Our Final Day In Puerto Vallarta (Tuesday, July 17th, 2018)

 Today is our final day in Puerto Vallarta! When we finished breakfast, we headed to the office and checked out, and left our luggage with them for the day. We are doing another bus adventure today, just to keep us busy until our flight takes off at 6:00 tonight. We walked up the hill and caught the “Walmart” bus on the north highway 200. Several buses went by before we saw the right bus. 

We rode the bus for about half an hour, then got off several stops before the “Sams / Walmart” stop. 


Our goal today was to find Costco without a Taxi, and to check it out to see what they carry.  After getting off the bus, we had to walked about 3/4 of a mile to get to the Costco, and some of it was kind of jungley, but with nice sidewalks the whole way.

When we went inside, we were amazed, it was so much like the Costcos in the US. As we entered, they had the photo and optical center, and as we wandered through, almost everything else was the same as well. It was super clean and very well air conditioned. We didn’t need anything (especially since we are leaving tonight), but we walked the whole store, just browsing. 

The parking lots aren't nearly as busy as in the U.S.

Quail eggs.  You won't find this in a U.S. Costco!

Chili Rellanos and some Mexican dishes.

We stayed and shared a ceasar salad at Costco, but then it was getting late, so rather than taking the bus back, we chose to grab a taxi. 

 A man at the entrance to Costco went out to the main road to call a taxi for us. I asked the driver how much from Costco to the Romantic zone for two, and he quoted us 80 pesos about $5 US. That seemed like a bargain, so we jumped in. He drove us on a road called Calle Francisco Villa, which circled up above the city, and through the “Nuevo” tunnel before dropping back down into the romantic zone. The ride was super quick, so instead of going directly back to our hotel, we went for a quick walk down to the water taxi stand to get some fresh air. The beach was very busy today! Not what I expected on a Tuesday. 

After wandering around the beach for a few minutes, we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags, then headed right across the street to the taxi stand to get a taxi to the airport. Again, I asked the driver how much for two people to the airport, he said 200 pesos. That is 145 pesos cheaper than the ride from the airport to our hotel. I think there are a lot of fees that the drivers have to pay at the airport. 

Our driver had a nice, new Toyota with great air conditioning. It felt good after being out in the heat all day. Again, our taxi ride was very quick! We got checked in at the airport and headed up stairs to go through security. Security was a bit unorganized, and there wasn’t a separate line for TSA PRE, but it went quickly and was no problem at all. Once inside security, there was a Subway, a Starbucks and a Sborro (if I remember correctly), then as we made our way down to our gate, there was another pizzeria restaurant and a Johnny Rockets hamburgers. The airport was really clean, including the restrooms, which was great!

We arrived back in Los Angeles about 20 minutes early.  We made out to our car and headed back to Havasu.  We arrived back home a little after 1:00 am, just as a monsoon storm was coming into town.  Lightening and thunder everywhere around us.  We were too tired to care so just jumped in bed with lots of great memories of Puerto Vallarta in our head!  We will definitely be heading back!