Puerto Vallarta, a visit to the Vallarta Botanical Gardens, Feb 15 & 17

Saturday morning after a quick breakfast, Carlos picked us up as arranged at 9am. Traffic Through downtown Puerto Vallarta is really great today.

The gardens are located up a mountain valley, on the far side of Puerto Vallarta and Mismaloya Beach area. The drive thereias an hour and 45 minutes. Carlos stopped in a couple of places so we could take some pictures on the way. Then we left the coast and headed inland. 

These rocks are a popular place for tour boats to take swimmers and people to snorkle.

Carlos and me.

We arranged to be picked up 4 hours later.

What a beautiful place. So much colour. After purchasing our tickets, we walked to the Restaurant and Gift Store and began our tour there.

The Vallarta Botanical Garden is a 79 acres botanical garden at 1,300 ft above sea level, near Puerto Vallarta Mexico, of which 73 acres are dedicated to a reserve. The garden was founded in 2004 and is open to the public since 2005.

They have a family of tortoises under the bridge.

A small church at the top of these stairs being guarded by a peacock!

He's guarding the 2 peahens having a nap inside.

Lots of stairs, up and down.

The swinging bridge.

This video is for you Dianne!

Stairs down to the path that goes to the river.

Time for lunch before the restaurant gets too busy. What a view.

All the taxi drivers eating lunch at the bar.

We ate the most delicious lunch. Prawn tacos for me and Mahi Mahi tacos for Ray. Best Mexican food we've had so far.

Being Saturday, there's live music and dancers.

There's also a pianist accompanying the violin

The kids are so cute and it's neat to hear what we consider the traditional Mexican music.

After lunch, we viewed the gift shop and went through the Cactus House and Orchid House.

While Ray carried on going back to areas to take more pictures, I found a seat with a fan blowing on me as the day heated up significantly. lol

Beautiful mosaic pathways.

Entrance to the restaurant and gift shop.

The Conservatory

Coconut Palm at our resort

A great four hours wandering around. Carlos returned precisely at 2:30 for pickup for our long ride back to the hotel. Certainly a bunch more traffic Saturday afternoon. We were going smoothly until we got near the Puerto Vallarta Marina, then BAM! we were stuck. Apparently there are 5 accidents on the stretch to get over the bridge into Nuevo Vallarta. There is no other bridge or way to get over the river. We were stuck moving ever so slowly for over an hour, so a 1 hour and 45 minute trip ended up taking nearly 3 hours. We were certainly glad to get back to the hotel finally. Luckily Carlos has A/C so we didn't "fry" in the car. The trip was 2000 pesos plus 600 peso tip. He is a great driver and tour guide. He will pick us up tomorrow at 1:30 pm to take us to the airport. Hopefully the traffic is better.

Back at the hotel they had set up some tables on the beach for Valentines and for a big price you could eat there with your sweetheart. We ate at the Buffet!

The peaceful path to the Buffet past the Ayami Restaurant.

Our last sunset.

Sunday, our flight doesn't leave until 5 pm, so we hung out at the resort for several hours after packing up our stuff. We had breakfast and lunch and sat on the beach for a couple of hours in the shade before going back up to our room and changing into our "going home" clothes. 

Carlos picked us up at 1:30 from the lobby. Traffic wasn't bad until we took the turn off to the airport and then kaos .... apparently 10 flights going out this afternoon. Took us about 15 minutes to get to the departure area of the airport after turning onto the access road. Good thing we have priority boarding as it took us half the time to get checked in.  Unfortunately for the people behind us, one of our suitcases was too heavy so we had to open up the two big ones and resdistribute while at the check-in counter. Oh well, that only took about 5 minutes longer. lol

These people are in the regular check-in line. The dog crates are rescues heading for a better home.

This picture is of the line behind us and further past them is the rest of the regular check-in line. HUGE! I can't see the end of it.

By 3:30 we were through security and waiting for boarding at 4:30. Everything went smoothly, the plane took off only about 20 minutes late but made up time in the air. We arrived in Victoria at 8 pm Pacific Time. After going through customs and taking the shuttle to the hotel, we were settled for the night at 9 pm. Long day, both of us went right to sleep.

With our bodies still on Mexico time, we were up at 5:30 am, and after a quick breakfast (included), we were on the road by 6:15 am as temperatures are warm at 4C, so no worry about freezing roads.

Monday's a Family Day holiday, so traffic is non-existant. A very quick drive home to the lake. After a quick stop at Country Grocer for some basics, like milk, we pulled into our driveway at 8:30 am. There's still snow on the ground, but the driveway and roadway are clear thanks to our neighbour Mike, who I saw shovelling it via my security camera yesterday. Good to be home.