Adventures in Puerto Vallarta

This was my first time to Mexico - what a beautiful country it is filled with wonderful people, terrific food and gorgeous sights!

On the night before the wedding we went out salsa dancing to a Cuban restaurant with some of Alex & Aline's friends - the band was terrific as were the mojitos.

Paola, Mary, Alex, Aline and Pablo at La Bodeguita Del Medio

The day of the wedding we took the bus into town where we met up with Colleen, Peter, Nancy and Chris and did some exploring.

Mom, Ellen and baby Julian in the backpack with the Mountains in the distance

Audrey enjoying a swim in the river with Nancy and Chris

 The Malecon is the main boardwalk of Puerto Vallarta and it is covered with bronze statues along the way. We enjoyed a self-guided art tour of the sculptures.

Dancing Statues on the Malecon

 We also visited the most photographed church of Puerto Vallarta - it has an ornate crown on top. The original crown fell off in 1995 and was destroyed by an earthquake.

Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe

 Below is one of the more peculiar statues "The Boy on the Seahorse" by Rafael Zamarripa Castaneda who was only 18 when he sculpted this work.

The Dans in front of their favorite statue

 We also enjoyed a sand carving competition:

An Ornate Sand Sculpture 

We decided that one church visit was not enough:

The Dans and Erin climbing the steps to Our Lady of Refuge Church

 After the wedding we had fantastic days of exploring the beaches, waterfall hikes, dolphin spotting, snorkeling, para-sailing (for Alex and Aline) and boat rides through the ocean with our boat captains Alberto and Mariachi Mario.

We went to Los Arcos - a natural outcropping with several caves and reefs - while we were snorkeling around Aline spotted a twenty dollar bill on the ocean floor and Alex swam down and retrieved it! Who says there's not buried treasure? The snorkeling here was spectacular - all varieties and colors of fish. Luckily we didn't spot any sharks, although Durango Dan did spot a whale tail as we were zipping around in our boat.

Los Arcos

 We did two excellent waterfall hikes - Mom and Audrey had the good fun of riding a horse up to the falls. At the first waterfall we explored Erin went in first to tell us how the temperature of the water was and she took a mis-step and fell right in to the waterfall pool - quite the explorer she is!

Waterfall 

SO MUCH FUN - when are we going back?!?!