The Larsens: Certified

We are officially certified. Scuba Certified.

In May, we took a trip to Puerto Vallarta. It was amazing (besides my incredibly awful sunburn. Blistered shoulders and swollen calves.)

Picture taken while on the bus. I tried to take this picture about 10 times.
This one is compliments of Paul's photography skills.

The first night we stayed in PV and explored the marina area. We had delicious ceviche and guacamole for dinner and then walked home in the rain. (Thankfully the weather cleared up, Tropical Storm Bob left, and the rest of the trip we had fabulous weather...hence Severely Burnt Brittany).

Our hotel in Puerto Vallarta

Ceviche and Guac

For the rest of our trip, we got a great deal on Groupon to stay at an incredible resort in Nuevo Vallarta. And then spent a whole morning being ~~coerced~~ talked into buying a timeshare and saying NO about 50 times... I was almost sold, but Paul convinced me otherwise. He's a smarty! We got 2 free massages out of the lengthy experience, so that almost made up for the wasted morning.

Resort in Nuevo Vallarta

Although we didn't spend a ton of time during the day at the resort, it was fun to be in such a nice place. And they had these incredible drinks... a swirl of both a virgin strawberry daquiri and a virgin pina colada. It was divine and we definitely drank a ton! Our room was quite wonderful. We had a suite with a kitchen and living room, a balcony with our own little pool on it and a huge bathtub in our bedroom. It was AMAZING!

Nuevo Vallarta is about 20 mins away from anything. It's a resort town with just a ton of resorts along the water. We didn't realize that before we went, so we ended up taking the bus to the city most days.They have two different kinds of buses there. The buses that stay in the Puerto Vallarta area are essentially a box with very thin metal for the sides. They are super rickety and the bus drivers drive so close to each other that you can reach out and touch the bus next to you. The other kind of bus, the one that leaves Puerto Vallarta, is like a charter bus with cushion seats and air conditioning (working only half the time).

On the rickety bus.
This cute kid came on and played the drums and then kept starring at us.

And in typical style, I have a really hard time finishing a blog post so in an effort to finally finish the rest is just pictures. We spent the remainder of our trip getting scuba certified, exploring the little towns by local bus and scooter and lounging at the beach and resort.

We took the bus to Bucerias, checked out the little town and then walked home on the beach.

Our scuba instructor Davy

Boat ride out to the diving location at Las Marietas.

View from the boat on the way to dive at Las Caletas.

Worst sunburn of my life... both my shoulders blistered
(try putting on a wetsuit, vest and oxygen tank over the top of blisters. Ouch!)

Rented a scooter for a day and explored the area. We went to the botanical gardens, the zoo, a movie set, all over Puerto Vallarta and into the hills, and checked out a few little towns up the coast. My favorite day of the whole trip.

One of the stops on our scooter ride

Misamaloya. Beautiful little town we explored on our scooter. The town was setting up for a celebration, so we sat and ate chips and guacamole and watched the action.