Friends and Family

The last few weeks we have been reconnecting with friends and family that are brave enough to leave the cold Canadian winter and meet us in sunny Puerto Vallarta. 

January 30th – Bienvenidos Simon!!

Simon arrived at 2pm into the Puerto Vallarta (PV) airport and we were only an hour away so we weren’t in much of a rush to leave, the only issue is that we had no food in our van and didn’t really want to purchase any food to cook as we assumed we would be going to restaurants most days while our friend Simon was in Mexico.
We had about 3 hours to kill in PV until we had to be at the airport and were torn by what to do; our van was quite dirty so we wanted to get a car wash, but we also wanted to see the PV’s El Centro and their sea wall as well as get ice cream, and a Costco run- mostly for gas, and get some more pesos from the bank.  After trying to get a car wash in Mazatlán we knew it was probably going to be one or the other, not everything.  We settled on exploring downtown since we now had the energy to do so. After Costco, Petco- to get Rupert some nail clippers, and the bank, we drove around downtown PV searching for 10 minutes or so for parking. A guy waved us down saying that there was a parking spot close by, usually we don’t like parking where random people tell us to park because it usually comes with a finders fee, but we didn’t want to keep driving around and were fine paying a small tip to him for finding a parking spot.  Unbelievably he wasn’t looking for a tip, instead he wanted to wash our van, by hand for the equivalent of $6 CAD.  We exchanged money, he asked when we would return and then went back to washing a different vehicle.  Kendra was sure Paul missed something in translation.  There was no way we were paying $6 for parking and a car wash, but only time would tell.

One great thing about Mexico is that there are roadside restaurants everywhere and they are usually dirt cheap, very quickly we found one, ate more food than we should have, and paid less than $7 CAD per person.  We even had to tell the owner to stop bringing us fresh pressed and cooked tortillas as we couldn’t eat anymore.
We did our exploring, walked the sea wall and even got our ice cream.  We had killed enough time and returned to a hand-cleaned and dried van!! Nothing had been lost in translation!
Our day kept on getting better as Simon’s flight on a low-cost airline was NOT DELAYED meaning that relatively soon after arriving at the airport we saw Simon walking through the arrival hall.
We had decided to make Sayulita, a tourist hot spot north of PV our home base with an Airbnb located in the center of the community within walking distance to everything. We piled into the van drove the hour north of PV, dropped off our luggage at the Airbnb and walked to a beachside restaurant for some food.
We saw the sunset and spent the rest of the evening figuring out how to spend our time together in Mexico while playing a few games.
 

January 31st – Finding the best beach in Mexico

We spent the morning walking down Sayulita beach.  The area of the beach nearest the community was packed with people and vendors so we decided to wander north where it was far less busy.   After about half an hour we had reached the end of Sayulita beach, but Simon had read that there was a path towards two other beaches that very few people went to.  We decided to continue our journey up above the rocks that ended the beach towards Playa Las Cuevas a very small beach that connected to Playa Malpaso (our destination) through caves! 

It was surreal crawling through a small cave to a practically deserted beach with no development nearby.  The sand was soft with no rocks near the shoreline.  It looked like our own paradise and we had the place mostly to ourselves.  Foolishly, we didn’t bring water, or our swimsuits or anything else to allow us to properly enjoy this bit of paradise. On a positive note, while returning to Sayulita we found a quicker way to get to the beach and a place to park that would result in the walk to this beach being no more than 20 minutes.  We knew we would be returning.

After rehydrating with water we explored the townsite of Sayulita while enjoying some street tacos.  We even explored the markets and thought about what sort of souvenirs we would buy from the vendors.

Simon and Paul decided to walk to a different beach on the west side of Sayulita called Playa Carricitos the internet said it was the best place to watch the sunset.  Well, the internet was correct!  After arriving at the beach Paul and Simon ended up scaling a couple rock and finding beach chairs that they “borrowed’ for a couple hours.  The sunset was unobstructed and there were even whales far in the distance.  Highly recommend this beach for sunset if in the Sayulita area.  Kendra missed sunset as she had a meeting on Zoom with her family and a florist for her sister’s upcoming wedding.

After returning to Sayulita we all met up again and decided to go to Mary’s, a restaurant that always had a lineup, no matter the time of day.  We decided to enter the lineup and after getting a table understood why it was always busy.  The food was delicious and very reasonably priced.  It’s also the location where most of the street performers perform meaning we got to see fire dancing, hip-hop dancing, and salsa right from our table!! 

February 1- Enjoying Paradise

We spent the morning enjoying the restaurants of San Pancho (a quieter community just north of Sayulita) and our Airbnb as well as going to a market across the road to grab the ingredients to make guacamole and pico de gallo.  We had booked a tour for the next day for which we had to pay our deposit.  This gave us the opportunity to drive around the Punta Mita Peninsula (a circle tour south of Sayulita to Punta Mita, then east towards Bucerias then back through the jungle returning to Sayulita).
 As we walked towards the van it became apparent that our propane had been stolen at some point during the night.  We had no idea how much it would cost to get a new bottle, if we would be able to find a new bottle that would fit the location or if it would be threaded the same way as all our propane accessories.  Thankfully we didn’t have time to dwell on our frustration as we had a half-hour drive to do.

We paid our deposit in Punta Mita but quickly left the community, it appeared to be an almost soulless community mostly created for rich Americans.  It was full of golf courses and hotels that started at $1000 CAD a night with the majority of the beaches in the area being inaccessible to us peasants. 

We decided to skip Bucerias and went to the bank and Walmart for a few things in PV.  We decided we wanted to spend the rest of the day at Playa Malpaso, which was definitely the right call.

