Past couple of days, not much goin down. Mychael and I have basically been going to the pool shortly after we wake, stay there for a couple hours, have lunch, then watch tv or play cards, pokemon, read, or do whatever else sounds fun. Dinner was this nice seafood restaurant two nights ago and room service again tonight. We’ve run into some trouble with the hotel; like thrice now they’ve told us we’ve run out of credit on our room even though Mrs. Jauregui keeps going to get it settled. They’re a bit incompetent at times, but hey, overall, I defintiely can’t complain. I burnt a pack of M&Ms trying to make my dad’s “famous” candy bar because of a combination of retarded Mexican microwaves and my own stupidation. I know, it’s not word (proves my stupidity, right?). Anyway, tomorrow we go back into town, when cruise ships aren’t stopped in for the day, so things are supposedly cheaper. I plan on buying all the souvenirs for people tomorrow, so last chance to let me know. Anyway, we head home in a few days. For all of you seeing Batman in the next few days, I envy you. Although, they are showing it at the Mexican theatre here in English with Spanish subtitles, but I think Myke and I can wait. We’ll see!

Got up around 8ish. We left for the ATV place around 8:20 and got there around 8:45. I thought we were going to get bussed to some far off place like with the ziplining. I thought wrong. We got on the 4-wheelers right there in the middle of the town and drove off to the side of the road out into the jungle. It was the four of us along with a family of three and the tour guide leading the way. Everyone had their own quad and we all had fun driving through bumpy, sandy, muddy roads. We drove for a good hour and a half through craptacular Mexican trails in the beautiful jungle and sprayed water and mud all over the place as we drove in. After a while, we ventured into more steep, curvy, mountainous roads until we reached an opening where there was a restaurant and tequila tasting. We found that our tour guide not only was nice, but also very funny. I guess that’s a common theme among the people we’ve met out here.

On our way up to the restaurant, our guide asked if we’d like this little berry-looking thing off of the “candy tree,” as he put it. I told him I’d eat one if he had one first. Of course, he just smiled and shook his head. He told us it was a very, very spicy pepper; nothing any tourist eats. The three others laughed and looked at me; “right up your alley.” I said I’d eat the tiny thing (it was literally the size of a small berry). I tossed it in my mouth and chewed for a few healthy seconds and swallowed. While chewing, it didn’t seem too bad, but by the time I had swallowed, the burning hot pain set in. I started blinking quickly, breathing in for air, and hiccupped a few times in no time at all. I first learned about the Scoville scale when I read Little Brother. It’s basically used to figure out how spicy a pepper is. Here’s a quote from the book:

“Pure capsaicin is about fifteen million Scovilles. Tabasco is about twenty-five hundred. Pepper spray is a healthy three million. [...] Some of the real hardcore can get up to a half million or so, about twenty times hotter than Tabasco. That’s pretty freaking hot.”

My response to my pepper is very similar to the narrator’s in a similar situation:

“You know that feeling you get when you take a big bite of horseradish or wasabi or whatever, and it feels like your sinuses are closing at the same time as your windpipe, filling your head with trapped, nuclear-hot air that tries to batter its way out through your watering eyes and nostrils? That feeling like steam is about to pour out your ears like a cartoon character? This was a lot worse. This was like putting your hand on a hot stove, only it’s not your hand, it’s the entire inside of your head, and your esophagus all the way down to your stomach.”

I suppose mine wasn’t quite as bad a response, but I think I’m either more used to spicy food or mine wasn’t quite as spicy as his. Either way, it was by far the spiciest thing I have ever eaten. Too bad I can’t remember the name of it. It took me almost ten minutes until I was completely back to normal again; I couldn’t even feel my tongue for a while. After a 7-up to cool me off, I had an order of beef tacos, which were tremendous. After lunch, we left again onto some more straight, long roads and really got to hauling. Apparently we hit 65 mph at one point; way fun. Really made me miss motorcycling up at the cabin. I’ll have to schedule some more meetings with my grandpa… We got back to the place we started around 1 in the afternoon.

Back at the hotel around 1:30, Mychael and I went to the pool to cool off and get the dirt off of us. After that, it was back to just chilling in the hotel and watching tv. We ordered room service for dinner again and I had a cheeseburger. As usual, the food was great. Haha seems to be getting a little redundant. Not sure what will be going on for the rest of the week, but hopefully we’ll go into town at least once more and find things to do on the other days. I still need ideas on what to buy people, so let leave me a comment if you’re reading. Good night.

