testing remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

it was a Chicago based company so no extra mexican related safty issues there. the people were all very friendly and joking around as they straped on our harnesses and told us the things we needed to know. Once we loaded up onto the bus, I couldn´t pay attention to anything anybody was saying. I think my mind was trying not to think about it to much so as to not psych myself out. I just couldn´t focus, I kept thinking about weird stuff that had nothing to do with the current activity.

it was a short bus ride then once we got to the airport we walked barefoot aross the run way towards the plane. The plane was Canadian in origin and we were told it was one of the best kinds of planes to skydive out of. I can´t remember the name but I was told that they had used it for charting the arctic. so I imagine that my grandfather likely flew one cause he did that for a while. twin somthing am I think they were called.

My instructor told me that he got third place in the American skydiving compatition, no small feat as I understand it. It sounds like what he did was a bit like EXTREME SYNCRONIZED SWIMMING.

there was no seats in the plan as one might imagine but instead a gym mat like material on the ground. Stacey and I crawled along to the back of the plane with our instructors. you have to sit kinda between their legs as the person in front of you does aswell. you have a seatbelt but it doesn´t go around you it just hooks on to your gear.

we took off and went up and up and got a beatiful view of Zihua. on the way up one of the mexican sky divers was leaning out the window and doing these weird tricks with his face as it hit the wind. his skin had a rubber like elsastisity as it flapped int the wind he also managed to whistle a tune which I thought was kindof impressive seeing as his whole mouth was wide open. I had never seen anything like it.

once we reached a high enough altitude our instructors strapped to us and went through all last minute training. the other people exited the plane then my camera man held onto the outside of the plane waitin to get a shot of my exit. I would say that the falling out of the plane was the hardest part, not really for fear factor but because you have to go on your knees and belly first with your head way back so that you can´t see. this was a problem cause it seemed that I was a bit tall for the exit. you have to go belly first beause if you were to somersault out of the plane or jump from a crouching position our instuctors who were strapped to us wouldn´t have any control and nobody wants that at 13000 feet.

the first feeling of no connection to any groundlike serface, like the ground or plane is the most alarming. I forgot myself alittle bit and kicked my legs once I couldn´t touch the plane, this a no no, but I steadied myself in time. I wasn´t really allowed to move my legs, but I could do whatever I wanted with my arms and I certainly did. that was one of the best parts. the only way I can really explain it is if you were to put your hand out the window of a car driving on the highway. well.... that times about a million.

I pointed to the ground and then went limp my hands would fly up in the air all willy nilly. I tried swimming in the air and dancing a bit. the robot didn´t really work without the use of my legs. then I started playing with my face and sticking my tounge into the air then I started hitting myself in the face a sensation that is much different on the ground.

after a beautiful one minute freefall the camera man pulled away as I grabbed my harness and my instuctor, Kenny, pulled the cord and out came the parachute. he let me stear the parachute as we fell to the earth. he showed my how to spin in the air, how to fall quickly and then pause mid flight. I figured this part would be nothing next to the free fall but it was an amazing expericance all its own. Swooping and diving through the air, all the while looking out at the majestic scenery below. we flew over the dolphin tanks where Stacey and I had swam just two days previous. I landed with a bit of a jolt and a skip. Ground huh??.... right, I rember this, its that hard stuff isn´t it. well, hard enough, it was a sandy beach to be percise. I was greeted by the camera man who breifly interviewed me about the trip. I was alittle speachless at first, difficult to imagine I´m sure.

It wasn´t long before I watched Stacey come hurtling towards me I think I could see her bright red face before I could see the parachute. Her experience was alittle bit scarier then mine. the camera guy and Kenny both told me that I had been going crazy up there and that if Kenny hadn´t been very experienced things might not have gone so well, I didn´t really know what they were talking about until later when I saw the dvd. anybody who wants to see it is more then welcome. it cost over 100 dollars american so I want to play it for all its worth.

