My Mini Mexican Holiday ☼

If we took a holiday

Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be so nice

As promised my "weekend" update. This will cover Saturday May 15th through Monday May 17th, but in order to not overwhelm you with the wonderful details of my weekend I'll try to keep the details brief. I would like it to be known that I was entirely done this last night (the 17th) but my internet went out so I couldn’t post it.

Saturday was my second early morning after a late night. We were meeting to catch a bus to Manzanillo, it is about 1 hour away and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. During the bus ride I spent most of my time writing my last blog entry.

We arrived in downtown Manzanillo and were told to kill some time because we would not be able to check into our hotel yet. Manzanillo is both bigger and touristier than Colima. As I mentioned earlier Manzanillo is the sailfish capital of the world, but it also seems to be the jellyfish capital of the world. We went to look at the docks and there was hardly a spot in the water that there weren’t any jellyfish.

We spent some time shopping, then we had brunch, and headed to our hotel. It was great, right on the ocean plus there were waves were huge! We dropped our bags off in our room (yup, I got to share a room - not a loner this time) and we headed down to the water.

It was a great afternoon, sun tanning, swimming, buying things off of the vendor men who came by with their masses of stuff. Now when I say these waves are huge I mean in relation to wave I have swam in, these were the kind of waves that if you don't time things properly and dive under the crashing wave you will be thrown tumbling ass over head onto the beach and possibly even acquire some lovely sand burns on your bum (this may have happened to me, but only once I assure you).

It was a long great day in the sun before we were headed to a nice Mexican restaurant for dinner. Half of our group had been enjoying a beverage or two on the beach during the day, and about half of us had not been. When we went to dinner this distinction may have been clearly evident. Dinner was great, traditional Mexican food, well maybe I should specify that most food was good, some was okay, but the atmosphere and the wine was great. I had a crazy hot bowl dinner thing that although the meat was very tasty it was just not for me.

At the point when dinner had come to an end those who had not been enjoying beverages earlier in the day were surely caught up to those who had been. We walked down the street towards our hotel to find a establishment to go to for the evening. We stumbled upon a Senor Frogs-esque place and went inside. By this time it was around 11pm perhaps and the bar was all but empty.

I won’t get into the details but I will say that, as per proven history, some of the best nights of my life end the worst and this was no exception. It was great. I even got to lifeguard a dark ocean at 3am. I’ll leave the stories for those of us who experienced.

Clearly we had a late night all around, but I think it might go down as one of, if not the, best night of the trip.

We had to be up pretty early the next morning (Sunday 16th) so we could go to breakfast and head on to our next stop, Barra de Navidad.

Breakfast was a buffet at a mall, which was both weird and did not settle many stomachs.

The bus ride was about an hour North, and once again our hotel was on the Ocean. Barra is such a cute touristy little town – well at least what I saw of it. The streets were narrow enough that the bus stopped about 5 blocks away from our hotel and we walked in.

Because I am the odd man out of this UofC Colima party and 17 doesn’t split evenly I was initially supposed to room with the three Mexican students who were accompanying us on the trip. Not knowing this I had made plans to stay 5 in a room as opposed to 4. This didn’t prove to be a problem initially, however when we got to our second hotel they wanted to charge us for the extra room, although the prof wanted nothing to do with this I willingly paid the $34 for an extra king sized bed. Mexico is so fabulous.

Upon arriving most of the group split up. The girls I was rooming with and I headed out to do some shopping. Because Barra is a tourist location it has those great shops lined up in which every store has essentially the same thing with some slight variations and you barter to get a steal of a deal. I’ve never really liked bartering because it always made me really uncomfortable and made me feel really unsure of myself. But I had a great time, and I think it even turned out really well.

The odd thing about going from somewhere like Colima, where it is the real day to day Mexico, to somewhere touristy is how different they are. I kept expecting to use the little Spanish I knew to try and get by, but they had menus in English, and the sale people spoke English, and there were people other than our group speaking English and looking blonde. I actually felt kind of lazy speaking in English because here in Colima it is so much work to get the message across but I am always astounded how even when my homestay mom speaks only Spanish to me and I speak only English to her the message (for the most part) seems to get across.

After shopping was lunch, with vegetables! and guacamole (as always). After lunch was the ocean. There were tons of people walking up and down the beach selling goods, lots of silver and lots of beaded bracelets. I only bought a few things.

The ocean was nice but there were jellyfish this time, again I luckily did not get stung. The waves weren’t as big and the current wasn’t as strong as in Manzanillo, which was a little sad because I had lots of fun there. Most of the day’s beach going was spent lying around in the sun.

We went to dinner that night at a very adorable restaurant just down the street from our hotel, it had an open upper level that overlooked the ocean and the sunset. It was pretty awesome, and the food was even pretty delicious. I had the fillet minon.

After dinner we were all pretty tired and mostly desired a laid back night after the crazy night we had before. Across the street from our hotel was a bar that was serving two for one Margaritas so most of us decided to head over. After a few drinks we headed back to the hotel to go for a swim. Security was nice enough to keep the pool open an extra 3 hours until 1am for us.

Not many people swam but it was really nice. Again a few of the people swimming wanted to head into the ocean for a midnight dip – I was asked to watch them, which was pretty much impossible because it was so dark. I stood and watched until I got bored and tired, then I went to bed, I’m the best lifeguard ever. Don’t worry I made sure they all made it out alive.

The next morning (Monday 17th) I woke up to a rather concerned, shall I say screaming roommate. It seems that whatever alarms were set to wake us up had failed and we had to be downstairs to go to breakfast in 9 minutes. We made it.

Although we found out that breakfast ended up being optional and we could have kept sleeping I was glad we went. Breakfast was in a lovely little restaurant that overlooked a lagoon and they served us fruit with yogurt and granola, pretty much my favorite thing. After breakfast was an optional boat ride for 90 minutes that most people had intended to go on but because the return time was so close to our check out time most people didn’t go.

Instead of going I did some shopping, and actually bought some of the things I had been looking at the day before then went to the pool/beach for a quick suntan before showering and getting back on the bus to come to Colima.

We boarded the bus for the 2 hour ride home. I think I slept, or was in a half-sleep state the entire way back it went by very quickly and was very refreshing. Stepping off the bus around 4pm was staggeringly hot. I walked home, checked the internet – something I had been without for 3 days – and headed to Starbucks for some air conditioned homework time. I was there until 10:30 when I walked home. Tomorrow we have an assignment due and then it is time to do more writing. I can’t believe that in just over a week I will be leaving.

Today’s High: doesn’t matter because I was inside air-conditioned places 85% of the time :)

Today I learned:

• Mexico with Ocean > Mexico without Ocean
• I might be kind of alright at bartering
• I don’t know how I feel about touristy Mexico, although it is very nice it is so very different than actual Mexico, which I think has more character and warmth (figuratively)
• I would like to learn how to surf
• 4 shots of tequila in 4 minutes equals first year drunk

I am grateful for:

• Friends that think I’m funny while at my worst
• Beaches and spf
• Big silver rings
• Tan lines
• Freckles on my face

The Jellyfish in the harbor in Manzanillo, actually everywhere.

My view from my hotel room in Manzanillo.

My very traditional meal in Manzanillo.

View from my hotel room in Barra de Navidad.

Our dinner in Barra. Gorgeous.