Sunsets, Panthers & Saving Sea Turtles

Mexico

Recently my wife and I took a much needed vacation. When pricing out different places to go, we found that it was actually cheaper to leave the country for a week then was was to stay in the states for 5 days. That didn’t really make any sense but we crunched the numbers again and it was true. So, we decided on Mexico. We booked a week vacation to Puerto Vallarta. It’s on the Pacific side of the country just below Baja California. Our resort wasn’t the greatest in the area, but that was ok with us. It’s more about the experience than what the resort is like. Besides, who goes on vacation just to sit in the room all day? Not us.

Sunsets

One of the nice things about being on this side of Mexico is that you get to see some amazing sunsets. Every night Nicole and I went out to the beach and watched the sun light up the sky with some amazing shades of orange and red. Puerto Vallarta is surrounded by mountains all all sides. Ocean + Mountains + Sunsets = A*MA*ZING! You can see a few posted below.

San Sebastian

San Sebastian was a very important city during the Mexican Revolution. The town housed more than 30,000 people during the early 1900s. Now the city has just of 600 residents. We had the opportunity to visit the city, now turned village. Our personally hired guide told use that the first time he came to this village he met some very special ladies. Naturally I thought they were important political people in the town or something of that nature. When he cracked open the door to the house, I met two of the cutest ladies. Isabella (98) and Georgina (102). They are sisters and have been living together their whole life. They have a pretty amazing story. Let’s go back and talk about the Mexican Revolution. Isabella and Georgina were survivors of the war. During the war members of the town were brutally killed, including their family. Mother, father, and siblings; all gone. They ran and took shelter in the forest for several days until they were able to come back to the town. Since then, they have been taking care of each other and many other people in the village. Now, it is the other villagers that are taking care of them. It’s crazy what you can learn about people when you just ask what their story is. What if I would have never left the resort? I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet these two lovely ladies and tell you their story.

Here we are trying to open the door to the other half of the house. Check out the key. It was huge; about the length of my hand.

 

This is a picture of the oven that they made several years ago. It it made of clay.

After we left their home we headed to a coffee plantation. It was started by one of the three founding families of San Sebastian. It is not coffee season down their so the coffee beans were still very young. You can see the beans below on the right.

Posing behind the old prison door.

Below are two photos of an estate just outside out town. It said that there is a tunnel that leads from the house 4 kilometers into another home in town. The property was closed… so we snuck in. We were greeted by a few friendly dogs.

Every old colonial Mexican town has a church. This church was over 400 years old! That’s older than the United States. The interior was gorgeous.

Inside the church.

I thought this was a joke, the driver said it was serious. I laughed because we have to watch out for ducks on my street. Here they have to watch out for panthers!

Fat, creepy angel decoration

Saving Sea Turtles

On our last day of our vacation, we sat on the beach an soaked in the last view of the ocean. Nicole was glancing through some pictures on her camera and I was flipping through some pictures on my iPhone. I just happened to look up and saw a baby sea turtle crawling on the sand and two more behind it. I quickly snatched Nicole’s camera, grabbed her hand, and went over to take some pictures. One of the local vendors grabbed a bucket and started putting the turtles in it. He said that they were supposed to hatch at night. This gives them a better chance to escape predators. He was going to release them later that evening. There were over 100 of them!