Puerto Vallarta

 I had a last minute opportunity to leave the country for a vacation to Puerto Vallarta at the end of June, hanging out on the beach for a week. How could anyone say no to that? We booked our last minutes flights and before we knew it we were winging our way to the Rancho Banderas resort.

The ocean water was very blue and amazingly warm. We did some boogie boarding, swam in the resort pools that overlooked the ocean, and I read my books happy as a clam, as well as building deep moats in the sand and catching hermit crabs.

You could see their funny little tracks everywhere as well as watch them scatter through the sand. 

One of the very cool things we did was a dolphin encounter. We drove to the local marina and spent about 30 minutes hanging out in a giant pool playing with dolphins. Their skin is very smooth and soft, and reminded me of the texture of rubber.

 We got to feed it, pet it, kiss it, and be kissed by the dolphin. In the end we held on tight to the fins and took a ride around the pool. Very cool. There were two dolphins we interacted with.

One was a momma, and the other was its baby just at a year old. The baby was slowly getting trained to be around people so most of our time was spent with mom. Occasionally the baby would lose interest with the trainer who was trying to distract it and she would wander back over to see what was going on with us and her momma. Then our trainer would have to shoo her away. It was very odd to be doing one thing and feel something bump against your back only to realize it was a dolphin swimming by. Of course all the pictures they take of you with the dolphin are posed, and you have to pay through the nose for them as they conveniently don't allow cameras. Needless to say, I bought one picture, and relied on my parents off in the distance to take pictures of us from afar. If you ever have the chance, it's worth the money. I do suggest you have someone standing by with a zoom lense to take pictures of you though to avoid the astronomical fees.

While we were waiting for the dolphin encounter, we watched the iguanas wander around the walkways as if they owned the place. They were quite large and rather fat so I kept my distance. They didn't seem bothered by the people walking past them or grabbing their tails. I was not one of those daring people.

 My favorite was watching them dumpster diving for leftovers. It's not every day I see an iguana behind sticking out of a garbage can. He was still particular enough to choose the organic trash. Good to know they are eco-friendly. I still they're creepy. The remind me of dragons and are such odd looking things. I wouldn't want to run into that in the jungle.

Over all the food was good and we ate at some great places. We slept in, spent lots of time in the water, shopped at the markets, and just relaxed for a week in the penthouse. It was a nice getaway that I'm ready to do again.