Well, the past couple of days have been a lot slower and more “relaxing” I suppose you would put it. Mychael got quite a bit of sunburn (because he decided to ignore requests to put on sunblock) and spend the day indoors all of yesterday. I was bored being stuck inside all day, so I went a couple of times to the Mayan Palace and the Grand Mayan pools. Today was about the same, except Mychael went out with me to the pool for a while. We slept well: 11 hours of sleep. Not too shabby at all. I don’t really have much to say. Tomorrow we have our ATV 4-wheeler ride to look forward to. I expect to get plenty dirty and outrace Mychael all over the jungle. I need ideas for souvenirs for people, so if you’re reading, let me know what you want. All I have so far is a butterfly knife for Austin (Mr. Spah). Peace for now.

Day 6

So we woke up around 9 and drove into town shortly after. I guess I was really tired and not in a buying mood because I didn’t buy or barter for anything in town. The Jaureguis, on the other hand, bought several expensive pieces. They shopped more at the stores in town than the flea market like I would have. Anyway, they seemed more interested in the expensive jewelry. Mychael bought a bracelet for almost $100, Mrs. Jauregui bought a ring and a $200 6 inch silver bull dog to resemble their new dog. Mychael did buy one thing from the flea market: a cool chess set which he bartered down from an original $80 to $65. He probably could have gotten a better deal, but he was a little too into the set. You know, it’s really easy to barter them down. They really want to get money any way possible. Pretty much everyone sells the same thing in all the little stands, with a little variety. But I asked about a few things and everytime I started to walk away the offer went down in price. I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to buy for anyone so I didn’t end up getting anything. We might go back to town, which is good because I feel like bartering some things down next time. I think I might just buy some necklaces, bracelets, Mexican ponchos, hats, and any knives if I can find them. We were looking for the infamous taco stands in town but there were none around at all. It kinda sucked. So we headed back to the greenbreak (the gold course restaurant) and ate there around 3ish. This time I had the club sandwich, which was good once again. Mychael and I headed back around 4 and watched tv while his parents went to the grocery.. I was able to nap for a while and awoke around 6:30. Mrs. Jauregui pan-fried burgers for us, which were great. I went for a walk on the beach around 8:30 and came back around 9, as the beach and pool “close” at 9. Mychael’s parents didn’t notice that I left and almost as soon as I got back, they decided they wanted to go for a walk too. It’s nice because it doesn’t really get dark until close to 10. I watched tv as Mychael finished Little Brother. No surprise with him, it only took him a day. It was pretty much all he did all day anyway. We went to sleep around 2:30, but I didn’t feel asleep until 3:30 or so. The lightning and thunder was amazing at 3 o’clock though; you’d have to be there to have seen it.

Day 7

Mychael and I woke up at 11 and headed out to the Grand Mayan around 11:30 to chill in the lazy river for about an hour and a half. After that, we walked back to the Mayan pool and got a bite to eat at the snack bar there. Myke had the club sandwich while I had some nice BBQ chicken wings. We met up with Mr. And Mrs. Jauregui while we were eating and they ordered some nachos. After that, Mychael and I got on the kayaks for about half an hour, which was pretty fun. We saw a few iguanas and a lot of birds while we were paddling around. Following that, Mychael and I got in a stupid fun little contest that the resort puts together everyday. While we lost in the end, it was fun and we got to talk to some people. We met a few others from Cali and some from Canada too. After that, we also played beach volleyball with the resort people, which once again, was fun. Next, we all headed back to the room and Mrs. Jauregui made some steaks and potatoes for us all. The weather finally calmed down (it was sunny all day and didn’t rain until 8!). On a random note, I also noticed how everyone else around here seems to want the Cali lifestyle: wearing Hollister, American Eagle, Armani X, and all the other stuff you’d see typical of our region. I think shows like The OC and The Hills kinda ruined everyone and became a stupid trend. Oh well. Not a real eventful day, but still a fun one

