No word of a lie. Not many people have survived such horrific ordeals, but luckily I am something of a warrior, a gladiator you might say, so I have lived to fight another day. More on this later though.
As promised, here is an update from Puerto Vallarta, on the coast of Mexico directly west of Guadalajara. The bus took longer than expected and I finally arrived at 12:30 on Saturday night. I decided to come to Vallarta on Saturday because Guadalajara, as mentioned in the previous post, hadn't lived up to expectations, and at least this way I knew I could spend Sunday on the beach. There was still time on Saturday however, to meet up with Kelsey and Jenny, who I had met at the Tequila Hostel, for a drink at La Cantina. There were a couple of other girls with them, and two Mexican guys who they didn't know at all. The men in Mexico generally live up to their unpologetically sleazy stereotype, and it should also be noted that they are on the whole, quite short. It makes a welcome change to look around and recognise that I am one of the taller people around.
On Monday I met Kelsey and Jenny again, we had an awesome seafood lunch at Las Ocho Tostadas (a place with Suha had recommended) and then went to their hotel which was right on the beach. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy. Unbelievable. I've been in Mexico for 6 weeks and seen about 30 minutes of rain and no more than two or three overcast days during that time, and now my first day of proper sunbathing is met by a permanent grey roof. I wanted to have a tantrum, but in the end thought better of it. Instead, we sat in the hotel jacuzzi for about 3 hours, which was nice. Hopefully the staff there will be able to fix the 'bubble jet' appliance which I somehow managed to kick off the bottom of the pool. To be fair, I was under the influence; It was 2-for-1 cocktails, so I ordered two, but promptly received four. And had to pay for them. So really any damage done to the jacuzzi is a result of poor waiter skills rather than my own incompetence.
At 6:30pm, we went back out onto the beach because they were releasing the baby turtles. I got to hold one, before eventually letting him go at the seafront. He seemed to reflect my own traits of being cool but rude, so naturally I named him Raphael. As I started giving him my motivational talk about getting to the sea before any of the other 30 turtles (or "rivals"), I wondered if I should have perhaps christened him "Usain" instead. Nevertheless, Raphael did a good job and although the initial waves lapping the shore hindered his progress, he eventually found his feet, and made it to the sea in (joint) first place. I was very proud and was tempted to do a parade lap of the beach shouting "cowabunga!"
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| When I first met my little turtle (just hatched) |
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| Raphael, post-motivatonal 'teamtalk' |
On Monday I had a fairly relaxed day, just spent a few hours on the beach. My hostel, Vallarta Sun, initially hadn't impressed me, but the people who run the hostel were really friendly and I decided to stay a bit longer to see how it worked out. I think in terms of room comfort etc, I may have been spoilt at Tequila and Hostel 333. When I was with Whitney in Guadalajara, she told me about her stay in the same Vallarta hostel a week earlier, and mentioned an old guy who is always on the computer, and who paces back and forth when you are using it. George, from the US, is still here even as I write this, and it is a bit annoying. I think he makes all the guests feel a little bit on edge. If it wasn't so irritating, it would probably be amusing. Here are some of the high- (or low-) lights:
- I get back from a club at 5am only to find that George is still up using the internet.
- He traps various guests into conversations they're not really interested in, but equally can't escape from. Over the past couple of days, I think I may have emerged as his favourite victim.
- On hearing that there is going to be a gay parade (Vallarta is the Mexican gay capital apparently. Obviously why I decided to come here, ha ha), George pipes up with "I tend to tell them that I'm trisexual, let them figure that one out". Ummmmmmmmm......... animals?
- He 'trapped' me the other day looking at a map (Elliot can testify that I can spend long periods of the evening staring at maps of the world), and when I mentioned going to the Caribbean, he started singing some old American folk song about Barbados. After the first two lines, he asked me if I knew it. Thinking that "No I don't" would suffice to shut him up was clearly an error, as he then proceeded to sing about three verses of the damn thing. I stood silently staring at the map, cursing myself for not scurrying into my room straight away, rather than pausing en-route to examine which countries lay on the equator (because that's the sort of crazy shit I think about).
Anyway, the following day I headed to Mismaloya. I got the bus with Sebastien, a PhD student from Dortmund, although he got off at a previous stop. I was going to the Zoo! As I have written lots about my previous Zoo trips, I will try and keep the generic descriptions down, but I have to attach some photos because... well, you'll see:
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| Ahhhh little Jaguar! |
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| Ahhhh little Tiger! |
As you may have cottoned on by now, the tiger that bit me was only 1 month old and its teeth weren't big or sharp enough to actually cause any flesh wounds. Both cubs (the Jaguar was three months old, so a little stronger) were still quite playful-verging on-aggressive though, at one point I thought the baby tiger might tear my shorts to pieces. On my walk around I also had a bag of food, which the Zoo provide. There are strict instructions on what food you can feed to which animals. It certainly made them more interested in me though. Recipients included the Brown Bear, Hippo, Giraffe, Parrot and Guinea Pigs. I got some cool shots of these too.
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| It got pretty close at one point, I was a little bit scared |
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| Not really sure what to say about this one... |
On Thursday a few of us (Greg & Hugo from France, Sebastien, Justine from Canada and Ollie from Australia) from the hostel hired a boat and we went to a beach called Yelapa. Even though Puerto Vallarta has its own beaches which I have been to, some of the nicest ones are a little further south (a 15 minute bus ride, or 30 minutes by boat). As well as Yelapa, I have been to Las Gemelas and Las Animas. On this boat trip we also stopped along the way to do some fishing. We each caught a fish and took them back to the hostel for dinner that evening, was pretty cool to be able to do that. The boat captain also caught a jellyfish and we passed it around. It didn't feel overly slimey until I passed it on and realised my hands were covered in gunk. On the way back from Yelapa I saw a Dolphin in the distance (maybe 100 yards away), but unfortunately we weren't able to get any closer sightings. I've realised that I don't like swimming in the sea... I think it's because the unknown waters, big fish, and jellyfish panic me somewhat. Even snorkelling in Greece unnerved me a bit and the fish there were tiny. I guess I'm a total pussy and should just get over it.
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| Puerto Vallarta Beach at 6:30pm |
Most of my time in Vallarta has been made up of going to the beach for a few hours in the afternoons, sometimes going out in the evenings with people from the hostel, and trying to avoid George whenever possible. As I'm approaching my last few days in Mexico, I think I am adopting the Karl Pilkington approach of doing very little with my time so that the days don't go as fast. An excellent mindset to have when you're travelling, I'm sure you'll agree.
The next time I write it will probably be from San Francisco (I fly Monday afternoon). I will be sad to leave Mexico, which is a good sign I guess. Despite being here for almost 2 months, I feel that there is still so much in the area of the country I have been to that I haven't seen, nevermind the areas (e.g. Yucatan) that I haven't been to. I expect I'll be back one day.
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| The sun is finally setting on my Mexican adventure! |
Twig
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