Mexico

A few weeks ago Joe and I had the amazing opportunity of traveling to Mexico. First, Joe spent a week in Zacatecas with engineering students from BYU. They collaborated with engineering students from a university in Zacatecas in designing watershed models to help control flooding in a couple of flood prone towns in Mexico. Then, they made a presentation/proposal to the local Mexican government.

I flew down and met Joe in Guadalajara. We spent a day and half exploring the city, eating cheap tacos, ice cream, and my new favorite, horchata fresa. Gaudalajara is a beautiful city, with many old cathedrals and churches, surrounded by beautiful plazas and courtyards. On our second night in the city, in each of the four plazas surrounding this cathedral, bands played music from, 6:00 p.m. until after midnight, with each plaza dedicated to a different style of music.

After a day and a half in Guadalajara, we traveled via 5 hour bus ride to Puerta Vallarta where we spent the rest of the week.

Joe pictured at the bus stop????

Luckily, in spite of our Spanish speaking skills we made it to Puerto Vallarta, and this was the view from the balcony of our hotel.

This was the scene on the beach, with Joe doing his favorite thing of all time.

One day we rented some horses and rode through through the jungle to a rustic restaurant, built around a natural swimming hole.

My horse was Catrina, aka the Charger. Don't let her white, innocent appearance fool you. Unless I was pulling constantly on the reigns she would walk faster and faster, break into a trot, and then into a full gallop, making it a very fun ride.

Pictured above, the natural swimming whole with Joe playing the part of Tarzan. The granite waterfall behind Joe also makes a sweet natural waterslide.

One day we went on a scuba trip. We took a boat an hour out of the harbor and made 2 dives, each about 40 min at Marietes Islands. We went as deep as 75 feet. Diving is amazing; you are constantly aware that you are the visitors in a very foreign environment.

We saw tons of these guys (green moray eels)

and they are freaky! They swim straight at you from holes in the rocks with their mouths wide open, showing their very, very sharp teeth. They can grow up to 10 feet long, but we didn't see any quite that big. Apparently they are "lazy predators." They just hide in the rocks and wait for their food to swim by. Luckily, I am bigger than your average octopus, so I escaped without too much attention from any eels. At one point during our dive we swam into an underwater cave. As we were leaving the cave, the exit was completely covered by a huge school fish. It is amazing to swim through thousands of fish, everywhere you look, the water filled with their shimmering bodies. I tried to take some pictures, but unfortunately none of our diving pictures turned out very well.

We had a fun boat ride home (sharing a boat with snorkelers and sun bathers); don't worry, I did get up and dance around the boat with all the drunk people, and with a little persuasion my awesome husband who I can talk into doing almost anything for me joined us for the limbo.

Here is one more picture from our hotel balcony. Hhhmmmm. What a beautiful place.