Sylvie's Travels Home

This past week, we have been waking up to very cloudy and foggy skies but it always clears up by 8-8:30am.

We met our friends at 9:30am and took a taxi to Puerto Vallarta to start our next adventure. We had rented 3 RZRs (small four wheel-drive off-road vehicles). After doing the paperwork and going for a trial run with Junior, the employee, we were on our way. We first went up the mountain to Las Carmelitas, a restaurant with apparently THE view of PV but the road up there wasn’t opened until 1pm. A local man, seeing us talking about our next step, invited us on his property to see his view of PV and it was great.

We had asked Junior for suggestions about places to go. He said to go in the mountains where Canopy River, an adventure tour company, is located. Leaving PV, we saw a lot of construction due to damages caused by the last hurricane. The raging waters from it had taken bridges and roads off and flooded neighborhoods. We went through a little village called Paso del Guayabo. We stopped at a small destileria to get a juice. They tried to have us do a tasting of their flavored tequilas but we resisted. We drove all over narrow and very dusty roads. We saw some nice vistas, got close to the river Cuale a few time but nothing that interesting.

By 2pm, we were all so hot and covered in dust so decided to stop at the Canopy River park and see if we could use their pool. We could for $7.50 per person. We spent the next hour and a half, in the pool and sitting in the sun enjoying a cold beverage and a few snacks. They had some great views of the mountain. From that location, they were offering zip lining and walking on a freaking long suspended bridge. I told the employee that I could never do that as I’m afraid of heights. She said: come on, you were on a plane to come here! What impertinence!

We made our way back to Las Carmelitas. The gate was opened and we drove up a long narrow road. Then we had to walk a long snaking ramp to the restaurant. It was worth the view despite the fog. Puerto Vallarta is so much bigger that I imagined. The wide restaurant was totally empty and they were disappointed when we told them we had time only for a cocktail. We had to rent the RZRs for 24 hours but instead of driving them back to the condo, we had decided to return them by 5:30pm when the rental office was closing.

We took a taxi back and went to the pool until the sunset. By then everyone was so tired. Pogo and I had burgers and watched a little TV but couldn’t keep our eyes opened so we were asleep by 9:30pm.