Playa Malpaso was the perfect place to spend the rest of the day, the waves were fun to play in and warm enough to allow us to properly enjoy our time.  We ended up staying until after sunset, which may not have been the best decision as we learned that the tide had come up meaning that it was a bit more treacherous to return back to Sayulita through the caves.  Even the crabs were seeking higher ground on the rocks. We ended up taking our chances which resulted in a huge wave hitting Simon knocking off his prescription sunglasses.  RIP sunglasses.

February 2nd – A day of highs (and a couple lows)

Today we would be exploring the national park of Marietas Islands with its super photographic hidden beach.  We needed to be in Punta Mita for our tour by 9:40 so we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed toward the van. 

Before we knew it we were waiting for our boat captain Jose Luis l to take us to the island, where we learned we would be the only three people on the boat; we had a personalized boat tour to the island.  This meant we had flexibility in what we did meaning we first went towards a large pod of humpback whales and watched them slap their tales, wave their flippers and surface for air!

Our next stop was the hidden beach where we had to jump into the water and swim 100 meters to shore.  Our tour guide was awesome as he was able to have flippers and ferry us from the boat to hidden beach on a buoy.  He even had a dry bag for our phones and glasses!!  The beach was perfect, with neat nooks to explore and take pictures of.  Our tour guide also became our photographer taking some awesome pictures of us at different locations and angles of the beach.  Sadly, the government of Mexico only allows people at the hidden beach for 20 minutes so before we knew it, it was time to return to the boat.

The whole island is full of Blue-footed boobies, a bird only found on these islands and in the Galapagos so we were able to see quite a few of them relatively up close.

Next, we did some snorkeling followed by some more whale watching.  We would have spent more time whale watching but Paul’s sea sickness caught up to him so he spent a few minutes feeding the whales the contents of his stomach.

After Paul’s stomach settled we ended up purchasing some souvenirs and ordering some pizza for dinner that we enjoyed while playing a couple games and watching a movie.

 

February 3rd – Climbing Monkey Mountain

Today is Simon’s last full day in Mexico and we decided to spend it hiking the most well-reviewed hike in Nayarit, a hike to Monkey Mountain, which was just south of Sayulita.  It was a bit of a slow start to the day as the nightclub beside our Airbnb was serenading us until almost sunrise, meaning we did the hike during the heat of the day; but in Mexico the heat of the day starts around 10:30am and tapers off around sunset. 

The hike was exactly as long as we could handle in the heat and looked out across the Punta Mita peninsula.  Looking south from the top we could see the Marietas Islands we had visited yesterday as well as Punta Mita.  Looking north we could see Sayulita as well as San Pancho.  Definitely a worthwhile hike!!

After returning to Sayulita we decided that ice cream and more beach time was in order and the day quickly disappeared. 

We decided to go out for dinner at a spot with a rooftop terrace looking down at the town square where we indulged in appetizers and drinks!  It would have been a perfect end of our time in Sayulita but unfortunately, something didn’t agree with Simon who spent most of the night sick with the nightclub once again serenading us until 6 or so in the morning.

 

February 4th – Unplanned Errands

Simon was very ill, we think (hope) that it was only food poisoning from the restaurant we went to last night, but regardless we would not be doing our original plan of visiting the mountain town of San Sebastian or exploring PV together. 

We had a bunch of errands that we had planned to do tomorrow, but to our benefit, we had a bunch of time to kill before Simon’s flight and he was able to “exist” in the van without adversely affecting his stomach. 

We stayed at our Airbnb until checkout time, then drove to PV where we found and purchased a propane bottle, found a place to fill it (because the most expensive propane bottle we have ever bought in our entire lives did not come filled), got groceries and filled up our tank of gas.  We did think to do a driving tour of PV, but decided to walk around the PV marina instead, taking us to check-in time for Simon’s flight. 

We said our goodbyes to Simon as he headed to the airport, still unwell but able to travel.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time with him and wish he could be leaving in a better condition.

We only had a couple hours until sunset so we left for another community that was recommended to us to spend our time until Kendra’s family arrived in the PV area.  We drove to the quiet community of Mayto. 

We arrived after dark, paid for our campsite, and went to bed.

 

February 5th – Organizing and Working: Beachside!

We hadn’t got much sleep while in Sayulita which had caused Kendra’s cough to return and worsen so we decided to relax by the beach most of the day, at least that was the plan.  Instead, we reorganized the van and did a bunch of cleaning.  Paul retorqued the tires and even made sure every single one of them (including the spare below the van and the full-sized spare on top of the van) where at the correct PSI. Kendra moved some items, specifically our sleeping  bag, back into long term storage and created some seatbelt “clips” out of gorilla tape, crazy glue, hooks, and carabineers for when her mom comes for that sense of being buckled into the “backseat”.

A month ago Paul had got some bleach on his El Rosario shirt, which was the last time we did a big van clean. Unfortunately, the bleach left a stain on his black shirt, so we used the leftover bleach today to purposefully bleach the shirt so he can wear it out in public again. It’s not too bad for a DIY bleach dye job with only a small amount of bleach.

The evening was spent on the beach where Paul did some work for a client and we enjoyed Mango Margaritas until it was time to return to the van. We then cooked some dinner and went to bed.

February 6th – Working Beachside

We enjoyed yesterday so much we decided to do it again.  Kendra spent the day reading (she finished Where the Crawdads Sing) while Paul did some work and updated the blog.  Although we debated walking into the community to purchase a 12 pack of beer, the cold beer from the beach bar was too inviting.  Besides, there was wifi at the bar and a beautiful view of an unspoiled beach!

