We were looking for a spring break trip, and after having so much fun in Cancun, we thought Mexico would be fun. Southwest had (short) direct flights to Puerto Vallarta, so we could use our companion passes.
We booked a really cute Vrbo in the Zona Romantica, which was just south of the main tourist area. The area was alternately gritty and gorgeous, and the place we were staying was really nice.
The condo complex had a pool, and we had a lot of fun the first evening. We made a triple decker stack of people.
We went out for dinner, and fell in love with al pastor. We ended up eating it every chance we got on this trip. We found friendly street cats near the restaurant, which is always a treat.
The next day, we met up with Lars, who worked with bill for years when he was at Cookie Lee. He lives in Puerto Vallarta now, and offered to show us around. There are a number of villages south of the city that can only be reached by boat. There are tour boats that go to them (more on that later,) but Lars knew where to catch the super inexpensive speedboat that locals use. We played games while waiting for our boat.
We went to Yelapa, a small fishing village south of Puerto Vallarta. On approach, we could see little huts built into the hillside. The beach was absolutely gorgeous, all golden sand and palm trees. We found an inlet with water that had been cut off from the ocean, and it had about a million tadpoles and tiny frogs. Lars seemed surprised that our kids would want to spend so much time playing with tadpoles, but it seemed normal to us.
We hiked up a narrow path into the hills, through the village where people still live the traditional way. We found lots of cats on our way, and we stopped to pet them all.
Eventually, we got to a waterfall. It didn’t have a ton of water flowing, as it had been a dry season. The kids cooled off in the waterfall pool, and Liam hiked down the riverbed a ways.
On our way back down to the beach where we would catch our boat back to town, we stopped at a gorgeous restaurant for lunch.
We caught the shuttle boat back to the little town, then headed back to PV in great spirits.
I had read that there was an island of cats in Puerto Vallarta, and it turned out to be walking distance from our place. There was an Indian restaurant on the island, so we went there for dinner. There were cats, as promised.
We were tired after a long day, and were glad to settle into our place for the night.