Sky diving WOW!!! :alex

alex kept hitting his face while he was freefalling to see what it felt like. ha.

thumbs up to skydiving. alex with his instructor, Kenny.

both of us on the ground. my face is so red because on the way down i don´t think i drew a single breath. ha.

we booked our bus tickets to Mexico City today. We leave Zihuatanejo at 12:30pm on February 27th, and should arrive by about 9:30pm or so. (It´s supposed to be a 9 hour bus ride.) we´ll grab a hotel and a bit to eat and then hit the hay.

on the 28th, and probably the 1st of March we´re going to spend a couple of hours both days checking out some of the museums (like the Museo Frida, which i´m excited about) and the Mexico City Zoo. (don´t worry, we´ll never be out after dark.) it should be really fun!

then of course, on the 2nd, we´re coming back to Vancouver! now that the trip is over it seems like it wasn´t very long at all. but we´re still having a great time.

tomorrow we booked an appointment to go scuba diving and the instructor said that we´ll get to see octopi and sea horses and probably lots of starfish. i´m excited.

alright....here are some random photos from yesterday when we went snorkeling and today on our walk to the bus depot. sorry this entry is so jumbled. i´m running out of time. ha.

alex playing with his food.

the delfiniti dolphin on playa el palmar in Ixtapa. we tried to get to one of the private beaches this day, but ended up banana boating instead because all of the jet skis were rented out. turns out, we couldn´t go anyway, because there are too many rocks and the fellow who was going to drive us said it was too dangerous.

poor alex, he finally sunburned.

we went snorkeling yesterday. it was really cool! i was a little bit nervous at first just because i´d never done it before, but alex was an EXCELLENT instructor and i managed to pick it up after a while. i wouldn´t dive down like he did, but i managed to see a ray (not sure which kind) and an eel! we also saw a lot of neat looking fish, what alex believes is a hermit crab, and lots of coral. at one point we also realized we were swimming through a LOT of fish poop, which was gross, but still really funny.

this is the boat that took us to and from Isla Ixtapa. they´re ridiculously rickety and i honestly thought at one point on the way back that it was going to tip over and that we would all drown. it didn´t help that the fisherman who was driving the boat tried to cram 15 people onto it. (on the side of a boat is a sign that says there should be a maximum of ten.) even one of the other mexican women was a little frightened, and i didn´t think they were afraid of anything!!! (i´m joking...of course.)

i´ll bet you were wondering when a picture of a pineapple would show up.

it´s pretty common knowledge that i´m not the most coordinated human being around. not walking into things and falling over is MUCH more difficult in flippers.

snorkeling gear is unbelievably attractive.

there were tons of rabbits on Isla Ixtapa. you could get really close to them and pet them. (don´t worry, we didn´t.) we did feed this one a little piece of tortilla though. it was super cute.

there were people fishing right off of the dock when we got back to Playa Linda. (one of the beaches in Ixtapa.)

dried, hollowed out bull testicles. awesome. ha.

alex described this as mexican barbed wire. it´s just some broken glass stuck into the top of a wall. owie.

just to prove that going to mexico hasn´t made us more mature.

skydiving and other adventures remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

while we were eating breakfast, right beside us some Pecanto Fire Dancers set up shop and started performing. their costumes were incredible and the dancing and drumming was something else to see.

afterwards they let people stand with them to have their pictures taken. i chickened out but alex even got to hold some of their gear.

yesterday we checked out Playa Linda, the last public beach we needed to see in Ixtapa. it was another Stacey beach with small waves and alex thinks he sort of knows where his secret surfing beach is from there, which is neat. we might try and see that sometime soon. not tomorrow because we have another skydiving appointment for 3pm. eep!

one of the exciting things about yesterday though is that once we got off the bus we found a cycling path and a nature habitat! there were iguanas and crocodiles. we wanted to swim and so ended up not walking far enough to see the frogs but what we did see was pretty awesome!!!

also on our bus ride up there, alex was pretty amused by our driver, who had religious flyers all over the front of the bus, and a crucifix, which he took a picture of.

it has really been a treat being somewhere that is, in some ways, so incredibly different from canada. i have to say, i have really been enjoying myself so far. seems like it should continue as well!!!

hopefully the next 8 days will be super action packed!!! i am sure we will have a lot more to write about, especially after tomorrow! haha.

xoxoxoxo

-stacey and alex

bumming around zihuatanejo remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

also, alex discovered yesterday that there´s a place offering skydiving! so guess what we´re doing tomorrow!!!

yes...i´m nervous...but i´m going to do it anyway. it´ll be great...i hope. ha.

don´t have a lot of time to write, but finally uploaded some pictures, so here you go!!!

