SPF 110, Free Room Service & Tiny Turtles (Mexico Part One)

Last year Jesse was asked to be the best man for his best friend, who was the best man in our wedding. If you’re feeling brave you can find a mini-recap of our wedding here, but it’s from the very beginning of this blog and I just discovered how to round the edges of photos, so consider yourself warned :)

We were so excited for our friend, and got even ore excited when it was decided that the wedding was in Mexico! I’ve been working long weeks for the past year and couldn’t wait for the getaway. At the start January we slipped into a plane at the crack of dawn – with my SPF 110 carefully packed – and made a break for Puerto Vallarta…

Trip highlights: $2 Coronas at a local bar and new Havaianas- the best sandals ever!

The all inclusive resort that we stayed at was beautiful, and the people in the wedding party and attending the ceremony were so much fun! We all adopted each other and spent time playing in the ocean and lying on the beach (and then lying on the beach some more). There was a great gym at the hotel, though I will say that travelling as a vegetarian hasn’t changed much in the past ten years, it’s still hard to get food that isn’t carbs or cheese! It reminded me to be thankful that North American menus have changed so much as I’ve grown up.

Every morning I would wake up, go to breakfast for French Press coffee, and then read or work while the waves crashed in the background. It was a heavenly change of pace.

One of the highlights of the first days was getting a chance to release baby sea turtles into the ocean! Our hotel’s beach has sea turtles that return to lay eggs every season, and if you’re there at the right time a local conservation group gathers the babies after they hatch, and saves them for a supervised evening release so predators are less likely to get them. Before you handled them, everyone had to coat their hands in sand and they need to crawl along the beach and enter the water on their own so they remember the smell of the sand and return. The most amazing part was holding the baby turtles- they would do a swimming motion in mid-air for a while, and then take a rest by dropping their heads and legs and going completely limp as you held their shell. When they had napped for a little while, they would start up with the swimming motion again! It was the cutest thing.

Watching the baby sea turtles go to the water was so dramatic, the turtles would start moving and then get washed back toward you by the waves- it was hard not to jump in and help! Everyone was cheerleading “their turtle” on, and I even broke the rules and hopped in to flip my turtle over when she was upside down. I got shouted at, and felt like a bit of a hero for helping her out.

There was a big group of fast friends, guacamole served at almost every meal, fresh mint in the mojitos, late nights on the beach, free room service and tiny turtle prints in the sand at night. It’s hard to get better than that!

And in case you’re wondering, yes- of course I managed to get a sun burn ;)