Hey there Adventurers! My last trip of 2024 took me to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for a few days around Thanksgiving. The Sidekick was doing another one of her volleyball vacation trips and I was tagging along for a a few days (I guess I was actually the sidekick?). If you managed to get through my last post, cheers! This one will be much shorter!
This was my second trip to Mexico and my first to P.V. We had a room at the Hard Rock, technically in Nuevo Vallarta, and it was great because it was all inclusive! It was a definitely a nice place to stay and it wasn’t terribly expensive either, considering. The company that hosts these trip is called SOB South of the Border. We got in on a Friday, and the ball stuff didn’t actually start until the next day, officially, so it was a chill day of resorting and beaching. The previous one of these trips I tagged along on was to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo. This was much, much nicer (see: more Americanized). I ventured out into the market spaces outside of the resort, and even managed to negotiate prices on goods at the market, all in Spanish! I would not have tried that in Ixtapa. But, as in Ixtapa, there is a level of care and maintenance of their beautiful beach that we seem to lack here in the states.
The trip was really chill and mostly hanging around the volleyball events but there were some other big highlights. Although the water was warm, it was quite rough, but I was still able to take a couple hours to go kayaking. We took a super fun afternoon/evening cruise out to my first foreign national park. That cruise was great with cool fruits, all you could drink Modelo and wine, and a return trip featuring the crew really showing out, acting like bad American rockers. It was delightful! The Parque Nacional Marino Los Orcos del Mismaloya is off the coast to the south of Puerto Vallarta. The arches in the name are the main attraction, the Mismaloya Arches. Small boats can cruise through one of the arches, but our vessel was too large, though the captain did take us in as far as possible. The big rock island is a huge bird habitat including the blue footed booby. This is one of the few places on earth you can see these birds and I did manage to snag a picture of one! It’s not great but I will include it! There was also ample opportunity to hang with professional volleyball players, including a few that I have already hung out with a few times prior to this trip, and a new Olympian. And of course, there were some volleyball shenanigans with some old friends from the previous trip!
So that is all I am going to write about this 4 day trip as it was obviously more of a relax, chill, and enjoy the playa more than anything else! Fun trip: Puerto Vallarta was definitely a cool place and there is a ton more fun stuff to do than I did. I would go back! That was my last trip of a fun 2024! I am really trying to make an effort to get through my 2025 trips in the next month or two. As a preview: my 2025 featured two DC trips; one trip to St. Louis; one to Chicago/Michigan and a brief return stop to the Dunes; a stop at Mesa Verde National Park, which is now maybe landing at number 2 or 3 of my favorite parks, plus many amazing sites in New Mexico; a long visit to Washington State including Olympic, North Cascades, and a very brief afternoon at Mt. Rainier; and a long trip to Australia/New Zealand! And in case you are wondering, I have spring break planned but nothing else yet. Look forward to seeing Big Bend National Park! I am also going to try (again) to summit Guadalupe Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and I am trying to to get to Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona ahead of it possible being made National Park 64 (that legislation is in the works, but who knows)!
The Parks Adventurer 