THE ALEX IS SICK AND TOOK PEPTO BISMOL ONGOING SAGA:

alex´s favorite place! the bathroom!!! waw waw.

other random photos:

the little public deck at our hotel

our favorite place to eat breakfast. the girl who works here is from montreal, and is VERY friendly. we really like her.

HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY!!!

alex went bodysurfing near our hotel the other day, and this fish kept me company while i sat on a towel on the beach and played pokemon. (i´m a little body surfed out. ) it really was less than 5 feet away.

one day this massive cruise ship showed up in the Zihua bay. this picture doesn´t do it justice. it was HUGE.

HI!!!! it´s me in our hotel room mirror. awesome.

a huge bug that we saw walking to the beach in Ixtapa. it was so big, and so gross.

that´s alex. i thought this was a great photo.

i got this one after playing with the camera settings a little. ha.

this was our old room at the Hotel Susy. this morning they asked us to change rooms because someone wanted air conditioning and we weren´t using ours because it´s $20 extra.

this is our new room. it´s a little smaller, but farther from the street, so it´s cooler, and there´s less noise. i didn´t mind the trade off. ha.

alex looking scary on Playa del Palmar in Ixtapa.

alex made me take this picture because he said, "how often do you see corn on a stick lying around in vancouver?! never!!!" hahaha.

wish us luck for tomorrow!!!!!!

xoxoxoxo

-stacey and alex

DOLPHINS!!!!! remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

so yeah...february 11th was a slow day. we played Pokemon on our gameboys, alex went for a swim, and we went for a walk later. did a little bit of shopping and finally found a shirt i liked, so i picked that up. it´s really light and kind of a pinky color. i´ll put up a picture soon enough. this is another one of those "can´t hook up a camera" places. we really should go back to that first place...too bad neither of us remembers where it is. ha.

we also went and finally talked to Natalia who suggested that we talk to her nephew Coly about finding more body surfing beaches. he wasn´t there that day, so we checked out some of the shops along the beach which has some GREAT masks that i´m going to have to pick up, and then kept on walking. there was a basketball game on in the court, so we watched that for a bit, and then headed back to the hotel.

on february 12th we talked to the woman at the front desk of our Hotel about our water. we have hot water, but our cold was slowly disappearing, and then our toilet wouldn´t flush, and then eventually, we didn´t have any running water at all. so we talked to her about it, and then headed out to Playa Quieta near the club med. it´s my favorite so far. the waves were nice and calm but we were still able to body surf. it was an awesome "Stacey" beach. no danger for me. haha.

ALEX: We went to the club med beach. I had been told that it was next to secret private surfing beach which I wanted to at the very least investigate. the cab dropped us off outside club med and it was really hot so we decided to hit the waves first before exploring the area.

the water was crystal clear and we found some uninhabited beach chairs that belonged to club med. I figured due to our pale complexion we could probably just sit in them and nobody would be the wiser. shortly after settling down, however, a short mexican gaurd wearing a spiffy all white uniform came and told us we couldn´t use the chairs. so we but our stuff in the shade of a bush and surfed for a couple of hours. after a short break I decided I wanted to try and swim to an island a couple of kms away from the shore. it was pretty far away, but I wanted to do it because I knew I could. Stacey was not happy with this plan but I did it anyway. Stacey says I have to include that she didn´t tell me not to do it, but I could tell at the time how she felt.

Off I went there were some jet skis and small lazer sailboats wizzing past me on either side once I got outside the ¨designated swimming area¨. One of the dudes on a boat gave me a thumbsup, from others I recieved troubling looks as to why I was out there. after about a half an hour I starting getting close to the island the water below me started to get lighter coloured and I could hear the waves crashing up on the rocks. weet woo. i had hoped that there would be a nice sandy beach waiting for me, or perhaps a steep rock island jutting our from the ocean floor. instead there was about 20 feet of slippery algie covered rocks with waves pushing back and forth across them. I was getting alittle bit worried. I discovered that if I moved very slowly and timed my movements by the incoming waves then I could progress over the hazzardous terrain. once the rocks were protruding from the water I could see large crabs crawling around betwixt sea anemones. I then realized how fortunate I had been. when I arrived on what I called land the surface which I had thought was sand ended up being millions of shells, likely collected over time by littering birds. I climbed to the top of the rock island 15 feet or so high, and looked back to shore from where stacey was supposed to take my picture. I waved my arms in a frenzy and some the boaters waved back. I marked my territory before my departure by peeing amoungst the rocks. ¨This is my island I said¨. and then I swam back to shore.

