells at the Friday market but we didn't get there.

One day we took a taxi to Puerto Vallarta for about $40. We headed to the big pretty church but had to be satisfied with views from the outside as there was a wedding going on. We popped into a few art galleries but many more were closed for siesta.

We then wandered down the maleçon and checked out the large sculptures left over from Dia de los Muertos. It was super hot and muggy so we finally decided to grab a seat in some shade and get cool drinks. La Palapa had been recommended and we were very happy to have a table with a view of the beach and a little breeze.

Unfortunately that was the only thing we were happy with. The drinks were ok and the atmosphere was fun, but the food was actively bad and expensive.

We decided to hang out a bit until The Iguana bar at Casa Kimberly opened. We all wanted to check out the former residence of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and the now-hotel is beautiful. We had drinks in the gorgeous bar and watched as a HUGE rainstorm passed through forcing the waitstaff to hurriedly clear the outside tables and shut all the windows!

Sayulita still has its charms, and experiencing Dia de los Muertos there was amazing, but with the pull of tourism getting stronger, and the construction everywhere, I don't know if I'll be heading back again. Luckily the town sent us off with an amazing sunset on our last night.

And Gail and I were upgraded to First Class on our way home! Thanks Alaska Airlines!

All photos from Sayulita here.

Other posts from this trip:
Dia de los Muertos in Sayulita

Puerto Vallarta

In mid-February one of my well-up-the-chain-of-command bosses at work surprised me with an offer of a free trip to Puerto Vallarta, all expenses paid, as part of an annual rewards program. Wendy and I were a last-minute addition to the group that was going -- someone had dropped out, and I was apparently next on the list -- and we were temporarily in a bit of a bind. Forest was coming for a visit at the end of the month, and we had a party planned for her, just when we were now supposed to be in Mexico. Fortunately, Wendy is neither one to turn down a vacation nor one who's afraid to change plans, so after a quick consultation with Forest we moved her party back a week and started packing the sunscreen.

Our Friday morning flight was made lass-than-pleasant by having to sit next to an extremely inebriated man who proceeded to get more drunk throughout the flight and give us all sorts of "useful" advice, such as "Don't buy drugs from Mexican cops." Thanks buddy.

Although this was a work-sponsored trip, at an all-inclusive resort (our first time in such a surreal place), we only had a few organized activities with my co-workers. The first evening we had a sunset reception / cocktail party next to the pool, which was a great way to get into the vacation mode; afterwards Wendy and I went to Piaf, the on-resort French-styled restaurant. The wine at Piaf in also complimentary, but they do have an up-sell menu (for additional, and outrageous, prices) that looked a lot better. When the sommelier realized that we weren't very enthusiastic about the standard wines, he brought us one of the better wines that had a water-damaged label and gave it to us at no charge; now that's service! We had a nightcap at the lobby bar after dinner and enjoyed the warm evening air before turning in.

On Saturday elected to spend most of the day lounging around the pool (with a swim-up bar!), soaking our Seattle-pale skin in the sun. That evening, however, we went into Puerto Vallarta proper to have a rum drinks at La Bodeguita del Medio, a great Cuban place, followed by dinner at the unusually-named Daiquiri Dick's, where the ex-wife of a friend of ours was a chef and manager. Not only did we have a fantastic meal next to the beach, after dropping off several hard-to-find-in-Mexico American amenties, were given a 2 kg bag of coffee beans to take home.



It was on Saturday that we also discovered the 'all-inclusive' moniker means just that; we could order a full bottle of liquor per person per day to the room (and ice and vermouth were freely available) so we knew immediately what that meant: home-made martinis!!



Sunday was our day to wander around Puerto Vallarta's downtown and beaches, and buy some tequila to bring home. Being Sunday, many of the shops were closed and the whole city was pretty sleepy.



Monday was ziplining! Neither of us had ever been before. We took a bus for about an hour and a half up into the mountains north and east of PV, had a brief instructional class, and started zipping between the trees. I was very proud of Wendy; heights are not her favorite thing, but she did great and ended up having a lot of fun. We did a total of 19 lines, and finished with a rappel from about 65 feet. I was about twice the size, or more, of any of our guides, so they had a little difficulty manipulating me at the transition points, but they were all very professional.



When we got back to the hotel, we had a company dinner, including fireworks on the beach, and finished up at the lobby bar.

On our final day, we enjoyed the poolside bar until the last possible minute, not knowing when we'd see the sun again.


Our full photo set can be found here.