Guadalajara, PV, and Home

After New Year's in Puerto Vallarta we headed inland over the
impressive Sierra Madre mountain range to the big city of Guadalajara
(GDL).  A very old city with buildings dating from the sixteenth
century, Guadalajara is steeped in history.  We stayed in a little
hotel in the city's historic centre and spent our days exploring by
foot.  José Orozco's murals, in the former government palace and the
Instituto Cultural Cabanas, originally an orphanage, were a pretty
powerful sight, especially when explained by our flamboyant Mexican
guide.

The food in GDL was fantastic, perhaps as good as any during our time
in Mexico.  The city, although a charming place to explore for a few
days, is big dirty and the air is thick with raw diesel and gasoline
exhaust.

Before flying home we returned to Puerto Vallarta to Mark and Karli
Picketts' home for one final night of fine tequilas and beer.  On our
last day in we headed to the beach nearby and spotted a 3-4 metre
crocodile just off the beach.  Walking down the beach a bit we came
upon a volunteer run turtle release organization and were thrilled to
be handed two olive ridley sea turtles hatched just a few hours
earlier, definitely another of the many trip highlights.

Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta

After Christmas at the surf camp in San Blas we were chauffeured by
our two Swiss friends in their huge converted camper van to Sayulita,
an hour's drive north from Puerto Vallarta.  Sayulita has been
"discovered" and we arrived during probably the busiest week of the
year.  Almost every hotel was fully booked but we eventually found a
really nice room one block off the beach.  The town is very cool and
it is easy to appreciate why it has become so popular with travelers,
thankfully there are no large hotels or resorts nearby to ruin the
town.  Accommodation prices were considerably higher than in other
places we've visited in the country but food and drink was about the
same.

Sayulita remains a surf destination but the waves were really big and
the surf totally packed with expert surfers so we didn't get out on
the water as we did in the more inviting San Blas.  We met up with
Mark Picketts, his wife Karli and their little ones Ollie and Ella as
well as Karli's family from San Francisco, who were staying at a huge
beach side house in town for the week.  Mark had very graciously
offered us the use of their home in Puerto Vallarta while they were in
Sayulita so after a few days we continued south, again in the back of
the Swiss van, into PV.  PV is well into the tropics and it was hot
and humid, luckily Mark and Karli's house is right by the
neighbourhood pool!

New Year's Eve was spent whale watching on a huge but crowded trimaran
off PV with a pretty great display from the humpback whales and a nice
surprise upon boarding to find it was an open bar trip!  Afterwards,
we headed to a Canadian owned and sports bar jam packed with Canadians
to watch Team Canada beat the US in the World Juniors despite playing
absolutely terribly followed by the Flames easily beating the Oilers
yet again.  We capped off the night with a pretty good fireworks
display launched from a number of locations along the waterfront of
Puerto Vallarta.

We had been planning on busing to Tijuana in order to catch our train
from San Diego back into Vancouver, however, due to the holiday
traffic bus tickets were almost sold out and we were only able to
secure tickets to take us in one leg from PV to Tijuana rather than
breaking the trip up into 2 or 3 days as I had hoped.  The bus was
scheduled to take almost 40 hours ... unexpectedly WestJet had seats
on sale for $127 from PV direct to Vancouver with no charge for bikes
(unlike Air Canada and the American carriers).  I had been looking
forward to the train trip but the bus journey sounded worse than
awful, for me it was a pretty easy decision to fly, especially since
it was less than 1/4 of the cost of the bus and train journey.

With the change in travel plans we now have an extra week in Mexico
before we head home so we have left the peace and quiet of Mark and
Karli's place and headed into over the mountains to Tepic, a pretty
nondescript large Mexican town.  Tomorrow we'll head into Guadalajara,
Mexico's second biggest city at over 8 million people and said to be
the "most Mexican" of the cities, whatever that means!

Attached are some photos of the last little while:
Our tree house palapa in San Blas, the crowded beach in Sayulita, the
pool outside Mark's home, humpback whale spy hopping, and New Year's
fireworks lighting up the sky.