On the 13th we took another slow day. Alex wasn´t feeling very well so after breakfast we headed back to the hotel for naps, pokemon, and other fun things. i found out that they have "Trading Spaces" on tv in Spanish, so i watched that for a while. haha. BACK TO BACK!!! it was great. i also cleaned our room, or at least tidied it, and then read some of the book i started, "Portrait in Sepia". (great book, by the way.) alex went for another swim on Playa Principal and so i was by myself for a couple of hours, which was fine. i wanted to make sure i was in tip top shape. my burn finally faded into a tan, and you can CLEARLY see where my bathing suit was, which is pretty funny. that was pretty much our day. nothing super exciting happened that i can remember. we went for another walk, talked to some people in our hotel, a good day, but a slow one, for sure.

on the 14th alex was feeling even worse so we REALLY didn´t do anything. at breakfast we tried to think of things to do, but he had to go back to the hotel to lie down, so that´s what we did. i read my book, and he slept, and then he woke up and played Pokemon while i watched "Trading Spaces" again. he went out the day before and tried to find a present for me, but apparently people in the shops were too pushy and kind of freaked him out, which is fine with me. I´m in mexico. i don´t think anything could really bum me out. haha. we went for dinner at our favorite restaurant and listened to the band for a while. the day before alex had also gone and asked if they would play a song about "blue eyes" but we guessed they forgot because we waited for our check to come for a little over 45 minutes, and they didn´t play anything like that. i still appreciated the effort though. ha.

and today he´s feeling a little better, but still not 100% so we talked to Coly and got some prices on snorkeling, scuba diving, board surfing and kayaking. alex doesn´t want to kayak, and i don´t want to board surf, so we´ll see how that goes, but it looks like maybe tomorrow we´ll go snorkeling, which would be fun. Coly said it´s a four hour trip and we´ll see 3 different snorkeling sites, which would be neat, and he´ll bring us sea-life to look at.

oh yes...how could i forget? today while alex was napping after breakfast, i was fiddling with the camera, and somehow or another reformatted the memory card. know what that means? it means that i lost the 400+ pictures that we had taken in the past couple of weeks. i still can´t believe it. i was pretty angry with myself for a while afterwards and took a nap myself, just because i couldn´t think of anything else to do. thankfully we have some in this journal, but the pictures alex took when he climbed on those rocks and the pictures of the cathedral in Guadalajara are all gone, which i´m a little upset about. still, nothing i can do about it now except take twice as many pictures to make up for it.

today is also the first day i´ve shown any signs of peeling. AND we found out that "Saw II" is in English with subtitles, so we´re going to go and i´m going to be scared silly. oye! hopefully some cartoons will be on tv when we get back, otherwise i won´t be able to sleep. haha.

xoxoxoxo

only 13 days left!!!!
hopefully we can put up pictures of ourselves soon.

-stacey and alex

It´s been a while remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

there were no restaurants with heroic waiters at this beach. not much of anything except a large constuction site for a resort. shortly after the cab left Stacey realized we had forgot to buy water. a dire mistake when you go to an isolated beach in the mexican summer. I hit the surf and stacey waded in for a bit. we quickly noticed that the waves were significantly larger then any of the others we had encounted thus far. Stacey retreated to the beach, I really can´t blame her. we can´t post any pictures today unfortunatly cause Stacey couldn´t get the computers to except her camera software. wee woo. this net cafe has very old computers.

this beach was alot smaller in width with rockes and cliffs on either side. I tried to surf in the middle for a while, after about a half an hour I encountered a series of very large waves. Stacey and I estimate 30-35 feet in hight. I can handle one or two but it was clear after about 5 that I had little control of my whereabouts. I was ducking under them with mostly success, and getting dumped on my face only once or twice. then I started getting kinda close to the rocks one side. I managed to pull myself to safety with Stacey looking worried and helpless from the beach. I was alittle bit tired after that. I took a break then we decided to try and climb along some cliffs in the direction that we were not supposed to go. I suppose curiosity got the better of me.

