La Playa Parte Dos: Guayabitos

Thursday afternoon I left the house with Alice around 3 to go to the bookstore, but we ended up going all over the place. I had to pick up my laundry at 7 but other than that we felt like we had a lot of time, so we went to the Museo de la Ciudad in the centro historico (which was pretty small and useless but free!) and ended up meeting with Matt (one of her CEPE classmates) at the bookstore and going out for drinks on Chipultapec. Alice and Matt are both more than ten years older than me, so it was fun to talk to them about life after college and just funny to talk to them about technology (like Facebook).

We ended up sitting around and talking for probably two hours and by the time we were done the Laundromat had closed so Alice and I went out to Indian food because we had the time. The chicken vindaloo that I got was ridiculously spicy and nothing like other vidaloos I’ve had before. I thought that maybe Mexican Indian food would be good because mole is very similar to curry, but I was sadly disappointed. We probably got back around 9 or 10, so I had failed to run any of my errands before leaving for the beach! I did, however, manage to buy the first Harry Potter in Spanish.

FRIDAY (2/5)
We took another Primera Plus bus from the Zapopan station to Guayabitos. It was a quick and easy four hour ride compared to the bus ride to Barra de Navidad. All the scenery was pretty much the same, but when we got close to the beach this time it started looking a lot more lush and green.

We stayed at the De Cameron Hotel, an all inclusive resort right on the beach. It was made up of three different areas, all with its own restaurant, pool, and bar, and all painted in very bright colors. Nikiya and I shared a room and then Cassandra and Elan each got their own rooms. Our rooms were in the nicer part of the hotel, farther away from the beach. The beach itself was much tamer than Barra de Navidad. The sad little waves that lapped the shore reminded me of Pinecrest Lake, but the sand was soft and I didn’t end up doing much swimming anyway.

We all met up on the beach after checking out our rooms and went for a nice stroll down the beach during sunset. The further we got from our hotel, the bigger the waves got but they never got as crazy as Barra de Navidad. After the sun set around 6 it got pretty cold so we went back to our rooms to warm up and we planned to meet for dinner at 8. This turned out to be a big mistake at least for me and Nikiya because we got so hungry. To pass the time I watched Nikelodeon in Spanish. It's surprising how much I was able to follow.

We had a buffet dinner at the Tropical Restaurant which is where we ended up eating all our meals because you didn’t have to make a reservation. Afterwards, Elan, Nikiya, and I went to explore the surrounding area which was basically one long road with very few open shops. The hotel claimed to have a club, so we went to check that out and ended up being three of maybe nine people in there. The DJ took suggestions so Nikiya and I asked for lots of Lady Gaga and danced a little bit, but the whole thing was a little sad. Us girls ended up going to bed around midnight because we knew we were going to have to get up early-ish for whale watching!

SATURDAY (2/6)
We met to go whale watching at ten in the morning and piled into a small boat with a few other people. One of the guys on our boat had been there for a while, filming the whales for a nationally broadcast special about the nature around the Pacific Coast of Mexico, so he was pretty knowledgeable and spoke English and Spanish very well. He and our boat driver seemed to have been working together for a while. He said he had been trying for a long time to get good underwater shots but every time he jumped in the water the whales would get freaked out and swim away.

We drove out into the bay for at least half an hour and then they told us to start looking for whales. We would know we saw one by a big splash or spray of water. And so we looked. We had been out on the water for about an hour, and I had kind of given up so I was staring blankly out at the water, when I saw a giant tail rise up out of the water and splash down pretty far away. I yelled out and pointed in the direction of the splash and we started really booking it over there. About five minutes later we got to the group of whales (which the filming guy said was a mother and baby and at least one other whale). The baby, which was bigger than our boat, was kind of rolling around on the surface. I couldn’t really see it except for a few odd flippers flopping and waving around. I imagine it was learning the feel of the surface and getting a feel for its surroundings while the adult whales kept an eye out for danger. The filming guy said immediately when we got there that this was going to be an excellent sighting and maybe five minutes later two of the adults started jumping! I got it all on video. Cassandra said in her six years of doing this trip with students she had never seen a whale jump out of the water (the Spanish verb is brincar).



We followed that group for a while and then the filming guy decided to jump in to get some underwater shots. He was so funny. From the beginning of the sighting he said we have to call out to the whales because they are curious creatures and they will come looking for the source of the weird noises. So the whole time he was calling out to the whales with odd squeaking noises kind of like Dori in Finding Nemo. When he jumped in the water with his snorkel on it only got funnier. He ended up getting really close to the mom and baby and said he got some really good shots.

We went off to where another group of whales was being very active, but by the time we got there they had stopped jumping because there were so many boats nearby. On our way back in we came upon the first mother-child pair from the beginning and our filming friend got a few more good underwater shots.

After getting back and eating lunch we tried to rent a catamaran from the hotel, but apparently we needed to make a reservation in the morning. Elan got the only kayak left with the hopes of going out to some of the islands in the bay, but he had to stay within a small roped off section so I just laughed at him and swam around his kayak. Then we got the idea to rent a jet ski. The jet skis weren’t part of the resort so we actually had to pay money and they were asking 450 pesos for half an hour. Our problem was that none of us even brought that much money with us because the resort was all inclusive. Elan had talked to one of the guys earlier in the day and the guy took the price down to 400 for forty minutes because Elan spoke Spanish, so we went and found the same guy and split the cost.

It was so much fun! Elan drove for most of the time, but I got to drive too. I gave up after maybe five minutes though. It was such a weird feeling, going so fast over the water, and turning was pretty unsettling. We went almost all the way down the beach to where there weren’t restaurants or hotels along the water and rode in a lot of circles. Toward the end Elan discovered that by going at the waves in a certain spot really fast we could jump off the water, so we kept going around in big circles to get to those waves and go back around for more. Neither of us had watches so we just headed back to the beach when we thought it was time and our guy waved us in. Then Elan went to go get his money in his room and I found out that we had been flagged in five minutes early, so I went and talked to the guy and he said we could have another turn around to make up for it. Since Elan was gone I convinced Nikiya to go with me and I drove. I took us around in those same big circles and got some good jumps. Nikiya loved it and kept telling me to go faster. I’m happy she got a chance to go out too.

After dinner we met a rowdy group of old Canadians and ended up talking to them for hours. Two of them were married with three kids a little younger than us and I, apparently, reminded them a lot of their youngest daughter, Marley. The other guy was this awesome old gay guy named Brad from Alberta who was there with his husband trying to buy a condo in Guayabitos. After we got kicked off the patio where the Cactus Bar was for being too loud and we moved on to the “club” again, Brad and I talked a lot about politics, gay marriage, healthcare, and Palo Alto. He was such a cute little guy and he talked with that cheery Midwestern accent that made everything he said sound happy.

Overall, it was a fun weekend. Very different from my Barra de Navidad experience but still a good time. We left Guayabitos around 1:30pm on Sunday and got back to Guadalajara around 6 (Guadalajara is one hour ahead of Guayabitos).