Puerto Vallarta February 2011

I have not updated this blog since my return from the Croatia/Hungary birthday trip last May. Time to start updating. And the place to start is my trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, February 3 through 7, 2011. This is the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with its famous crown-shaped ... roof? Dome? Steeple? Cupola? Help me. I'm looking for the right atchitectural term here.

Time opened up on my schedule. I'd never been to Mexico. There were (are) two places in Mexico that are on my "list." San Miguel de Allende and Puerto Vallarta. It was early February. I could fly right into Puerto Vallarta. San Miguel is a beautiful, historic, artsy mountain town that has no nearby airport and requires either a very expensive flight into Leon or a really really long bus ride from Mexico City. Puerto Vallarta it was! And Puerto Vallarta has beaches, albeit with the ice cold bather-unfriendly Pacific waters:

Puerto Vallarta is located on the Bay of Banderas. The waters of the bay are beautiful; the beach itself is standard-issue. It's narrow, somewhat rocky, and not really all that inviting for sunbathing. This is actually one beach resort where, if I were staying right on the beach, I would use the hotel pool.

I got a hotel that Expedia indicated was about four blocks inland. That didn't seem too bad. And what was cool about the hotel was that it had a hammock right in the room! And it could support my weight. Even cooler! The one thing Expedia didn't tell me about those four blocks? The fourth block was straight up a hill.

There were pros and cons to having to climb a steep staircase to get from the beachfront tourist district to my hotel. One: the view from my room, as seen above. Magnifico. The blue waters of the Bay of Banderas. The ocean breezes gently wafting in. Two: what a workout! Climbing all those stairs to get to my hotel. And my room was on the third floor -- no elevator -- which meant climbing even more stairs, including stairs to get from the ground to the lobby.

No matter how many margaritas I drank, I would still get a great cardio workout on this trip.