we clambered along for alittle bit and saw some very large crabs in some the tidal pools. I really wanted to see around the side of the cliffs so that I could detirmine my suspicion and hope that it was the secret, private surfing beach I have been waiting so long for. once the rocks started to get a bit crumbly and difficult to climb along in sandles Stacey stopped and looked on as I continued along the treacherous terrain. I said as I left her line of sight that I would try and be back soon as not to worry her. I had a good idea of were I wanted to get to but the lower rocks had waves and water battering into them, and the upper cliffes had lots of sand all over them. I shimmied along the top cliffs being mindful of pelicans and hawks wizzing past me finally I could see the peak that I had been hoping for. it had bird poop all over it but I didn´t care. I climbed that last streach of the way and looked over. Unfortuatly it did not appear to be the beach I was hoping for but instead some amazind volcanic rock cliffs being buffeted with enormous waves. holding on with the cliff face with one hand I reached into my daybag with my other to retrive staceys camera I got what I hope to be some great shots but I can´t garentee the quality it was pretty hard to hold the camera and toy with the zoom with one free hand while clinging to a cliff face 50 feet about waves and rocks with the other. I will get stacey to post them later.

I arrived to meet another worried Stacey not long after. she informed me it had been 20 minutes and not as ¨real quick¨ as I had planned.

we went back down the rest of the way and I went surfing for about an hour longer until the dehydation got to me. :Alex

Stacey: We´re still staying at the Hotel Susy in Zihua and we haven´t gone to see if Natalia is still around. We´re probably going to do that tomorrow or the day after. Alex hasn´t decided if he wants to go try to see how Club Med is, or if he just wants to have another slow sort of day.

Maybe I could actually find a shirt that i like. ha.

Oh yes. I should also mention that while Alex was having his miraculous rock climbing adventure, i was sitting on the side of an incredibly hot cliff...trying to avoid the waves crashing up onto them. I probably could have climbed down on my own, except that some construction workers had decided to laze around on the beach, and I´m ridiculous and didn´t want them to try to talk to me.

Thankfully, no burn today. I was all over the sunscreen like you wouldn´t believe.

A good movie usually starts on cable at around 10pm, so we´re going to jet. I think it´s Silence of the Lambs tonight. I´ve never actually seen the beginning. good thing we´re close to the hotel.

Until tomorrow!!! or possibly the day after.

-Stacey and Alex

p.s. we´ve discovered that our favorite restaurant so far is ´El Sanka Grill´. we´ve been there a few times and they´ve started "Welcoming us home". haha. it´s very sweet.

Also, the place we ate at tonight was great, and i finally got to try a massive bowl of pozole (which is apparently a traditional guerrera dish.(Guerrera is the Mexican state we´re in.)) we had to tag team it, and then got to give some americans some dirty looks because they expected faster service in a busy restaurant with three servers. they were jerks. they deserved it. heh.

STILL HAVING A GREAT TIME!!!!!!

playa majahua remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Ixtapa was beautiful. We got there early in the morning, the waves were great, and even though at the end of the day some hardcore mexican surfers tried to kick us out of the water, but we were WAY too tough for them, and stayed anyway...just sort of far away. I got some great shots of Alex body surfing. I did too, just not quite as much. And he discovered that there´s a place we can go to swim with dolphins if we want to. it´s about $150 american, so we´re still kind of thinking about it, although after Playa Larga we might not have to. (Alex will tell you about that.)

After Ixtapa we headed to Playa la Ropa, which is in Zihuatanejo but closer to our hotel. (No buses or taxis required, although we did take a bus back, because we´re getting old. HAHA!!!!)

On the walk there, we saw a Mexican bug that alex wanted a picture of. :D

Nothing all that great happened there. it was sandy. i got salt water in my eyes. we felt kinda gross. alex upstaged me in every possible way (in the water) BUT discovered that he had a GINORMOUS hole in his bathing suit. (haha) there will be pictures of that later. we DID end up getting him a new bathing suit the following day, however, before we headed to Playa Larga. THAT beach has a great story that he gets to tell because it´s embarassing for me and he thinks i won´t tell it properly, which i won´t...because i don´t like to look like a wuss.

