My childhood best friend, Katie, is a 1st grade teacher, which means she gets spring break (spring break, wooo!) and that is magical. This year for her spring break she and I booked a trip to Sayulita, Mexico, a place I'd been wanting to return to for like, 7 years. We left really early Saturday from Seattle, flew to Canada, then down to Mexico. We flew over the Grand Canyon on our way there (both of our first times seeing it) and when we arrived in Mexico our driver was waiting for us at the Puerto Vallarta airport with cold beers and Beyoncé on the radio.
^^Katie and I during our layover in Vancouver, BC^^
^^WE MADE IT! And there are beers here! YAY Mexico!!^^
^^Beers and Beyoncé in the back of the car. Mexico is THE BEST!^^
Our first full day in Sayulita was semi-rough for me. We decided to go sit in some lounge chairs on the beach and upon walking onto the sand I was stung by a bee on my wrist. After drinking some beers we headed back to our place, and on the magical road leading to our condo, we found some more beers, some guac and some ceviche. It was great. There was a lime in my beer. It kept hitting my tongue when I would drink from the dark, glass bottle. Eventually I took the lime into my mouth and bit down. It was crunchy. I spit out the lime. The lime was actually a really, really giant fly. Death. Dying. Dead. Then there was this giant moth thing the size of my hand at another restaurant. And then when we got home that night, I saw the most giant spider I've ever seen in my whole life on the fence around our condo. Also, the main air conditioning unit in our living room made really loud sounds in the night that sounded exactly like someone breaking into our apartment and walking around. We both got basically zero sleep the first 2 nights. After we realized we weren't being murdered and turned off the main AC, we slept much better though.
^^Katie and I, right before I ATE A FLY^^
^^DEATH^^
The rest of the trip was a million times more relaxing with a lot less bug stuff. We went to some morning yoga classes. On our second, full day we took a cab up to
Punta Mita and took a surf lesson which was great and exhausting. Katie stood up, I didn't, but I still rode some waves on my knees and shit, which was good enough for me. Also I saw sea turtles swimming by me while I was in the ocean, so that was cool.
^^View of the beach from the Surf Shop in Punta Mita^^
^^Punta Mita^^
Another day we took a macramé lesson from the cutesssstttt shop ever called
Evoke the Spirit. It took like a million hours but eventually we finished and were able to take home our works of art. There was also a really beautiful cat at the shop who I was obsessed with. OH and we took a break during our lesson for lunch and Katie and I went to The Real Fish Taco, across the street and had octopus tacos which we ended up having multiple other times because they were mind blowing. That being said, I want to do an entire post on what we ate and loved during our trip because it was THAT good.
^^Evoke the Spirit^^
^^Evoke the Spirit^^
^^Katie doing Macramé^^
^^Me with my (mostly) finished macramé project back at our awesome condo^^
One day we were walking around and shopping and drinking coconut water straight from coconuts and we decided to walk all the way across town, through the cemetery, and we ended up at
Playa los Muertos which is my favorite beach of all time. It is mind blowingly beautiful, small and secluded. The ocean there is fairly calm and you can body surf even if you can't swim well (me) and there is a small bar on the edge of the beach equipped with a ton of fresh fruit and beers to make you all of the tropical drinks (I had a giant coconut filled with rum and other juices) or Micheladas. I could live on that beach. We ended up spending our last 2 full days laying on the beach and body surfing in the waves, and reading our books, and sipping cool drinks. It was the best way to end a vacation. When we would get tired from all the sun and hungry from all the body surfing we would walk back into town and stop for tacos before heading home for a nap/pool time/shower before heading out for dinner and drinks.
^^The freshest coconut water^^
^^Katie and I killing it at this whole spring break thing!^^
^^View of Sayulita while walking to Playa los Muertos^^
^^The cemetery you walk through to get to secret beach^^
^^Playa Los Muertos in all its glory^^
^^Katie at Playa Los Muertos the day we discovered it^^
^^beach porn^^
^^yoga by the ocean^^
^^the tiny pop-up bar by Playa los Muertos^^
^^Boozy coconut by the ocean^^
^^Hammock by the ocean^^
We stayed in a condo which was about a 10 minute walk north of downtown Sayulita. We were both obessed with the street we stayed on. It was littered with little restaurants and bars and pop up shops, there was lush greenery on both sides of the street, a field filled with Iguanas and pretty, colorful paper flags strung overhead. When we got to the end of the street we had to cross the shit river using the SKETCHIEST foot bridge and when you got across the bridge the horseback rider men would harass you to ride their horses, and then you were in town. But, the best part of our street was that at night Mexican Vegas popped up. Mexican Vegas is the name we gave to these stands that had a bunch of glass bottles displayed in a booth, and a bunch of rocks out in front of the booth. You would pay $20 pesos to throw 3 rocks at the glass bottles (usually if you missed all three they'd give you an extra rock for free) and if you broke a bottle you'd win a beer. If you broke 2 bottles you'd win 2 beers, and if you broke all 3, you won a 6 pack. We never broke all three, but both of us broke 2 a few times. We would stop at Mexican Vegas (that's what we called it, no idea what it was actually called) on our way to dinner and a lot of times on the way home too. We would walk with our beers home and then get in the pool, buzzed and full until we were ready for bed. One night we made friends with the guys running Mexican Vegas and we taught them English words and phrases. One guy wanted us to teach him how to say "You are so beautiful. Do you like to dance? I can take you in my car" LOLLL. Nailed it.
^^Our street, walking toward our condo in the middle of the afternoon^^
^^Katie Killing it at Mexican Vegas^^
^^My Mexican Vegas winnings!!^^
^^Mexican Vegas Amigos^^
Other things! On our very first night in Sayulita we met this guy who was waiting on us at the open air restaurant on our street where we stopped for a beer. His name was Juan. We saw him again the next day after I drank the fly and we were asking him for restaurant recommendations and then Katie may or may not have had an awkward bathroom situation occur, but I guess that's beside the point. We eventually told Juan we wanted to eat something exotic, like iguana. He told us "I know a tree" and "we can kill an iguana and cook it" (meaning I could kill the iguana, and Katie could cook it and he would supervise). We were SUPERRR excited until like 2 days later when we found out (1) its illegal to kill an Iguana, (2) that "tree" was an iguana sanctuary, and (3) if I tried to kill an iguana it would probably fuck my shit up. Those fuckers are scary! Also turns out Juan is super sketchy. We ran into him again on his last night and we were pretty sure he was on a lot of drugs. #winning
^^Iguana^^
There were iguanas everywhere though. In the sanctuary tree (which you walked by to get to Playa Los Muertos), in the sports field on our street, and on the side of the street every so often. I'd never seen an Iguana in the wild before!
^^We spotted 15 iguanas in this tree sanctuary^^
Everyone in Sayulita was genuinely so, so kind and happy to see you always. We made lots of friends while we were there, with other tourists, with ex-pats, with the locals. It was great. I guess it would be hard to be mad when it's constantly sunny and beautiful and you live in the land of a million tacos and beers that cost barely more than $1, right? I can't wait to go back. Until next time, Sayulita...
^^Mango Margarita the size of my head (it was a bad idea)^^
^^downtown Sayulita^^
^^Walking to dinner from our hotel on our last night in Sayulita, of course with a beer in hand^^
^^Katie and I on our way out to dinner on our last night^^
^^Tequila shots served with an orange wedge sprinkled with cinnamon at Latitude 20 on our last night^^
^^Until next time, Sayulita^^
