Off to Mexico!

I realize that this is a looooong time in coming, but I'm finally getting around to write an entry after all this vacation time that I've been having since coming off of Neurology. So I think my test and everything went fine and it was litterally the very next day that several of us packed up and flew to Mexico to enjoy some fun in the sun. We flew down to Puerto Vallarta, which made the 2nd trip there for me. First time for everyone else, so I kind of had the advantage of knowing my way around, and where the cool things were. It was a fun trip, a very short one at that, but it was just good in general to get away. We did the whole walking around downtown thing on the Malecon (boardwalk), as well as eating in some of the local beachside eateries. We also spent plenty of time on the beach by the resort just relaxing and taking in the sights and sounds of the bay. I also parasailed! THAT was quite an experience, and definitely something to bring home and talk about. The view from high up in a parachute is just amazing! I didn't post all of the pictures I took, if you want to see them all just shoot me an email and I'll send you the link to snapfish, but the following are some of the notables.



This is a picture of our resort that we stayed at from the beach. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one we stayed in 2 years ago (which was just down the beach) but it was still nice and they treated us well. It was all inclusive and the buffet style food was decent. Drinks could have been a little better though but were still ok.



This is a photoshopped panorama of the resort. You can see a little bit more of it from here, not to mention that I just like to play with photoshop.



Some tropical plants and scenery around the resort.



Los Arcos (the arches) are a natural rock formation off the coast of the Bay of Los Banderos, where PV is located. They're a popular local attraction and scuba/snorkeling spot, and as such arches are a pretty common theme around PV. Our resort carried some replicas of some sculptures and arches found throughout the city and this is one of the such replicas on the resort grounds.




This is another angle of the arches, apparently this photo is a particular favorite amongst some of my friends as it's gotten some good remarks.



The beach was really nice and clean with lots of sand. You can't really see much of the surf in this picture but in some days the crests were really getting high.



This is a picture of the local landmark, The Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral in downtown Puerto Vallarta. It's a really beautiful church, and I would have taken pictures inside as well except that they were celebrating Mass at the time, and of course I didn't take any out of respect.



Simple picture of me in front of the church. We did so much walking around the city proper that day that most of my pictures were snaps on the go. Didn't really take a lot of me or any of the other people who went along.



This was one of the many sculptures and art pieces set alongside the Malecon. This piece was also replicated at our resort along with the arches from above. There was also a cool one of a tall ladder with children climbing up it and reaching for the stars. It's a popular one for people to have their pictures taken on while climbing it. I would have gotten a picture of it too, except I already had several from my last trip.




This is a view of the PV main beach right off the Malecon, the downtown district. You can see it's a much rockier beach than those by the resort. A lot of the rocks are actually popular for beachside vendors who make money by actually balancing rocks on top of eachother as "art displays". Some of the sand they also make into sandsculptures as shown below.




This was the main sand sculpture out on the beach while we were there. On the far left is an iguana with the caption, "Night of the Iguana" because that was the movie with Richard Burton directed by John Huston that made Puerto Vallarta famous and the tourist attraction that it is today. It was also the movie with the famous affair between Burton and Liz Taylor. You can still see and tour her house in the Downtown district. We tried but it was closed on the day we were there. There's also a very nicely done image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the right as well.


So that was pretty much my trip to Mexico in a nutshell. It was short and quick, but it was a good get away and much needed after Surgery and Neurology. I'll have a little bit of vacation left before Internal Medicine starts now.