Playa Larga

Alex: well that was the best beach we have been to so far. for waves anyway. they were really big, but the weren´t the best surfing waves. we didn´t get any pictures of the big waves here but from where a wave broke I could usually touch the sea bottom and from there to the tip was usually around 2 and 1/2 of me tall so about 15 feet tall. they were alot of fun and some were a bit painful. there was a stip of empty resturants along the beach. it looked like maybe people came on the weekend or something. we got some cheese casadillas and some gigantic classes of processed oj:

I think that there may have been smaller but our waiter spoke no english. and as always our spanish is very limited. at least we got orange juice and not fish juice. After breakfast I went body surfing and Stacey read her book for alittle while. I was a bit farther out in the water then I should have been then I saw a dorsal fin. the fact that I was in the ocean was both good and bad. bad because I thought there was a good chance I had come within a few feet of two sharks, and good because it didn´t matter when I peed myself. I swam to shore faster then I have ever swam in my whole life. I ran to the life guard and was able to comunicate to him my experience and he explained that these were dolphins, definatly not sharks. a sigh of relief. then I ran to stacey to get pictures but we were two late.
then she came and joined me in the surf. she held her own for quite some time and got some good distence. then she got hit by a couple of big waves at a time. I should explain that with body surfing if you don´t get the timing just right the wave will pick you up and then slam you into the sand. it is very disorienting to say the least, especially if it happens to you a bunch of times consecutively as it did to Stacey. this called for break for Stacey, I kept going. Stacey came back for round two after not two long. it was fine for a while and stacey powned a couple of biggies. then we noticed that we were a bit far from shore and tryed to swim in. suddenly noticing that there had been a wind current change and therefore a water current change. pulling us along the coast away from our restaurant and our stuff. this made it difficult but not impossible to get to shore. difficult enough however for Stacey to have a minor panic attack. there was alittle bit of screaming for land. enough for our poor, kind waiter to hear and run to our rescue with a boogie board and his jeans still on. just as we were almost home free. Weren´t exactly sure why he joined us in the water with his jeans on at first. despite the language barrier I was able to discerne from the wet jeans, worried look, and the words ¨for buoyancy,¨ that he thought we were drowning and had come to save us. By my standards we were never in any real danger, despite the drama of the incident.

Once Stacey had regained her breath, and calmed down she realized the hilarity of the experience and quickly became very embarresed. we were fine although given my shark experience I could understand how she felt.

we stopped for a while to get something to eat. we had to eat at the same restaunt cause I felt I had to tip this waiter not for his food service but for his heroic behavior. I had another casadilla, Stacey attemped to order shrimp, instead she got this:

she also got ANOTHER friend to keep her company:

A rather scary looking beast, no?
I gave the waiter a rather large tip and insisted on getting his picture. next to me he looks like a meager mexican boy, but I assure you he is hearty of spirit:

after dinner the dolphins came back and we got a blurry shot you kinda have to hunt for them, ha, on the far left

I went surfing for a couple more hours and Stacey read some more, when the sun started to go down we packed up to leave. on our way out I notice our waiter listening to Rammstein on a video juke box. I sung along with him for a song. I gather he was a big fan. all in all an eventful day but don´t worry moms everybody is safe.

Stacey: ok...so....it wasn´t SO bad and right after we got out of the water i was totally fine. so just....stop worrying mom. i´m ok. stop it!!

it was a lot of fun but i was so embarassed that i couldn´t bring myself to go back into the water for the rest of the day which resulted in....dun dun dun....the BEST SUNBURN GAINED THROUGH RIDICULOUSNESS!!!!

it´s not so bad today. i look less...umm...beet-like. it was unfortunate at the time though, and showering and sleeping were....adventures.....*cough*

i finished my book!!! ha.

anyway....that was our big adventure.

we tried to watch Zathura today at the movie theatre but there was some confusion, and turns out, it was in Spanish. not subtitled in Spanish...no no...ACTUALLY in Spanish, which is really too bad. i didn´t know Tim Robbins was in it. HA!

and that´s all for now kids!! we have some random pictures of Zihuatanejo, and you´ll hear from us again soon.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

alex at the pizza place close to our hotel. i think this really accents his....umm....gaping maw?

this dog´s nipples were enormous, so alex took a picture. it´s just a street dog and it followed us around for a while until a guy alex thought was sweet on me scared it away.

oh yeah...alex accidentally bought some of that kid´s changing color sunscreen and i´m a horrible person, so i put this on his back. HAR HAR!!!

there´s a China Town in Zihuatanejo. go figure!!!

i thought i might want to eat this rotten coconut, THANKFULLY alex talked me out of it. that could´ve been ugly. (not really. just...calm down.)

