Marina, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Tuesday, October 9th, 2018)

We enjoyed a very slow, relaxing morning this morning, and even brought some coffee back up to our patio to enjoy.  OK, I'll fess up, we both did some sit ups and push ups, but that was our big workout for the day.  We had our nice healthy lunch on our porch, and then headed out to catch the bus to the marina.  

When we were here in July, we tried hard to find a bus schedule or bus route for the local buses here in Puerto Vallarta, but there aren't any.  So yesterday we went down to the office and talked to Betsy to see if she could bestow some of her wisdom on us.  She said that all of the local buses stop by the park that is just above our hotel, Based on the writing on the wind shield, you then pick the bus you want to ride. 

So after lunch we walked up to the park to find the bus that was going to the Marina.  And sure enough, the second bus that came by was the one we wanted.  We jumped on and rode for about 45 minutes to the Marina at the north end of town.  The cost was 7.5 pesos each which is about 40 cents.  And the big bus news is....they got all new buses with A/C!  Yes, A/C!  This is huge.  We can now ride in luxury around town!  

We jumped off at the entrance to the Marina District because we wanted to spend some time walking through the neighborhood.    There are actually three marinas.  The outermost is the cruise ship area, then there is an outer marina, then a smaller inner marina.  We started our journey walking along the inner marina.  You can see a cruise ship in the distance.

The marina has a lot of houses and condos, and what appeared to be a very nice golf course.  When we got hot and tired, we ducked into the Mariott to cool down for a few minutes.

From the beach at the Marriott we could look across the bay to where we are staying.  The dark spot on the beach is the seahorse statue on the beach by us.

Once we had cooled off, we headed back out for a little bit more walking.  We came upon this pretty big iguana having some lunch in the park.

And we kept seeing these much smaller green lizards everywhere.Some were at leat a foot long.

 And a pretty butterfly.  

It looks so different with it's wings open.

Apparently there are also crocodiles in Puerto Vallarta.  There were warning signs around the marina, and apparently they have been sighted at the Malecon.  Yikes!  I didn't realize that there are crocodiles here.

We made our way back to the Marriott, where we would be meeting a group of people for happy hour.  This group of expats meets about six times a month at various locations around town.  Today's gathering was at a sports bar called Champions in the Marriott.  They had a very nice menu and discounted prices (30%) for the ex-pat group which was really nice. 

We had a chance to talk to some really nice people and have some great food and we got to see the Marina district for the first time too, so all in all, it was a really fun day!

After happy hour with the ex-pats, we caught a bus back to our neighborhood and walked along the beach home.  It was a beautiful night with a beautiful yet simple sun set.

The view from the water taxi stand.

Hurricane Rosa came by this area about a week ago, and the beaches are still quite rough.  They are much rougher than when we were here in July of this year.

This is our home sweet home.  We are in the 4th floor penthouse suite called the Palomera.  It gives us a lot of nice private outdoor space which we really like!

We intended for today to be a leisurely day, but even with our bus ride and happy hour time with the expats we still managed to get over 12,000 steps (4.9 miles) and 16 flights of stairs.  Not bad!