February 7th- One More Beach Day!

Since we enjoyed the last few days so much we decided to spend one more day/night in Mayto. Since the people who were camping in the official campground had left we parked beside the palapas and enjoyed the beach to ourselves.  Of course, we stopped at the beach bar one last time before wandering down the beach for sunset.   There were so many hermit crabs “hermitting” in the sand and we checked out the local turtle release incubators, but there were no turtles being released today. After one last quiet night on the beach, it was time to start thinking about the next week.

February 8th- Picking up the Fam Damily!

Today was the day Kendra’s Mom, Judy, and her husband, Derek, flew into Puerto Vallarta.  After organizing the van and shuffling things around in all the storage compartments, so two additional people could travel in the van (a van we actively live out of), we headed off towards Puerto Vallarta.

Our first stop of the day was to the small community of El Tuito. This was not the first time we had ventured into this community.  We visited it in 2012 on a GoGoGauthier’s Family Christmas trip to Puerto Vallarta. It’s amazing that the more things change the more some things stay the same.  El Tuito was just as we remembered it.  The church and tortilleria hadn’t changed and the downtown area was almost the same, just a few buildings had been repainted.  We picked up some tortillas and for the first time from an actual tortilleria (a place that only makes tortillas and sells them for around $1.50 CAD/kilogram)  We thought it best to only order half of a kilogram instead of a full kilogram!  Paul was pretty proud of himself and we figured since we had half the amount they wouldn’t go bad and we wouldn’t feel rushed to eat them. We’ve been debating about only getting a half kilo for a long time, but today was the day we finally did it, but it won’t be the last!

After El Tuito it was time to head to PVR airport. For those wondering, it takes about 45 minutes to an hour from the time a plane lands for the passengers to make it through customs.  After grabbing a quick snack and waiting patiently, the Kerrigan-Dick’s finally arrived! As is customary when collecting someone from Kendra’s family, our first stop was Costco for some good deals.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find everything we were looking for we headed to Walmart to pick up a few remaining things.  Then we were off to the Bucerias/Nuevo Vallarta area to check out our AirBnB for the week.  The private pool was inviting and was everything we had hoped it would be!  We had fun eating, drinking, and catching up.

Now one thing that some people may not know is that Mexico has switched its currency amounts in the past 30 or so years. Unfortunately, we were traveling with one of those people who didn’t know.  After watching sunset at the beach, Kendra, her mom, and Derek went to the beach club for a drink. As is expected the drinks were not free and Kendra and her mom didn’t bring any money with them because they were just going to watch sunset. After sunset and finishing their drinks, Derek took out his wallet and pulled out a $2000 peso bill.

Now that may seem impressive, but the largest bill accepted is the $1000 peso bill, and Kendra and Paul haven’t even used this size of bill because they’ve heard it is hard for small vendors to break and have experience where a vendor hasn’t been able to accept a $500 peso bill.

The waiter brings the bill and looks at Derek’s $2000 peso bill and says no, that’s not money, we don’t use that. Derek then pulls out a $500 bill, and the waiter says that is Peru money, we don’t take that here either!  Luckily, the waiter was so humoured by this experience that he came back with his phone to take a picture of the $2000 peso bill (from the 1980s) since he had never seen one so he can show all his friends!!! Needless to say, Derek ran back to the AirBnB to grab some legal tender and left Kendra and her mom at the bar as ransom, just in case he didn’t return.

February 9th- Bucerias

Paul and Derek both had some work to do so they spent the morning at the AirBnB while Kendra and her mom walked along the beach to Bucerias.  20 years ago they had walked from the Royal Decameron Complex to Bucerias, they were both amazed at how much Bucerias has grown and developed. After stopping for a beachside drink and watching a few tourists get bucked off their horses they made their way back to the AirBnB to catch up with Paul and Derek and enjoy a swim in the pool.

 

February 10th- Another day of relaxing

Kendra and her mom walked into Bucerias again to check out the local municipal market and buy some vegetables. Unfortunately, the stalls were closed and the market was empty other than a few food vendors, so they went to a bigger chain grocery store and walked back to AirBnb for another soak in the pool and beachside sunset. After sunset, we headed into Bucerias for some drinks and live music.

We were told about the nightlife in Bucerias, but were surprised by what we encountered.  While Baja is full of Americans, Bucerias is full of Canadian Retirees, and a lot of them.  We were headed to the popular places and immediately realized our presence dropped the average age of people in the bar by a few years.  Even Kendra’s mom and Derek were some of the youngin’s in the bar.  That being said the music was too loud to talk (most people in the bar probably didn’t have their hearing aids in so couldn’t tell), so we wandered around for a bit and stumbled upon Luna Lounge.  We highly recommend the Luna Lounge if you are in the area, they have amazing cover bands, often with dinner shows that look amazing.  Unfortunately, The Eagles performance, the show playing that night, was all sold out but we were able to have some drinks at the bar and talk with the owner.  The Luna Lounge has a great atmosphere and the staff are all super friendly with amazing performers. They have a variety of performers coming up in the near future and we think you would enjoy it. We then took a Didi (Mexico’s version of Uber) back to the AirBnB.  It was our first time using it and Kendra ended up getting suspended from it for 4 days due to suspicious activity on her account, but we wonder if it wasn’t one of us being a bit too talkative thanks to some tequila shots.   We’re not sure what a Didi suspension means, or why it has happened, but are sure it’ll be fine in a few days.