DAD!!! YOU GET A NEW HAT!!!!

on the way back from Playa Larga we stopped into a pseudo department store because i wanted a shirt, and we´d been there previously for a towel (don´t worry Rhona, it wasn´t expensive), and alex had spotted this suit. he tried it on and decided to buy it!!! (Rhona again, he thought you´d be so proud, it was $25. and i didn´t have anything to do with it!! i just told him it looked swell.) he looks very handsome.

well....handsome and...expressionless. he was happy about it. i assure you.

every morning before we leave our hotel, and every night before we go inside, we see this scary mannequin. it´s almost directly across from our window and kind of looks in. it freaks me out a little, honestly.

this parrot was huge. alex was afraid it was going to bite him. i figured he´d be ok, on account of the cage, but he was still wary.

there´s the movie theatre. apparently it used to have a huge hole in the roof, and some birds flew through and pooped in alex´s popcorn. luckily, the threat has been removed.

we went to the museum of archeology today. it took all of 15 minutes to see the entire thing, and this whale vertebrae, which is bigger than my entire upper torso.

a replica of a spaniard boat at the museum.

right outside the internet cafe we´re in is this awesome mural!!! this place is amazing!!! haha.

this is also just outside our door at the hotel. i think they´re just beautiful.

and last but not least, the Hotel Ulises, which was the last hotel Alex stayed in, across from the Naval Military base. we decided not to stay there this time. something about trumpets. ha.

Hasta Luego!!!!!

-Stacey and Alex

beaches, adventure, wild animals, OH MY!!!! remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

first, of course, alex´s mom took a picture of us at the airport, which was fantastic of her, because i doubt we´ll be handing the camera off anytime soon. ha. then we´re off.

the plane ride to mexico city was pretty uneventful. 6 hours, and no movie. waw waw. but that´s ok. i became VERY good at Pokemon for the gameboy, VERY quickly.

mexico city from the plane

we got there too late to really do anything but head straight to our hotel, which we did. it was nice, with a little fridge and the bed in a separate room. it was like a little apartment. we had to go out to eat, but it was literally around the corner, so no trouble. then we were up bright and early to catch our flight to guadalajara, UNFORTUNATELY, 4 different people sent us estupidos gringos to the international flights area. i guess they thought we were going back to canada. we missed our 7am flight, but they rescheduled us for 9am instead, and it didn´t cost anything, which was nice. one hour and we were in Guadalajara. we checked into the Hotel Serena right across from the bus depot and then caught a cab downtown.

we had parakeets at our hotel. :D

a fountain at the Plaza in downtown Guadalajara

we went inside this beautiful cathedral

it had this organ inside, which i thought was absolutely spectacular. i got some really good shots inside here.

this fountain was great and had little ceramic frogs on the outside.

then we got into a horse and carriage and got a proper tour of the city. after we got back to the hotel we watched Scarface and then went to bed. at 6am we woke up, partook in the breakfast buffet, and then headed to the depot. our bus was supposed to leave at 8am, but we ran around for a while trying to overcome the language barrier and figure out where our bus was. we finally realized that it wasn´t even there yet, and waited around until it DID show up at 8:30, thankfully. (the next bus to Zihuatanejo wasn´t going to show up for another 5 days. eep.)

that´s pretty much what it looked like the entire way there.

10 hours later, we´re in ZIHUATANEJO!!!

we passed through Ixtapa, which was beautiful, and are planning on biking out there in a couple of days, just to check it out.

Zihuatanejo is excellent and beautiful and the people are wonderful.

The phones are VERY tricky but we figured out that we can recieve text messages and we´re both still plugging away on those phones. i got through once but mostly a woman speaking spanish tells me that my phone numbers don´t exist. don´t worry though (moms ), we´re going to keep trying.

ha. due to time constraints i can´t really say much more except for that we´re having a great time so far.

also, i believe it was my brothers birthday yesterday. we made him a present, all the way from Zihuatanejo, Mexico.

WE LOVE YOU!!!!

this gecko shared our room our first night in Zihua

we changed hotels and this dog was lying outside. that was at around 11am. i took this picture at 7:30pm. same dog. same spot. and yes...it´s still alive.

yay!!! the beach!!!!

