Peurto Vallarta

Today starts off a little shaky as Joey tells up she was up at 1:45 walking the ship looking for Kyle.  She hasn't given him a curfew up to now, guess that is going to change.  So at 7AM we are up for breakfast to get the day going, Kyle is looking very happy and well rested.  It looks like it is going to be another beautiful day. 

We have booked a private tour today. I have printed off a ticket with a map where to go, but I didn't print the details. So I don't know how long the tour is, what we are doing except I know it is on a boat,  how much it cost and it is paid for, so off we go. 

We get to the taxi stand at the end of the dock and he tells us it is $3 per person for the taxi. We can tell by the map that it is very close to the ship dock but we can also see we need to get behind the navy base somehow. We decide to take the taxi; he says he won't charge for Liam.  Off we go and the taxi driver can't find the road to get to the pier so he stops to ask some guy where it is.  Well this guy turns out to be, what he says anyway, is a captain and owner of a boat. He tells us he can take us on a tour; you would have to pay me to go on a tour with this guy, very funny.  We get our directions and off we go to the next street and they are waiting for us.  We have a quick bathroom break at a restaurant, 5 pesos each.

We load up the boat and we are off.  First I ask him how long we will be, 5 hours, OK lots of time to get back to the ship.  This is a small fishing boat about 25 feet with 2 outboard motors, plenty big enough for us to be comfortable.  There were 2 guys with us, one spoke excellent English, and one was pretty much just learning.  Our first stop was to go snorkeling. Carlos, the non-English speaking guy, was stuck going in the water with us.  We threw some bread in the water before we got in and it was amazing how many angel fish came to the top.  We should have stopped our snorkel adventure here.  There were so many other tour boats here, and the visibility was terrible that it was really disappointing.  I hate being in large tours snorkeling, which is one of the reasons we booked this private tour, but I guess there are not a lot of nice spots to snorkel, and we were at the main spot.  Back on the boat, after quite a struggle for me to be heaved back on.

We go about another 30 minutes and stop at a small village that is only really accessible by boat. 

 The town is named Yelepa.  This village is built into the side of the mountain, really a cool place that would be fun to explore for a couple of days.  We walked through the town and up part of the mountain to a very pretty waterfall.  André was the only one to get in and go under the falls, the water was COLD. 

From here we walked through the town and back to the beach. 

It is always fun walking through the town and seeing how the native people live.  We had lunch on the beach at one of the restaurants and spent a little time here before we were to head back to Puerto Vallarta.

All of our favorite part of the trip, and most memorable experience is we saw whales on the way to and from Yelepa.  This was absolutely amazing as they were within 20 feet of our boat at one point.  It was a mother and baby humpback, it is so fantastic to see them come up and then hear them take a breath of air.  We have seen a few now from the cruise ship, but seeing them this close is amazing. 

The captain has been looking for fish for us as he wants us to be able to stop and catch a fish, but no luck.  We do see a manatee on the way back, which is amazing as well. This one was really big. I thought it was 2, but it was only 1. 

Back to the pier where the fishing boat is kept, we walk about 15 minutes to get back to our cruise ship.

Kyle survived the day, he managed to squeeze in a nap on the beach after lunch, he wasn't feeling well part way through the boat ride, but he made it.   We have about an hour until our ship leaves so no time to go exploring, I wish we had a second day here, we definitely cannot say we have been to Puerto Vallarta again. We were there in 1987 for almost 3 weeks, perhaps next time we will be here longer.

Uneventful supper tonight, we didn't see the liquor guy tonight, he may be afraid of us.  After supper the kids take off to do their own thing, we head to the casino to play the penny machines, I lose $10 in about 5 minutes and that is enough for me. Joey loses $10 as well very quickly, not nearly as much fun as when they won the other day. 

We stop at the little place that is set up for sushi each night. André and Joey share a mixed plate and then we run out of things to do.  So we head to the lobby and decide to go up the glass elevator.  Kyle and his friend get in on one floor and just look at us, we tell him we are just riding the elevator wherever, and of course at this point Joey André and I break into giggles.  Poor kid gets into the elevator to find his Aunt, Uncle and Mom just riding up and down wherever people push the button, talk about role reversal!  He didn't take long to get off, but he did tell us that sometimes they do the same thing. 

That's it for our exciting evening.  Joey had told the kids they needed to be back in the room at 8:30 so we could review the schedule for landing tomorrow so she could set curfews for the kids for tonight.  They actually all beat us back to the room!  Kyle had brought his friend with him, not sure if he thought he had power in numbers!  I told him I thought 8:45 was a good curfew. I am not sure how well that went over, but André and I left the room at that point so I'm not sure what happened after that.

Tomorrow is our first day in Cabo San Lucas, we will be back again in 2 days.  So far our plans are just to walk around town, and maybe go to the beach for the afternoon.  This is a tender port where you need to take a small boat to shore and back. We'll see how organized that is.