February 11- A Day of Exploration

Today we decided to check out some quaint towns and quiet beaches.  You may recall us going to San Pancho and Playa Malpaso with Simon.  We enjoyed it so much that we decided to do that with Kendra’s family too!  Derek bought some sunscreen and a sun shirt in San Pancho and everyone else bought some freshly squeezed orange juice.  At Playa Malpaso we enjoyed some beachside walks, swimming and sandwiches.  No one lost a pair of sunglasses but the caves had about a foot more of sand than they did last time we were here and Paul banged his bead on a low hanging rock on the way back to the van; almost knocking him out.  Kendra and her family found him sitting in the cave as the waves crashed around him.

After doing a short scenic drive around Sayulita (we had our eyes peeled looking for our stolen propane bottle, but didn’t find it) we headed towards Punta de Mita to a restaurant recommended by Kendra’s sister called Margarita’s on the Hill.  It was a cute hillside restaurant where we drank margaritas, ate ceviche and looked out at the Marietas Islands.  We were even lucky enough to see a few whales swimming.  After a busy day we enjoyed some more snacks at the AirBnb and a few games of Euchre – we’re still not 100% on all the rules and scoring, but enjoyed our evening in.

February 12 – A Day of Rest

Judy woke up not feeling well this morning so we took it easy.  Paul and Kendra walked into Bucerias and then spent the afternoon lounging by the pool.  Kendra’s also been working on designing her sister’s wedding invitations which has been an adventure, although it’s probably been more stressful on Kendra and her mom than on her sister.

Judy was feeling better by the afternoon so we got some snacks together and played some Crib, Kendra and Paul won- in case that matters to any of you. We also had some snacks for Superbowl and watched the game with a quick break for sunset. Go sports team, Yay sports!

February 13- Yelapa

Yelapa is a community that was recommended for us to visit a few weeks ago. We were told it has great water and a nice beach and is perfect for relaxing.  We caught the water taxi in Boca de Tomatlan and made our way to the community. Once in Yelapa we realized this type of beach and the relaxing done there was a bit different than what we have become used to in Mexico.  There were multiple tour groups and a lot of people in lounge chairs drinking margaritas and relaxing. The water taxis came every 30-60 minutes bringing other people as well.  It was definitely a busy beach, almost like a non-exclusive resort, but the water was blue, the sand was white, so we really can’t complain.

After sitting on the beach for a while we decided to visit one of the local waterfalls.  Unfortunately, this waterfall was a 3-hour hike away from the beach and it was the heat of the day so we found a guy with an ATV who would drive us to the waterfall so we would only have to walk 20 minutes, it was worth it!  The waterfall was nice and the water was refreshing. We used this as a chance to practice our Spanish, one question we asked was about a drink a child who we had passed; we wanted to know the name of it.  We asked our driver Osmar about it and he confirmed with us that it is called a chamoyada. We told him how we loved chamoyadas so on the way back to the beach we stopped in town to pick some up, and it was a worthwhile stop!  It is full to the brim with frozen fruits mixed with a sweet and spicy mixture topped with gummy candies.  HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!

Once back on the beach Derek decided to go parasailing.  He (and a pilot) started on the beach where the boat pulls you out to the water and you become airborne. Once you reach the proper altitude you become detached from the boat and get amazing views from a very high elevation. The guide steered him around the bay where he was able to take some breathtaking photos and videos.  We are quite jealous and will be on the lookout for similar experiences.   We finished the day feeding the local wildlife- Mexican racoons.

February 14- Rhythm of the Night!

Seeing as we had been in the Puerto Vallarta area it only made sense for us to finally explore it! Today we wandered around downtown and checked out some of the local markets. We knew we didn’t want to stay out too late because this evening we would be attending Rhythm of the Night (by Vallarta Adventures).  We had seen this advertised and after asking a few people who had done it we knew it was something we had to do.

We caught the boat from Nuevo Vallarta and cruised across Banderas Bay to a beach located between Boca and Yelapa. The drinks flowed on the boat and we saw some more whales and even some dolphins as we cruised along.  We enjoyed a nice dinner and then got to enjoy the amazing show, which was choreographed by some of the same people who do Cirque du Soleil.  We thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend seeing it if you’re in the area (pro tip, book online in advance for 30% off, get the early cruise so you get to see sunset from the boat).

Did we mention that the drinks flowed...because they sure did flow!  On the boat ride back we knew we had more than enough to drink.  In fact, one of the first things that happened is Paul fell down, so one of the bartenders said maybe he shouldn’t have anymore.  Paul agreed until a minute later the bartender returned saying, “well one more can’t hurt”. 

Somehow we decided we would stop drinking and just dance!  In hindsight this may have been an odd thing to do as NO ONE ELSE WAS DANCING!!   Regardless, dancing was a good choice because it meant our hands were not free to hold a drink anymore! Once we got back on land is when things get a little fuzzy.  Derek bought the worst picture of us as a group from the photographer and then we ended up getting a taxi to a local bar with some new friends from Calgary/Winnipeg. After more drinks and dancing it was time to go home and see Rupert.  For some reason, we drank some more at 2 am and everyone slowly made their way to bed.

 

February 15th- Rhythm of the Morning

Kendra woke up drunk this morning, not even hungover yet! Her and Paul were both feeling the rhythm of last night and it felt like they were still on the boat as they slowly moved around the AirBnB. After rehydrating, they began the slow process of packing up their items because today was the day that Judy and Derek were flying back home. Luckily, we weren’t the only ones still feeling the rhythm of the night and Judy was joining us in not being able to walk in a straight line and having the sensation of still being on a boat.  After packing up our things and loading up the van we made our way to the Bucerias Wednesday market at La Comer.  This market had many of the same vendors that the Sayulita Farmer’s market did including fresh juice; which we needed.  Derek even found some drink coasters he had been looking for. After wandering around the market and picking up a few groceries we slowly made our way toward Puerto Vallarta. 