-stacey and alex

officially in mexico, first update remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

and it's still a transformer like the 70L. it comes with a detachable day pack and turns into a duffel bag,

and even has a special rain cover which is totally awesome. :D

i also got my shots today. Hep A and B, plus a Polio shot, and a vaccine for cholera and diarreah as well as a perscription just in case i get it anyway. ha. mmm...lovely.

all that's left to do is book the hotel for our stay over in mexico city, pick up the small stuff (like ziplock bags) and head out!!!

i'm going to practice packing for DAYS!!!!

HOORAY!!!!!

-stacey

NEW BACKPACK!!!! remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We leave Vancouver at 1pm on Feb.2, arrive in Mexico City by 8:25pm, and spend the whole night! (we're going to sleep on the plane so that we don't have to sleep the entire time we're there) and then we're up bright and early at 7am the next morning so that we can be in Guadalajara by 8:10am. we'll bum around for a while and then catch an afternoon bus to Zihuatanejo so that we can check into whatever we're sleeping in (ha).

On March 1st we'll pick up all of the crap we've accumulated and head out to the airport to be on our flight by 7pm in Guadalajara, which will take us to Mexico City by 8:05pm. we'll probably do a little more sight seeing after checking into our hotel, and then at 7am the next morning we'll be on a flight and hopefully back in Vancouver, safe and sound, by 11am.

I shouldn't be going back to work until the 4th or 5th of March, but we'll see. Hopefully I can alott myself some vacation recuperation time. ha. i hear these things can get stressful.

Summary:

Going There:
Feb.2: Vancover: 1:00pm
Mexico City: 8:20pm

Feb.3: Mexico City: 7:00am
Guadalajara: 8:10am

Coming Back:
Mar.1: Guadalajara: 7:00pm
Mexico City: 8:05pm

Mar.2: Mexico City: 7:00am
Vancouver: 11:00am

I'm ridiculously excited. While we were in the travel agency i kept grinning from ear to ear like some kind of village idiot. hopefully i played it off as cute. ha. who knows.

I'M GOING TO MEXICO!!! THIS RULES!!!

-stacey

The words "non-refundable" have never sounded so good remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

and a lovely photo of Zihuatanejo at night. (of course, the photos I take will be MUCH better thanks to my brand spankin' new digital camera! :D)

and last but not least, here's a picture of the hostel we'll be staying in. Angela's Hotel and Hostel, right in the middle of downtown Zihuatanejo. It's the only one in the Ixtapa/Zi area, so our choices were pretty limited. ha. but i think it'll be great.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!

Tomorrow, we're booking our flight (FINALLY!), and on Thursday I go for shots, shorts and a backpack. (After much searching and trying on and "this one's too big, and that one's too expensive, and blah blah blah".) And then it's time to practice packing.

Hooray!

-stacey

Map of Mexico remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Having purchased a rockin' pair of trekking sandals, all that's left on my checklist are the following:

- shorts...because i'm lame and really don't own any

- an expedition bag...alex and i looked at some the other day but all we could find was a 70L transformer...i wish i were kidding. it turned into a duffel bag!!!! i have to find one real quick though because the shop we went to only had 5 left, and if i can't find anything smaller but still with back support then i'm just going to have to settle...still...wish it were cheaper. heh.

- plane tickets...of course. we talked to a lovely fellow named Jordan at the travel agency who's working hard to find us the cheapest flight out. we might even get to spend a night in Mexico City!!!! Whoo!!! we're definiely booking something 14 days in advance though.

- regular ol' toiletries....i hear the bandaids in Mexico aren't great so I have to pick up a lot (Alex has a habit of smashing himself to pieces. HA!) and allergy pills. yee haw.

then all i have to worry about is giving Robyn rent money for February and March (gulp...we'll see if i can get away without paying for march just yet.) and making sure to leave money so that Xiu Xiu can eat.

i still have to make an appointment to get my hair cut and i'll have to see my parents for real before i leave.

i'm scheduled for my Hep A and B shots, as well as rabies and some sort of cholera/diarreah (lovely, i know) vaccine that i can take orally on the 19th. thankfully...courteney is going to come with me so that she can hold my hand and help me pick out a backpack.

in a week or so i'm going to clear my camera out so that it's ready to go, and then i'm going to practice packing. haha. it'll be great.

i'm really really getting excited!!!

i can't wait to go!!!

-stacey

Counting Down remains copyright of the author Gadabout, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs