Puerto Vallarta Zoo

Having philosophical issues with zoos in general, I hesitated to go to the  Puerto Vallarta Zoo, but we had heard many good things about it, such as "An assortment of endangered animals, including Mexican Wolves and White Tigers, also inhabit the zoo, where excellent care and a safe environment encourage all of the animals to reproduce in captivity." We decided to give it a go. I still had issues about how some of the animals were caged, but it was definitely the most up close and personal zoo we've ever been to, where "feeding the animals" took on a whole new meaning.

Feeding carrots to a giraffe

A day in the life

Watched whales do a long series of breaching off the malecon yesterday, then went to a flash mob. 

 

Found a parrot with a broken wing on the ground outside our condo and rescued it. Then we watched the sun set from our patio. Pretty cool life...

Lesson Number One

 I've always used my own grocery bags for philosophical reasons, but yesterday I realized that there's also a very practical reason for having recyclable bags. My grocery bags from San Diego didn't rank high enough on my list of things to pack to actually make it into my backpack to Mexico, but I didn't think much about it as we boarded the bus yesterday, headed for  the MEGA supermarket, to stock our kitchen. On the bus on the way home, each of us loaded down with multiple plastic bags chock full of absolute necessities (like pomegranate juice and watermelon), the bottom fell out of one of the bags. As I chased the jelly down the aisle, and retrieved other various groceries from helpful passengers, I made a mental note- get some grocery bags! I think I'll get a couple of those cool mesh bags you see all over the Mexican markets. One with Frida Kahlo on it would be nice.

Do we really live here?

View from our balcony

Day 2- We spent the day with a wonderful realtor that Manuel had found via the internet before we left San Diego, and she had some properties lined up for us to look at. She picked us up at our hotel, and although the first property was right on the beach, it was when we walked into the second one that we knew we had found our new home. So, on Day 3, we moved into a beautifully furnished, 2 bedroom condo with a million dollar ocean view. I can't believe we live here!

Puerto Vallarta- the adventure begins....

Getting there...

View from Hotel Belmar

After 2 great months in San Diego, we packed our backpacks and bought our one way tickets to Puerto Vallarta! We're in a hotel for a couple of days, searching for the perfect place to live. We love the warm humidity, the architecture, the friendly people. We look forward to making this city our home for a while!

And now for something completely different....

Yes, we are searching for the perfect hot and humid place to live (in the process of checking the Puerto Vallarta classifieds for available places to rent), but when you get offered a free lift ticket at Snow Summit because it's your birthday, it's time to brave the cold and have some fun. It WAS cold, but it was sunny and beautiful, and skiing was a blast.

Last stop- Dreamland

 We had a week to go before our flight home, and we were tired of planning- "where should we go and how do we get there..."- so we decided to plant ourselves somewhere nice for a week. We picked Dreamland, Bali. A 4 star hotel (it was still only $60/night) with an ocean view, a good buffet breakfast, a large TV with cable, free wifi, a full gym, and a large pool to do laps. It was away from everything, could have been anywhere in the world, but but it didn't matter- we were done "traveling", and were on "vacation!". The beach was beautiful, (but the waves were too big on some days to even play in the water - "no swimming allowed" flags were up). So we just relaxed, and enjoyed doing nothing for a week. Great way to end a wonderful trip.