After saying our farewells at the airport we hit the road.  We were invited to visit with some friends in Nuevo Vallarta but could not muster up “human-likeness” to socialize or show our haggard selves- we will meet up again some other time, just who knows where.

There had been a discussion for us to stay 1 more night in the AirBnb because of how we were feeling, but we’ve felt worse in the van before (at least that’s what we told ourselves) so we decided to go back to the mountains.  We stayed in a camp spot just off the highway that we had stayed at before meeting up with Simon. Staying here allowed Kendra to have a 3 hour nap until 5:00pm and then officially go to bed at 8 after having a dinner of Fritos; the first solid food she ate all day! Somehow we didn't take any pictures today, sorry.

February 16th- Rhythm of the...who knows!?!

After a restful sleep we awoke still feeling the rhythm of the night and the rhythm of yesterday. Kendra got a text that her family made it home safely and we decided to slowly make our way further inland.  We’ve been having this internal dialogue, which becomes an external dialogue because there’s not a lot to talk about when you’ve been traveling with the same person for 225+ days, about timing and our travel timeline.  Now don’t get us wrong, we have almost unlimited time to complete this trip but we are still getting that feeling that we are behind schedule.  Not our schedule, but mother nature’s schedule.  There is only a three-month window when the weather in the southern tip of South America is hospitable (it snowed there today- Feb. 19, 2023).  Starting today we really only have 12 months to get there [at most], which seems like a lot of time, but there are many kilometers we need to drive and many experiences and adversities we need to have and overcome. So we are feeling like we need to start cutting things from our to-do list; however, we also don’t want to miss out on anything.  I’m sure we will venture back to Mexico at some point in time to see more places, but it’s hard knowing what places to cut, so for now we will try to see and experience as many things as possible.

One thing we debated cutting but didn’t was San Sebastian de Oeste.  It’s another Pueblo Magico and was another mining town. People had raved to us about the cafés and coffee there.  We did enjoy wandering the extremely narrow streets (we tried to drive a few but decided to park where the tour buses had stopped because it was stressful).  Sadly, most restaurants and cafés were closed; only open on Saturday and Sunday.

Kendra did, finally, buy a ring and Paul went into a café that the tour groups were going to and helped himself to a mini-sized cup of coffee.

Overall it was a neat place to check out, but we’d probably enjoy it more on a weekend.

After San Sebastian we headed inland stopping outside of the town of Mascota to have a taco salad made from leftovers from the past week with Kendra’s family that we packed into the van and ended our day of driving in Ajijic.

This community was recommended to us as well. It is located on a beautiful lake and full of paintings and art on the buildings. We did a quick drive through before finding a beautiful camp spot overlooking the mountains and lake. We will explore Ajijic by foot, but for now Paul will get some work done and Kendra will write this blog.  Fingers crossed we don’t feel any more remnants from our rhythm of the night experience!

The Sickness Saga

Even though last we updated our blog we said we were better in hindsight we were not.  We ended up pushing ourselves to experience Hidalgo and San Miguel which resulted in us feeling far worse.  14 days after first getting sick we ended up taking a Covid test to find out it was positive.  We are unsure we we "just" had Covid or a stomach bug with Covid, but being how few people we interacted with after initially get sick we don't really know how that is possible.  Either way we both feel this variant of Covid, the KRACKEN, has lived up to it's name.

January 18^th – Difficult decisions

Today we had planned to check a bucket list item off our list.  When researching Mexico, we created a half dozen must do thing, one of these things was to visit a developed hot spring called Grutas Tolantongo.  This location often appeared on Instagram due to its other worldly beauty.

Sadly, Kendra woke up with a bad cough so she made the difficult decision to not go to Grutas Tolantongo today.  Her thought was that if she took it easy and relaxed that she would feel well enough to go tomorrow.  Lucky for Kendra we he had booked an Airbnb close to the hot springs that resembled a cute cabin in the country side.  It had everything Kendra needed to have a very relaxing day.  She spent the day watching TV, relaxing on the upstairs patio (it had 2 patios) and hanging out with Rupert.

Paul drove to Grutas Tolantongo and was blown away with how large the facility was.  The whole park is separated into two sections that are barely accessible to each other.   The first section was the section with the terraced hot pools that had shown up on Instagram, known as the Paradise section.  The second section was known as the Grotto section and consisted of a Grotto, a tunnel and a river!  Paul went to the Grotto section first because that was the entrance to the park he drove into and was blown away that this section somehow hadn’t made the Instagram reels, it was beautiful.  The grotto was surrounded by a waterfall and had a number of caves branching off from the main chamber.  Paul even got into trouble when he went beyond a rope that was designed to keep people from going any further.  He just wanted to explore!!!

Ainsworth Hot Springs in the Kootenays of BC is known for its tunnel.  Kendra and Paul had been there previous and thought the tunnel was cool, but it was nothing compared to the tunnel here.  There were no lights, but somehow that made it more interesting.  The tunnel was almost 100 meters long until it was too tiny to walk through.  It was a bit claustrophobic but after a couple minutes it was easy to enjoy.