I slept around 11:30 or so last night; not really sure. I woke around 6:45 and got ready to go fishing. I walked out of my hotel around 7 and walked over the resort right next door. On my walk over, Frank pulled up in his car and I hopped in and we turned around and drove over to the Grand Mayan (next door). We waited a few minutes, chatted a bit about things, and then I met Duke and Emily. They’re from Texas and would accompany us on the fishing expedition. They were both nice and easy to talk to; Duke was probably in his late 40s and Emily is 13, I think. Anyway, Frank sort of gave us a tour through the different towns on our way to the Marina where his captain friend was. Along the way, he pointed out where he lived, where his parents were, and all sorts of all other special and interesting sights. We got there around 8:30 and hopped onto the boat. Within the Marina area, we caught some bait by just throwing the net over and bringing it back up. Hell, to me, that felt like fishing. We caught probably about 100 little fishes (2-3 inches) for bait, along with a few small puffer fish and a small red snapper, which we threw back. Fernado was our captain and I forget the skipper’s name, but the captain was a funny guy and Frank and him constantly gave one another crap in Spanish, as he said they would. I had homemade (by the captain’s wife) fish cevishe on chips with hot sauce. It tasted like lime and tuna salad, and it was really great. We started out catching small (6 inch) silver-looking fish that would act as bait for the big boys. Following, we went out to catch some roosterfish, which gain their names for the feather looking fins they have on their heads. I caught a couple: one was a baby that we had to throw back and the other was big enough to keep. It was a good size and certainly the biggest fish I’ve ever caught. We could have caught many more, but Frank and Fernado really wanted to catch Mahi Mahi. So we began to ride all over looking for Mahi, but unfortunately it wasn’t a Mahi day. Frank said later that we could have gone out further to get Tuna or back to catch more roosters, but as I said earlier, we were looking for Mahi.

Anyway, throughout the trip we talked of jobs, education, politics, weather, cars, pollution, eco-friendliness & awareness, fish, food, differences in States & countries, and anything else that came to mind. I got some pictures but Duke and Emily promised to email me the ones they took themselves. All in all, the fishing trip was great. The weather remained pretty clear; it did rain for about 5-10 minutes and it did burn for about the same time, but it was mostly cloudy and just nice outside. We were all hoping that it was getting back to normal Puerto Vallarta weather (hot and sunny in the day and rainy at night). After we got off, we really only had one fish to account for (my rooster), but as I said, no one much cared, we all had fun. I got back to the hotel around 1ish and found Mychael in our room, playing Pontifex (some bridge-building game I left on the laptop from a while back). Mr. And Mrs. Jauregui were out golfing when I came in. I took a shower to get the fish slime off of me and they were back when I came out. After some tv time, we all went to the pool and chilled out for a few hours. Unfortunately, it began to rain again while in the pool, but I guess we’re used to the rainy weather by now. According to Frank, the taco stand we have been wanting to go to (but couldn’t find) actually turns out to be exactly where we thought it should be, except that the rain has kept him from coming out. As Frank put it the first day we met him, “a little rain and everyone in Mexico is screwed up.”

We ordered room service again for dinner and they continue to impress me as I had shrimp enchiladas which were great. TV and the cyber cafe were all that were left after that. Tomorrow, we’re finally going into downtown Puerto Vallarta to shop, so I can finally get some cheap and real souvenirs. It should be fun. I’m really starting to miss my girlfriend a whole lot and family (a little, haha jk). It’s fun here, but it really makes me appreciate what I have back at home in my life. Ok ok, no more cute stuff Good night

So today we had the canopy El Eden tour. I had trouble sleeping again; last I checked, I was up until 2 am. Well, at least this time I didn’t wake at all until I was risen at 9. We met for the tour at 11 and left four an hour and a half trip in a bus to the jungle where we would be zip-lining. Probably the best part of the bus ride was the fact that we drove through downtown Puerto Vallarta where all the shops, markets, and flee markets are. I think we’ll be going there on Friday to shop and whatnot. Jeez.. the streets are friggin crazy. Our bus is literally like touching the car next to it when it drives. It’s no wonder both sides of the bus’ mirrors are cracked. Eventually, right after downtown, we started the climb up the mountains into the jungle. The bus ride was crazy, considering all the rain lately. Today it was close to “typical” weather; sunny during the day and rainy at night. Except, it wasn’t really sunny; overcast more than anything. So, back to the busride, we had to trek up these crappy one “lane” road where we occasionally ran into some other car and took time backing up or moving too close to one side of the road. Needless to say, we did indeed make it to El Eden Canopy.

El Eden, if you didn’t know, was where they filmed the Predator movie. We actually ziplinned over the area where they filmed the movie. Ziplining was a ton of fun, especially the ones that were 400 feet up and 1600 feet long. Definitely a lot of fun. I suppose the only thing wrong was the bit of hiking it took to get to the next zipline. It was about 80 degrees and everyone was sweating. Apparently I didn’t sweat much because everyone kept asking me if I had sweat glands. Haha anyway, the staff people there were really cool and funny. It’s nice to see people still have a sense of humor when they only make like $20 a day, if that. And apparently that’s good for a Mexican wage. 50 pesos a day I hear is the norm ($5!). It’s really sad when you think about it… Well, back to the zipline. I won 5 pesos off Mychael by screaming the well-known Leeroy Jenkins chant 300 feet over the camp. Almost as soon as we were done with the ziplines, it began to rain. In other words, our bus ride back was even crazier than the ride there, if you’d believe that. After all was done, we didn’t get back to the hotel until 6 o’clock. Back at the hotel, we showered, Mrs. Jauregui made burgers and we pretty much just watched tv the rest of the night. We also stopped by the cyber cafe again to check e-mails and get caught up. I’ll have to try to sleep earlier tonight to get up for fishing tomorrow with Frank. Night.

Day 2

So today was pretty crazy. While we were only had the Owner’s Breakfast thing planned, it took up a large chunk of the day. We showed up at 8:30 and met the guy that would give us the tour of all the new things “since last we came.” Well, apparently the Jaureguis got caught into this timeshare 10 years ago when they last came and haven’t been back since. Everyone they heard this was like “WTF why?!” It was quite comical. So I guess they had been paying maintenance fees every year since and yet had never come. They’re not really traveling people and they wanted to get Mychael through high school I suppose. While the weather was really rainy and windy, the guy that was showing us around named Frank was really tight. Too bad for him, he had 10 years of information to fill us in on. He was still a really funny guy and had a lot of good stories. We had breakfast together and he showed us the new buildings they were making and the new rooms. The difference between them and the one we’re staying at are tremendous. They’re not only bigger (and I thought the one we’re at now is big!), but they are also much more technologically up-to-date. Apparently there is going to be free wireless internet too, which caught Mychael’s and my eyes. We talked a long while discussing all the fees and whatnot and in the end the Jaureguis ended up upgrading to a Bliss hotel room. It’s kind of cool, because Mychael and his parents can probably sell out the room some of the time and make a profit, yet whoever they’d be selling to would still get a better price then they could online unless they were a part of the hotel themselves. Frank also offered to take us fishing and since none of the others were real keen on fishing, I told him I’d join him. So Thursday at 7, I’ll be meeting him and we’re going out for a few hours to go deepsea fishing! Woohoo! I’ve never been and have always wanted to go.

After we got roped into upgrading the deal, it was 1:00 o’clock and still raining pretty hard. Mychael and I hit up the cyber cafe and purchased the unlimited wireless access for a week, so I should be on about twice a day now. Mychael and I headed out to the pool afterwards. It was nice. Despite the rain, it was still warm out and the pool wasn’t half bad. After, we had lunch at the greenbreak, a restaurant next to the golf course at the hotel. The food there was really good. I had a sea bass fillet sandwich on a baggette with chipotle mayo. Following the late lunch, all four of us played poker for a few hours in our room (Mychael brought cards and chips). I went to the cyber cafe again after that but no one was really on. I was going to come back in an hour, but their internet went down, so I wasn’t able to. The stupid phone card still won’t work with the hotel phone.

Day 3

I awoke several times during the night and had to take an advil around 6:30 because my head was killing me, but I was able to fall back asleep by 7 and slept in til 11:30 afterwards. It had finally stopped raining and looked like it was going to stay that way. Mychael and I headed over to the other hotel because they have a lazy river pool, a wave pool, and a slide. The slide and wave pool were pretty lame, but the lazy pool is always fun. Following that, we went on the beach and felt how warm the water was. If it hadn’t been so brown, we might have actually enjoyed going in. Mychael’s parents had gone golfing while we were asleep. They were there when we got back. We all showered and then headed into town to buy some groceries. We found a nice little Mexican restaurant on our way back to the hotel and it was really quite nice. They gave us fish tacos and that good Mexican soup (the spicy tomato soup) and we ordered shrimp quesadillas and got bottled cokes and deep-fried bananas. All of it was really great actually. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the taco stand we had been searching for. I guess we’ll have to look for that later on. Frank recommended some other good places and I’m going to ask where exactly that taco stand is. After we got back, Mychael and I went back to the cyber cafe and I was able to talk to Mike and Chase for a littlle. After the cafe, all four of us went down to the pool, but unfortunately, it began to rain rather hard again. So we headed in and we decided to watch tv as we had pretty much any time that we got bored. We ordered room service for dinner.

Tomorrow we’re going on a canopy adventure; the type where you attach to ropes and slide down them in the trees. It looks to be a whole lot of fun. Can’t wait!

