Time to BREATHE

To say we both needed a breather would be an understatement. An extreme understatement. Life has been CRAZY for us the last couple months. We bought a new house, we combined households which means we had not just one, but two, houses to move out of, Brandon’s busy season is about to really kick off so he’s had a lot of prep work, I sold my house, which will close while we are on this trip, and, oh yeah, I started a new job 5 days ago. We have not stopped to breathe in the last month. We closed on our new home June 3rd and, with a GIANT laundry list updates on the new home, while moving out of both our others, we have been going NONSTOP. We haven’t even golfed in over a month!

So, yes, this vacation was much needed. We booked it right after we got back from Cuba in February so it’s been on the books for a while and could not have come at a better time. This is my third time in Puerto Vallarta and Brandon’s first. Yesterday was largely a travel day. We left home bright and early and within hours Southwest had safely delivered us to this tropical paradise. The flight was easy. A quick flight to LA, enough time to grab lunch, and then a relatively short flight here. It looked cloudy and gray as we landed but the moment we walked off the plane the hot sticky air enveloped us.

We were surprised to see that someone deplaned with a little dog. Mexico must have very forgiving animal import regulations. The lady with the dog must have been a Mexican citizen, however, since she was through the first round of customs in a jiffy. How do we know she got through ahead of us? Well… as we made our way to the final customs check we both zeroed in on the nearest restroom. I was laser focused on it and, only thanks to Brandon grabbing my arm and quickly warning me, I barely missed stepping in a large yellow puddle on the tile floor. It seems doggy couldn’t hold it quite long enough… I took notice, and thought “that sucks” but didn’t give it a ton of thought. As I emerged back out of the restroom, however, I quickly realized I had missed quite a scene. A woman was standing outside the bathroom yelling, “Where is she? She’s in the bathroom? That lady just let her dog piss and didn’t do anything about it? Where is she?” I thought she was over-reacting until I walked back to Brandon and he told me I’d missed quite a scene. Apparently angry lady had slipped and fallen in said puddle o’ pup piss. Oh damn, I’d probably be pissed off and yelling too!

I forgot to refresh on PV airport tips before we landed, specifically about getting a taxi. I did remember to never get one from the guys inside, as they are way more expensive, but couldn’t recall the best way and when we walked outside I didn’t feel much familiarity to help guide me. I saw what I thought looked like the stands I had used before and we hopped in the back of the taxi for our 345 peso ride from the airport to the Hyatt Ziva. That’s about $18 USD and seemed close to what I’d paid on previous trips

The Hyatt Ziva is awesome, it’s south of town so you are far from hotel row and in an amazing remote part of Banderas Bay. I won’t go into much detail as far as a hotel overview, you can google it. But it is an all-inclusive property. We arrived around 5:30pm in the evening and were greeted with welcome cocktails and a friendly check-in. As per usual, they did not disappoint and we were upgraded to a better view room. I was desperate to change out of my leggings and into a bikini so we grabbed our bags instead of waiting for them to bring them to us and beelined to our room to change. Staying in one place the entire trip means this is definitely a relaxing vacation as opposed to one of my adventures!

We settled in, I quickly unpacked and changed into a bikini, we took in the view from our room, and within minutes we were headed down to the beach that was flirting with us from outside. As I looked in the large floor-length mirror in our room before walking out, I could acknowledge that I don’t feel like I’m in peak shape thanks to exercise and nutrition both having been challenged over the last month, but I still felt that we looked damn good and should be proud of our beach looks.

We went the “long” way down to the water, stopping first at a bar to grab cocktails, and then at the coffee shop grabbing slices of cake because we were both starving, as we made our way down. With red velvet and chocolate cake in our bellies we made our way into the warm ocean waters. There were only a couple other people on the beach and the temperatures were just perfect. We let the salt water welcome us to Mexico and I felt so light. I felt lighter than I have in at least the last two months. So much stress had melted off of me into the ocean. I felt it from Brandon too. This vacation is much needed for both of us and the built-up stress we both shed in that moment was palpable.

Brandon bought some new board shorts for this trip and as we frolicked in the ocean the waves receded and I realized, holy crap, the white parts of the shorts were, literally, transparent. Like super transparent. Like you could see the hair on his legs and nothing was left to the imagination transparent. He was bummed as I pointed out that he could NOT wear them again in public! I mean, I didn’t mind the sight but that’s for my eyes only thank you very much. We enjoyed our welcome swim but were also hungry so before too long we made ourselves walk away from the water to rinse off and prepare for dinner.

All five restaurants were open and we opted for dinner at the Blaze, the Brazilian steakhouse. They have a Brazilian steakhouse here now! That’s new, on my previous trips here it had been a traditional steak house. Our ocean-view table allowed us to both have amazing views and we watched the sun set as we dined on veggies from the salad bar and spits of meat brought around for us to indulge in. I loved the sausage but it was all absolutely delicious. There were a lot of oregano flavors and it made me think I need to cook more oregano heavy at home. As we ate, a giant lizard lounged on the rock beneath us and indulged in his own meal of veggies that diners tossed down to him. I was pleasantly surprised at how good their sparkling wine is here. Good enough that I may have had four glasses at dinner. Welcome to all-inclusive living!

After dinner, with full bellies and mild buzzes, we made our way back to beach to lie on chairs and listen to the waves. The weather, just perfect. Warm but not hot. Humid but not too muggy. All good stuff. We listened to the water as I bugged Brandon for his first impressions on the resort. He’s a fan.

We have some activities booked for this trip but mostly relaxing stuff and I am actually slowing down and treating it like a true relaxing vacation and not an adventure (though I am DYING to get my next adventure booked). Tomorrow we get to have a leisurely morning and then go swim with dolphins and visit some beach, as part of our dolphin outing, that we don’t really know much about. They just emailed us while we were flying to confirm that we wanted to add the beach trip. I responded right away but they haven’t followed-up with exact timing or location so hopefully they are prompt to respond in the morning!