mas adventures de pureto vallarta

as all our family vacations go, we all have to come back tired (yes we need a vacation from our vacations), but i wouldn't want it any other way. monday, tuesday and wednesday were spent snorkeling out by a small island, ziplining and repelling down water falls and checking out things around the town.
we took a boat out to a small island to snorkel, which was pretty cool except for these little needle like pricks that came at your skin when you were in the water. at first i thought it was just me because i couldn't see anything stinging me on my skin, but then i hear an over-dramatic scream from none other than justin. we later looked it up online to find that these stings were not figments of our imagination, but a small creature known as sea-lice, which are actually jelly fish larva. they are harmless, but they just hurt like heck for a minute or two. anyways, once you swam thought the part where the sea-lice resided, the snorkeling was quite lovely and there was a cave that you could swim through to get to a little enclosed beach, where there were more caves that were enclosed. pretty awesome! the ride back on the boat must have been uneventful, or we were just tired, because justin, katie and i all fell asleep. we must have been pretty dead asleep too, since i didn't wake up upon being poked in the face by gary and justin didn't wake up when katie climbed onto his back and fell asleep there. haha
katie likes to "honk" people (thats what she calls it). we have some nice hair here. oh, that's another thing, justin's hair is so long that it is in his face all the time, but it's not quite long enough to put it all back in a pony tail, so all week he kept having me put it up in a half pony tail for him. i think he stole like four or five of my hair ties...haha


that night we had dinner out and we ate on the beach. it was simply beautiful minus the bugs attacking my legs and the insane humidity

tuesday's high adventure was zipling through the jungle! too bad we didn't get any pics of that, but they didn't allow cameras, since we were going to get wet.

uncle jeff, aunt julie and justin in the jeep

these pics were from the jeep ride up the mountain that reminded me of the indiana jones ride at disneyland. the jeep took us to a stable, where we got on mules and rode the rest of the way up to a trail, which we hiked and eventually to the zipline trail that was complete with repelling as well.

betsy and jenna in the jeep

me and jamie

so, i've done ziplining before in Costa Rica, but i've never ziplined down diagonally into a river. it was so cool! you start like you would a normal zipline, but the incline is almost straight down instead of horizontal and instead of braking and landing on the platform, you let the water stop you and you kind of cannonball. super cool! we also got to repel down a water fall, which was amazing and then later we had to repel off of a platform that was just hanging above the river below. so basically you have nothing to put your feet on and are just hanging in the middle of the jungle. like i said, never a dull moment.

wednesday we made our way into town for some shopping and to look around. one guy came up to me and just put five bracelets on my arm, trying to sell them to me for $20 each. i kept saying over and over that i didn't have any money and i was sorry, but he just kept lowering the price. my family just keep walking, but i was stuck cause i had the bracelets on my arm. luckily justin saw what was happening and walked back and asks how much. by this time the man had lowered the price to $5 each and so justin points to one and gives him a five dollar bill. then i manage to hand him back the other four bracelets and we run before he can get a necklace out of his pocket he is trying to sell for $90. we weren't trying to be rude, but there was no other way to make him go away. good deal though, and after i figured out how to get it off my wrist, i handed justin the bracelet, since i was assuming he bought it for seppi. it got better the rest of the day though, after i was more prepared for something like that. they all try to sell you something. it's crazy, but that is how they make their living, which is part of the reason i think i have such a hard time just saying no.

we enjoyed a lovely lunch at a place in town after shopping at the Bazaar or Mexican Flea Market...pretty cool place.