After exploring the Grotto and the Tunnel Paul wanted to find the pools he had seen on Instagram.  He had asked an employee where they were, but their answer made no sense (probably because he only understood 25% of what they were saying).  He understood he had to go to the ticket office, that it wasn’t close to here and that there was a bus.  After looking at the map Paul learned it was in the Paradise section, and decided he’d walk there as the bus would cost 60 pesos.  This was easier said then done, mostly because the Grotto section is near the bottom of the canyon and the Paradise section is 1000 feet uphill.  It was only after he arrived that he learned that he could have driven, that the ticket he had he could have shown at the other entrance (the entrance to the Paradise section) and he could have parked right by the pools.

The pools were as beautiful as expected, the only thing that was not expected was their temperature, they were colder than Paul thought they should be.  They were still warmish, but so they are accessible and “enjoyable” year round, (even in the summer) the temperature is controlled.  Paul had decided to go to an empty pool, which was part of the problem, the higher the pool, the warmer the water meaning the higher the pool, the busier it was.  After learning this Paul moved to a higher pool.

Before he knew it the day was done and drove back to the Airbnb to get Kendra excited for her day tomorrow at Grutas Tolantongo

 

January 19^th – Exploring Grutas Tolantongo like champs

Kendra was feeling better meaning we had plans to spend the day at the hot springs.  They opened at 8am, so we made sure to be at the gate of the pools right when they opened.  Because Paul had learned where to park and where to go yesterday, we spent no time figuring out what to do, or what to prioritize. 

We started with a couple hours in the pools taking all the photos we wanted to take with very few people around us then moved to the Grotto section exploring the caves and the tunnel while putting our feet up and relaxing in the very warm/comfortable water.  It was the perfect way to spend the day while prioritizing the best thing to do at the hot springs. 

Before we knew it was time to go, we had to pick up Rupert from the Airbnb and make our way west.  Grutas Tolantongo was the furthest east we would travel as we “kill time” for when our friend and Kendra’s family visit us in Puerto Vallarta. 

Lucky for us there was a reason not to travel too much farther today, there was another Magic Town enroute known as Tecozaulta.  We are not too sure if we lucked out with our timing but the whole community was alive.  It seemed like the entire population of the community was in it’s El Centro at a massive market spanning multiple streets and alleys.  It was easily the largest market we had seen in Mexico meaning it was amazing, if not totally overwhelming to explore.   We even stopped for some tacos where some locals, recommended another hot spring close to the area. As we were eating our quesadillas and gorditas a man walked by offering his cheese for sale.  We picked up some artesanal cheese for very inexpensive- about $4 Canadian, and it was delicious!

El Geiser, according to their website, is a volcanic vent that heats water.  In other words, this isn’t your typical hot springs.  What made it unique was the giant steam vent with seats around it and the pools of varied temperatures.  There were even pools that were closed because they were too hot for people to go into with signage saying the temperature was over 80 degrees Celsius.  Unfortunately, with all the fun at Grutas Tolantongo we only spent a few hours in this hot spring as we were tired and our bodies were reminding us that we were not 100% yet.  Lucky for us, we could “camp” in the parking lot of El Geiser for free!

 

January 20^th – Executive Decisions

We are still sick!!! Ugh!  Although better than before we are still not 100% so we decided to get an Airbnb in the next community we are visiting for some R&R.  This works out well for us, as the next community were are set to explore is San Miguel de Allende, one of the most visited cities in Mexico, meaning there is very little camping anywhere near where we would want to explore.  It is also a very historical city meaning the roads aren’t really designed for traffic from an “American” standpoint i.e. they are very narrow with very little parking.

We booked our place, (it was in El Centro and came with free parking for $100 CAD) but check-in wasn’t until 3pm so we had some time to kill.  When we looked at what to do to kill some time we were surprised to see that we were in the outskirts of another Magic Town known as Tequisquiapan.  This was another beautiful colonial town known for wine and cheese.  There were so many tours to cheese manufactures and wineries but due to our time constraints we couldn’t indulge.  Instead, we explored the community and people watched at a café.  This was another community I wish we could have spent more time, but before we knew it we once again had to hit the road.  

We did make one unplanned stop at a winery.  As we drove we kept seeing signs for wineries and thought maybe we should pick up a bottle from a local winery.  We choose one right off the highway and spent $10 CAD per glass of wine on some of the worst wine we have had in our life.  Unfortunately, this made us want good wine even more.

San Miguel de Allende was amazing.  Just driving around made us excited to walk around instead, but that was easier said then done as finding street parking was impossible and every intersection was an uncontrolled intersection so navigating the community was a slow process.  We did eventually find parking close to our Airbnb in a loading zone, but one of the big perks, as mentioned, was the free parking at a parking lot 3 blocks away.  After taking everything out of the van we parked it and decided we wouldn’t touch the van until we left the community.

Paul had one big want for the next couple days, to sit on the patio of the Airbnb and drink a bottle of wine as he watched everyone walking on the street below so his big task was to walk to a liquor store and buy wine.  As he looked for a liquor store he ended up finding a massive candy store, so couldn’t stop himself from picking us something to satisfy his sweet tooth and enjoy with the wine, which he eventually did find. The funny part about this candy store was that you couldn’t buy individual candy, you had to buy a whole box, needless to say Paul or Kendra did not complain about having an entire box of chocolate bars. 

The evening was spent drinking wine, enjoying chocolate and watching TV. 

 

January 21^st – Another “take it easy” day

We decided to relax for most of the day, Kendra was still not feeling well but Paul was almost 100% again so he spent most of the day on the patio while Kendra relaxed and slept.  By 7pm we decided to explore downtown and we think our timing was perfect.  El Centro was full of people and live music making the whole area seem magical.  The buildings were colourful and down every road or alley was a spot that seemed to need to be captured on film.  Before we knew it we had done 10,000 steps and were needing some food. 

