Viva Vallarta! (Part 2)

(We last left our travellers exhausted but excited to have finally made it to Club Viva Vallarta)

What to do first? We'd packed our swim suits and sunscreen in our carry-ons just in case something happened to our luggage. At least that way we could dive in the pool or ocean after that long trip. While we waited for our luggage to arrive in our rooms (we'd seen it come off the bus) we decided to change and head off for food and swimming (20-minutes apart, of course). The main restaurants weren't open but there was a snack bar that had yummy fresh made tortilla chips, salsa, guac, quesadillas and this tuna salad that was made with tuna and fresh salsa (this is damn good!). They also had hamburgers, french fries, hot dogs and pizza. What we didn't know was that this is what they had EVERY DAY at the snack bar. No variation at all. Nada. I grabbed my first (of many) Margaritas and we headed for the sun.

Our room overlooked the main "activity" pool (read: hundreds of screaming kids). We had a gorgeous view out over the ocean but the children were a little, well, a lot hard to take. Alas... When we returned after some food and sun we discovered that the roof in the bathroom was leaking. I made a call to the main desk who assured that someone would be right there. This was the beginning of our education of what "be right there" means to folks in Mexico. To give you a hint, it does NOT mean the same thing as it does here. Eventually (after another call) a guy arrived with a ladder. Soon there was two guys and a ladder. I think they fixed it with a roll of tape but I didn't really want to enquire further. It stopped leaking and that's all that mattered. We then began the eating, reading, drinking and sleeping cycle that made up the main body of our trip. It rocked!

When we weren't doing one of the above activities (and believe me, it wasn't that often), we would wander about the complex and along the beach. There were lovely botanical gardens where we looked at pretty plants and spotted many small lizards scurrying about. There were also multitudes of butterflies and moths flitting around. Walking on the beach we discovered millions of hermit crabs, some small crabs who decided to grow their own shells, more lizards (a couple of which were engaged in a mating ritual of some sort, the little pervs), many pelicans and a couple snakes. One of the larger (but still not very big) crabs put up his pincers and hissed at us when we got to close to him. We totally cracked up and proceeded to make pincer hands and hiss at one another for the remainder of the trip.

One night we decided to go on one of the organized (read: expensive) excursions offered by the tour group. We went on Juan Helluva Night, which was a bar crawl in downtown Puerto Vallarta. We arrived at 7:30, waited 45 minutes for a cab then went to meet the others at another resort closer to PV. The cab driver was fairly crazy and was at one point doing 100 km/h in a 40 km/h zone. Eek! The group at the other hotel weren't wearing their dorky t-shirts that we'd been instructed to wear (and did without question) and I had flash backs to the "cool kids" who wouldn't dress up for Halloween or anything at school. We all piled onto the bus and headed downtown.

Carlos O'Grady's was the first stop and our introduction to "shooter girls" at the Mexican bars. They are running around blowing whistles with shot glasses in a holster. They give you the two shots (for cheap but there is probably almost no alcohol in there) then shake your head around like crazy. You may not get drunk but you sure get dizzy. We all danced around like fools with our tour guides and then headed off to the next bar for more of the same.