So since Saturday and Sunday seemed clumped into one big day with no real sleeping period between the two, I’ll start with Saturday. Most of the beginning of the day went into packing and getting ready for the trip. I decided to leave extra early to her house to pick her up for the Angels game. I don’t know why, but I just had a feeling I should. So I took the “new” Tahoe my grandpa gave us (namely, Austin) and headed out there around 3:45. Of course, by a complete stroke of misfortune, there happened to be a fire that started thanks to a carfire off of the 57 freeway. So a normally 20 minute drive was changed into an hour and a half. For that, I was glad I left so early and that I took a car with air conditioning. Well, just our luck, John Lackey pitched his worst performance all season and we ended up losing 7-5. We almost came back in the bottom of the 9^th, but it ended up with nothing. There was still a bit of traffic as they hadn’t completely contained the fire yet, but they opened up an extra couple of lanes compared to the 2 that were open when I drove by earlier. The game was an hour earlier than usual (6:05 instead of 7:05), so it ended at 9. I left around midnight, finished packing, and Chase dropped me off around 2 at the Jaureguis.

Mychael and I watched Resident Evil: Apocalypse until we had to leave for LAX. Once at LAX, we passed time waiting for our plane playing cards, reading books, checking my laptop for internet access (unsuccessfully), and my personal favorite, playing Pokemon. I brought an old Gameboy Advance and Pokemon Blue to bring back some good memories. The time passed rather quickly actually and we were took off of our flight as scheduled at 8 AM. At this point, I had not slept at all, so the plane provided me with a good 3 hour nap. Funnily enough, I wasn’t really tired before or after the plane ride. We got into Puerto Vallarta around 1 PM local time (we’re 2 hours ahead here) and rented a VW Jetta. Of course, it was a bit cramped with all the bags and us four, but we lived. Jeez.. now I know why all the Mexican drivers in Cali are so bad at driving: people are crazy out here. We got to the hotel after stopping at the Corona Factory and picking up a 6 pack. It was funny, the guy who drove us in the shuttle to the car rental place told us drinking and driving is fine, just “not drive drunk.” And sure enough later on, some guy walked out of his minivan lighting a cigarette, wearing no shirt showing off his beer-belly, and drinking a Tecate. We got to the hotel around 3, but had to wait for our room to be ready for a couple of hours, so we headed to the snack hut near the pools for some lunch. The service was pretty bad and it took forever to get our stuff, but it was still good: nachos and burgers all around. Of course, all three Jaureguis had some drinks: Margaritas, Pina Coladas, and Coronas. I was just happy to have that fulfilling taste of soda back in my mouth. Mostly because of the vacation, but also due to the fact that I’m in Mexico (infected water capitol of the world), I decided I’d put a hold on my no-soda thing and drink all the soda I want. Still, I don’t drink alcohol; although the peer pressure is enormous

Anyway, we got to our room around 5 and the view from it is amazing. Not only that, but Mychael and I basically have our own room with our own beds each. It’s really a great vacation; no switching between couch and floor every other day with someone, although I really wouldn’t mind that either. Mychael and I both fell asleep watching tv in our beds. I woke up around 7:30 and just hung out with Mychael’s parents. It’s cool because they’re not like the awkward parents that are hard to talk to or get along with; we joke a lot and they are really fun to be around. After a while, they left to get some groceries and I explored around a little on my own, as I like to do. I found the cyber cafe and checked rates and looked through the gift shop, grocery store, and gym. It was raining on and off before and the cloud coverage makes it a lot cooler (the weather is like perfect), but by this point, thunder and lightning were constant, which is always an exciting setting. I came back around 9:30, just as Mychael’s parents came back in. After that I decided to hit up the cyber cafe (internet isn’t free here) and talked with some people, including Cody and Chase for about half an hour. The rates aren’t too bad. $4 for half an hour, $7 for an hour, $10 for unlimited all-day access, and $35 for unlimited one week access. I was thinking about buying the last one so I can stay in touch with people. That’s mostly because my phone card that my mom bought me doesn’t seem to want to work with the hotel phones. I’m pretty sure that if I find a payphone somewhere, I’ll be okay.

So here I am now, 12:15 in the AM, not especially tired, but probably going to pass out soon with so little sleep in me. Mychael awoke around 11:30 and I hopped in the shower. Unfortunately, I found that I brought the wrong cord for my camera and can’t upload pictures periodically throughout the trip. Highlights of today’s pictures are some of the view from our room, my first soda in I don’t know how long, and some of Myke on candid-cam. I guess I’m done for now. Tomorrow’s plans include an apparently amazing free breakfast at 8:30 then nothing. Mychael and I are probably just gonna chill out while his parents go golfing. We’ll probably hit up the pool and beach or something. So, good night and I’ll post this up tomorrow some time.