Kendra found an elote vendor (Mexican street corn with mayonnaise and queso) and checked eating street corn off her to do list. We then went to a local taco cart but decided to get the food to go.  We didn’t know what to expect, but knew we wanted to enjoy our food on our patio.  Surprisingly we got the food to go with all the fixings already added to our bag, so we tried our luck with getting some ice cream from the ice cream stand right next door as well.  The ice cream complemented the tacos perfectly and we highly recommend eating dessert first!

 

January 22^nd – Back to square one

Paul woke up with a bad headache, a bad cough and a runny nose.  It was so frustrating to think that we were STILL sick, but at least Kendra was almost 100%.  Paul spent the day in bed sleeping or relaxing barely leaving the room in the hopes that he would feel well again soon.

Kendra spent the morning relaxing as well, but by 2pm decided to explore the community.  She and Rupert walked to various viewpoints and explored El Centro in the light of day.  It was easy to both get lost in its streets and enjoy getting lost. She was also on the hunt for more “fresquitos” like we had in Mineral del Chico but had to settle on a mango shaved ice with chamoy sauce and dulce straw (a raspado) instead (for $2 Canadian). We are still on the hunt for a blended fruit juice smoothy but now know they may be called chamoyadas instead of fresquitos, we will keep you posted on how this hunt goes.

The evening was spent having soup and quesadillas with our market cheese hoping we’d both be well tomorrow.

 

January 23^rd – Not better

Paul barely slept due to a headache and a cough, while Kendra was starting to feel worse than the day before.  We debated on staying another night in San Miguel but decided that we could probably find more affordable places to relax and get over our sicknesses.

We left San Miguel, but decided to put on our face masks and explore the two markets.  We are not too sure if it was because of how we were feeling or not, but they were not as impressive as we assumed, at least not comparing them to the other markets we had seen in the last few days. Maybe we were too early in the morning too because half of the stall were still shuttered.

Our first stop was an art gallary at the side of the highway that was free to enter called Mexico Lindo, which was the perfect spot to streach our legs before jumping into the van again and going to our next stop.

The next stop was to the “must visit” community of Dolores Hidalgo, another Magic Town and the location of the start of the Mexican Independence movement.  Unfortunately, we weren’t feeling well enough to truly enjoy it, and most of the things to see and do were museums that were completely in Spanish.  We ended up getting smoothies and heading towards the city of Guanajuato, a city that had routinely come up by American immigrants in Mexico as their favourite to explore.  On the way we got to witness some pilgrims making the journey towards San Juan de Lagos (they would be travelling 200+ kms by foot for this pilgrimage- which Google informed us as the second most popular in Mexico- and were camping on the side of the highway). Kendra found a lakeside campsite online for us to stay at, but the gate was chained and locked, so we decided to make our way directly to Guanajuato. This place had an added benefit as having a campground only a 20 minute downhill walk to El Centro.

We arrived late, ate some food and went to bed, already deciding we wouldn’t explore, or do anything until we were better.

 

January 24^th – Still not better

We lounged around all day and slept.  Kendra seemed to be going backwards and managed to cough up her dinner while Paul spent the evening coughing and in the bathroom.  We are honestly considering going to the doctor. We’ve been questioning if we have a bad flu, a bad cold, a parasite, or the infamous C to the O to the V to the I to the D.

Paul did get a few things done.  He spent an hour talking to the Canadian Revenue Agency trying to get into his business account to file his GST forms.  Accomplished!

Kendra slept more hours than she was awake.

Paul also did some work for his little business.  Accomplished!

Kendra finished watching another season of The Circle (a show she isn’t fully invested in or enjoying due to all the screaming and unauthentic people, but it’s a great show to have on because if you sleep through ¾ of an episode you don’t miss much).

Here is to hoping we are better, even slightly, tomorrow.

 

January 25^th – Mystery solved

We woke up feeling defeated as we were still not 100% and we needed to go into town so Paul started  looking up health clinics.

Don’t get us wrong, every day we are a little better but no where near where we wanted to be.  A couple we were camping beside (Tausha and Josh from Ontario) were kind enough to give us some oranges and left over medicine they had when they were sick with similar symptoms.  They also told us when they had gotten sick it took them 2.5 weeks to get over it.  This made us feel a bit better as maybe we were a couple days away from being 100%.  They also let us know that they had a covid test if we wanted to take one.  We had wondered if we had Covid and thought that this would be a way to squash those concerns.

Welp, we are now POSITIVE with what has been making us feel ill for so long. Paul “took one for the team” and the test came back positive. We won’t test Kendra because living in 30 sq feet means she’s most likely positive too.

Well mystery solved, frustrating how much covid has once again taken the wind out of our sails and made us incredibly sick.  I know some people get it and shrugged it off as “not too bad’ or say “I’ve had worse colds” but every time Kendra and I have had covid it has destroyed us, with this one being the worst.  Maybe you have read between the lines but January has been a really tough month and has made us question this trip with the biggest issue being our health; we can not remember ever being this sick.  Some have commented that it looks like we have lost some weight, it was not due to hiking or eating better, it is because we have been unable to eat, or the food we eat does not stay in our bodies very long.  Everything that goes in our mouth comes out somewhere with velocity.  We have woken up in coughing fits with headaches, had muscle pain and chills.  Having covid in Mexico in a 30 sq foot van has been rough! We do not recommend getting COVID while living in a minivan, it is about as fun as it sounds.

