Vacation 2006 - Puerto Villarta Mexico
So here I am, in the hotel lobby of the Marivel suites and resorts in beautiful Puerto Nuevo Mexico. And, it’s boring.
Everyday I do the same thing:
1. Have breakfast
2. Sit on the beach and drink beer (Sol, a local beer, maybe).
3. Have lunch
4. Sit on the beach and drink beer
5. Have dinner
6. Have after dinnner drinks
7. Sleep
8. repeat
I have read about places like this. The temperature is like 80 degrees all the time, the humidity has to be below 50%, and it’s like that every day. There are no clouds, there is no rain, there is a gentile breeze off the bay constantly cooling you. Overall, it’s unbelievable.
Edit - 4/1/06 by Tim —
OK people, when I said I was bored, it was sarcasm!
Day 6
Woodbury
We are home. Everything went as planned today. We had breakfast in Claistagoa, and drove back to San Francisco International Airport. Our flight left at 6:00PM, local time, we arrived at 1:00PM. So, we had some time to kill. That is OK though, I would rather be early than like some of the people that you can see running to the gate as the plane is pushed back from the jetway. The flight was on time, and I at least had a window seat. The flight was comfortable, if you didn’t have any arms or legs. (Note to self: The row in front of the emergency row is SMALLER than the rest of the rows on the plane, that is where the extra room in the emergency row comes from! You would think that the ticket personnel, when faced with a customer that stands 6′1″, might advise them of that fact, but that would involve programming the computer to tell them that, because as we all know, ticketing personnel only know what the computer tells them.)
Also, we would like to thank whomever decorated the house for us. What a great thing to come home to. Thank You!
So, in closing here are a few more pictures:
By request, the Mustang!
Another request, from Kari, me in the car.
A picture from the front of the Roman Spa.
Day 5
Got up, had breakfast, and it was off to Calistagoa!
This is where we have to tell you 2 different stories. Just in case you are wondering, Kari and I are in the same place, telling you about the same experience.
Kari’s story:
We started off with a wonderful breakfast at the Good Day Cafe. Then off to Calistagoa and the Roman Spa. We went to our appointment at the Oasis Spa, behind the hotel. It was one of the most relaxing experiences that I have ever had. It started off with a 35 minute mud bath that was made up of peat moss and volcanic ash, followed by a 25 minute mineral bath with mustard seed, that helped to cleanse the pores even more. From there, I went on to a 55 minute full body massage, during which I was so completely relaxed, I fell asleep. I can’t wait until I have the opportunity to do it again!
Tim’s story:
Originally, I was slated for a full body massage, like Kari received, but I didn’t like the sound of that, so I switched to a Reflexology massage, which is just hands and feet. We started off with the mud bath. This was not your run of the mill mud, it was black, and you could see the plant matter that it was made of floating around. Luckily, I didn’t know until I was in it that it was manure, but you could smell it as soon as you entered the room. So, you sit in this hot muck for a while, it seemed like longer than 35 minutes, as all I could thing about was getting it off me. After that, it was into the mineral bath, which also had some stuff floating in it. I was just glad to be out of the manure. The mineral bath was not that bad. Then, it was on to the massage. I must admit that was not too bad. It was only 25 minutes long, and mostly on the feet. I don’t really know what is so relaxing about it, I didn’t feel any more relaxed than when we started.
After the spa, we walked into town to have some dinner. We had pizza at this little place, and it was good. We will probably head back there for breakfast in the morning. After dinner, Kari went for a swim in the pool, and I prepared for the event that was to come. In our room, there is a huge jacuzzi which I filled with bubbles. When she came back, we opened up some of the sparking wine that we got from one if the winery’s that we visited, and got in the jacuzzi. We talked for a while, and then, when she wasn’t expecting it, I asked her to marry me. She said YES!
So, tomorrow we spend the day packing and getting to the airport for the flight home. I hope that everyone who visited this site during our trip enjoyed the updates, and Kari and I look forward to seeing you all real soon.
Here is the picture of the day.
A shot of the view outside our hotel room in Calistagoa!
Day 4
Back to the old pattern, I didn’t want to wake up. But, Kari didn’t either, so we got started an hour later than we wanted to. The wonderful thing about this vacation is that even though we were behind our self imposed schedule, it won’t effect our day at all!
We started the day with breakfast at the International House of Pancakes. They had good food as always. I was surprised to see one, as I thought that they had all shut down. I guess that is only true of the restaurants in Minnesota.
Back to Napa, and this time we stopped at the Robert Mondavi Winery.
We had an excellent tour guide, or at least I thought so, Kari said that the guide she had last time was better. We got to see the new white oak fermenting tanks where they make their red wines. They also showed us their bottling line, which was actually running, this was the first thing that we have seen actually work at any of the winery’s. The tour ended with a tasting, just as they all do, but this one was the best. The guide gave us a great deal of information about the wines that we were tasting. This also happens to be the place that made a great wine that Kari and I drank, but could not find locally, Muscato d’oro. As it turns out, our guide informed us that they started making it on sort of a whim, and it just happened to catch on. It is, as he put it “expensive fermented grape juice”, but it is good! We didn’t buy any.
Next, it was off to the Culinary Institute of America. They don’t really have tours there, but they have some cooking demonstrations, and a gift shop that Kari wanted to shop at. We also came to have lunch at the Greystone restaurant. What a great lunch! We started with a sort of appetizer sampler that consisted of many different things. Then, it was on to our two course lunch. I started with a sauteed foie gras, (I don’t know how to spell it, but it is basically a goose liver pate), and Kari had a gnoochi dish with grilled vegetables. For the main course, I had what was basically a pork chop, with a mint/plum relish, and Kari had salmon with asparagus. My descriptions don’t do justice to just how good the food was! For desert, I ordered a chocolate crunch cake thing with a banana fosters sauce, and we both had a glass of Mondavi Muscato Blanc. Lunch was outstanding, and if you are ever in the Napa area, do stop in and have lunch or dinner!
After lunch, we headed next door to the Berringer winery.
We took the tour, which brought us into the caves that they carved out of the volcanic rock. They also had some antique wine making equipment on display. They had a new wine that Kari and I have never tasted, it’s a limited vineyard selection that is a blend of 80% White Zinfandel and 20% Chardonnay. It was very good, much to both of our surprise, so we bought some.
Tomorrow, we are off to Calistagoa, and to the spa for a massage and mud bath’s.
Here is the picture of the day!
A photo of grapes on the vine at the Mondavi winery!
