viva mexico!

Sorry for my blogging absence - I've been distracted, then away, and then too relaxed!

On February 1st, Steve and I flew out of Halifax to Toronto, en route to meeting the rest of the Stonehacks in Puerto Vallarta for our 'Christmas' get-together. It was a terrible day for flying, when that huge storm swept through southern Ontario (wreaking havoc on the airport where we wanted to layover) on its way to the Maritimes (giving us a tight deadline to get out of Halifax!). We were really lucky though, and made it to Mexico when we were supposed to, with just delays (the flight to Toronto before ours was actually cancelled while we were in the airport...).

The place we were heading was Palladium Vallarta, an all-inclusive resort just north of Puerto Vallarta. Steve had been there last winter with some of his classmates, and gave it a good review. (Keep in mind that none of us had been to an all-inclusive, so we have nothing to compare it too!)

Steve and I arrived on Saturday night, and my parents and brother and sister arrived on Sunday night. We were really, really busy for the next five days - relaxing, surfing, swimming, reading, eating, sleeping. Here is a picture of the resort - we stayed in the pink building, and the surfing wave is at the right end of the beach, just a couple of minutes from shore!

Our surf team's mascot, los pelicanos.

Bo and Devon at the adults-only pool a.k.a. 'The Lobster Pot' because the water was hot, and if people stayed in too long, they turned red and started to yell and scream. There were some interesting people around the adult pool... We hung out on the beach every day, getting down early for the first surf session and some lounge chairs in the shade.

On Thursday, we took the local bus to Sayulita, a little surfer / backpacking town. It was a great place to visit, with a surprising number of vehicles with BC plates! Had lunch at a restaurant with amazing guacamole..... (I wouldn't want to hazard a guess at how many avocados and papayas we were responsible for eating!)

Here's Dad on the beach in Sayulita.

The resort had a salt water pool built out on a jetty of rocks.

Here's Mom watching the sunset from the edge.

We ate most of our meals at the buffet, with our favourite server, Antonio, hooking us up for breakfast and lunch. But there were three dinners we could eat at one of four a la carte restaurants. On our last night together, we got to sit outside at Viva Mexico! for an awesome meal, with an awesome view!

One of the specialties at the a la carte restaurants was the 'special coffee', which was basically an excuse for Mom to have a maraschino cherry and for the waiter to show off his skill at pouring flaming liquid. Still - it's impressive.

All in all, it was a great trip! Our general consensus was that an all-inclusive is a great way to get maximum relaxation out of one week. Plus, with six people, it was great to have most decisions taken care of, and it gave us maximum time to just hang out together. I especially liked having the surfing wave right off shore, because that gave us something to do all the time!

And I got to go back to work with a little bit of a tan and the recent memory of hot, sunny weather which is so important in February!