We grabbed our masks and jumped in the van to grab some more cough suppressants, water, and gas.  We did all our errands and added some money to our phone accounts. We have to leave Guanajuato in a couple days no matter what and would be heartbroken if we never saw this community so we decided to do our own little driving tour and are so glad we did. This is an incredible mining town built into a mountain with tunnels connecting different parts of the community.  The streets are narrow and busy with lively markets everywhere.  Once again around every corner is another perfect picture and hopefully we will be able to properly experience it soon, but won’t do so until our symptoms disappear.

We went to bed early, and for the first time in a long time slept the entire night (probably thanks to the cough suppressants and Theraflu-aka Neo citron).

 

January 26^th – Isolating

We are not too sure what we should do, we’ve had symptoms for 14 days, we don’t know if we are contagious, but we do tire easily.  We decided to continue our plan of rest until we are better.  Covid has ruined the last 2 weeks and we refuse to give it any more days than we have to.  We want to enjoy this trip, we want to enjoy Mexico, but know that won’t be possible if we are sick.  Thank goodness we are isolating in a place with good weather, showers, flush toilets (with toilet seats, but bring your own toilet paper!!!) and good cell service.  Another bonus was a man came by the campsite selling delicious bread and donuts, so we were able to have a little flavour of some locally baked goods without leaving the campsite.

Our kind neighbours who gave us drugs and oranges have left but new neighbours from Ontario just pulled up in rigs that make our mini-van look extremely mini! We let them know we are on the tail end of COVID so they can keep their distance from us, but after talking to them we realized we have been sick longer than they have been on the road, so we were able to chuckle to ourselves about how long we have actually been sick for…fingers crossed we are getting better.

 

January 27^th -  “We will return”

We continued to keep within our bubble, we played games and didn’t do very much, unfortunately   today was also our final day in Guanajuato as tomorrow we do need to start to drive towards Puerto Vallarta.  It was an incredibly hard decision to not explore the city; Guanajuato is an UNESCO world heritage site and was a highly recommended location for us to see.  Every person we camped beside told us how much they enjoyed exploring the city which made it all the more difficult to just sit on our hands and wait until we improve.  Frustratingly, we still had a couple symptoms and no energy.  We thought it best to relax just one more day and pray that tomorrow we would no longer be sick.

Paul must have been feeling a bit better today, because when the ice cream truck came up the road he quickly gathered his mask and money and hustled significantly faster than he has the entire month of January to get some ice cream.

We did decide to make a promise to ourselves. After we leave the Puerto Vallarta area we would return to this city on our way to south-eastern Mexico.

 

January 28^th – Is it over?!

We left Guanajuato relatively early, we also felt way better with the majority of our symptoms gone.  We still did have a lingering cough, but it would only be a nuisance when we were tired, and it was not something we couldn’t handle with a little bit of cough syrup.  We believe we are well enough to do things again and well enough to see people again.  This is perfect timing as our friend Simon arrives in a couple days into Peurto Vallarta and it is roughly a two day drive to the area.

Nothing of note occurred on the drive between Guanajuato and Guadalajara, other than seeing the pilgrims, this time thousands of them walking along the road. It is amazing to think that as we hunkered down in bed the last few days they’ve been walking almost 200 kms!  It also took forever to get through Guadalajara due to traffic. Guadalajara is such a large city (over 5 million) and by the time we were through the city sunset was only a couple hours away.  Just before leaving the greater area of the city we decided to get some tacos from a gas station taco stand, this seemed like a good idea at the time because we were hungry, but they were the worst tacos we ever purchased in Mexico.  I don’t know what we expected. We also put some candy bars from a lady in the middle of a road in a construction zone, something we always wanted to do, but were nervous how it worked.  It was easy, put on your four way flashers, stay in your lane, pay the money and enjoy chocolate!  Probably something we will do more often now.

We try really hard to go to places where people recommend us to go, one such place was a hot spring river just outside of Guadalajara, and being that night was coming, we would be foolish to pass up this campground.  Other travelers made the road out to be quite the journey but I guess they were not used to Baja or northern Canadian roads as we thought the road was in great condition.  Before we new it we were cooking dinner and lying in a warm river watching nightfall.

We are so excited to be doing things again!!!

 

January 29^th – Making the most of our drive

We were in no rush to leave the hot spring river, we didn’t have too far to drive and wanted to make sure we spent the night about an hour away from Puerto Vallarta as there was no affordable places to camp close to that city (in reality there are very affordable campsite but at $500+ pesos per night it’s a bit steep for what we are familiar with paying for camping).  That meant we only had a couple hours to drive today.

It was evident it was a weekend (a Sunday) from the amount of people visiting the river, but because it was a river and not a collection of pools their was ample space for everything.  It really was the perfect way to enjoy the morning.

Once it was too hot to sit in warm water we packed up and left.  We decided to take the free highways into the Puerto Vallarta area as the roads were safe and only 15 minutes slower than the toll roads which would have cost us almost $60 CAD.  The free highways had the added benefit of going through a Magic Town and near free camping spots. 

Once we arrived in Mascota- another magic town, we decided to go out for dinner.  We were in the mood to celebrate as our coughs had more or less disappeared and we had hopefully finished the Sickness Saga of our journey.  It had been a long disappointing month and a really tough couple weeks of trying to recover while pushing ourselves to experience different locations within Mexico, which probably delayed our recovery.  The dinner was delicious, and Kendra enjoyed her Pina Colada while Paul got a frappe made with Baileys. 

We found a campsite just before sunset and couldn’t wait for our new chapter of this trip to begin, one with a friend and Kendra’s family as well as two weeks sleeping away from the van.