Cruise Day 5: Puerto Vallarta

Thursday morning we pulled into Puerto Vallarta and it was entirely different than Cabo. Here we pulled right into the harbor and could get off straight onto the dock.

 PV is a bustling city. This is the view as soon as you come out of the little dock area.

 We stopped at this grocery store so Tim and Janine could buy some sun screen and called the girls from the convenience store across the street. Inside this grocery store a guy approached us and told us about a great place to shop and see the beach called Bucerias. It was a little suburb of PV. He told us he could get us a taxi to Bucerias (about 30 min away) and get us access to more snorkeling gear, kayaks and other fun stuff. It sounded like a good deal and was cheaper than other taxis we found on the street, so we agreed. He actually took us out to his car and drove us out to Bucerias...or so we thought. We pulled into a huge, very beautiful resort. He ushered us inside and they asked for our credit card information and asked to take our stuff so we could fully enjoy the 90 minute presentation...wait, what? He had signed us up for a timeshare sales pitch. Awesome. We looked at each other and silently agreed to protest. So we told the nice sales lady that we were in no position to buy a timeshare and that we would prefer not to spend 90 minutes of our limited day touring and enduring a sales pitch. She agreed to call us a taxi to take us the rest of the way to Bucerias. We felt bad because the guy that drove us there initially was very nice, and we essentially got that long taxi ride for free.

 Inside the taxi, or should I say the timeshare transportation.

 Finally to the real Bucerias.

 Rusty's dream car...I mean truck, car?

 We found this little place to have some lunch. Here there was a nice American looking family that sat behind us, so we asked them if they had been to any other fun places on their trip. They told us that they actually lived there for a few months every year and told us about some great places to visit. They also invited us to their condo. During lunch the boys started feeling a little bit icky...

 Rusty was dying to get himself some fancy mexican dress shoes, which he did.

 Town square.

 On our way to the condo we walked through the Kissing Passage.

 Once we got to the family's condo they had a giant sling shot that the boys had fun with before they lent us their body boards to go play in the ocean.

 The water was so much different in PV than it was in Cabo. The water here reminded me more of the California type beaches. The water was actually warmer than Cabo, but much dirtier and filled with waves. It was still a ton of fun to body board and ride the waves.

 After we left the condo (with some Immodium AD in hand for the boys) we wandered through a market back toward town square and stumbled upon this man. To this day I have no idea if he was dead or just realllllllly tired.

 There was a beautiful church right in the center of town square.

 We were shocked when we walked inside and just to the left was a giant Greg Olsen (famous LDS painter) picture of Christ.

 Soon enough the Immodium AD wasn't working anymore and Rusty found himself a new friend...the trash can. Being the loving and supportive wife I am, I did what I knew Rusty would want (eventually) and took pictures of him tossing his fish tacos.

 We headed back to the ship early because Rusty was feeling so terrible. He laid down and slept for a while and I headed up to the top deck to take some pictures of the city at night. It was incredible.