Trip report Rincon de Guayabitos, Riviera Nayarit

[MikenJulie]

WARNING!!!! THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE MAY VERY WELL RUIN EVERY CONVERSATION YOU WILL HAVE IN THE FUTURE DUE TO THE FACT IT IS SO EXTREMELY EXCITING AND RIVETING IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DUPLICATE!!!!! READ AT OWN RISK!!!!!!

Feb 20th/08, travel agent's office.......actual conversation.........

ring........ring.......

"Good morning 7 Seas Travel, Mike speaking" (we're both Mikes, gets confusing)...
Me-"Hola Senior!!" ( I never remember how to say good morning, I suck)......
"Hey hola senior!! How's it going" (my travel agent's Spanish sucks too. Both named Mike, both suck at Spanish, I'm surprised we don't hang out at the mall together), "how many days until Mexico, how's the lumber industry today".......
Me-"Ummm, 211 days and about 6 hours I think (he knows of my countdown to Playa), the lumber market is horrible too,everything sucks, thanks for reminding me ha hahaaaa" (wanting to cry but choose fake laughter instead). "I need to book some tickets to fly the family down to Vancouver for a week or so, if I pop in there in about 15 minutes you have some time to look at some schedules?"













.............hold for it, hoooold..................................






















"Sure, prices are great right now, come on down"..................

............Allright, you're all probly on the edge of your seats, can't blink, can't move, just frozen with anticipation and excitement. I'll back off this electrifing banter, I sense everyone will just freak out and run naked screaming if I carry on much more.

Go take a break, a deep breath, call a therapist to talk you down, I'll be back in an hour or two, gotta have lunch with my youngest.........

[Rissask]

tease

you KNOW I have been waiting for this!

[TeeZet]

I don't care what you're doing to your own blood pressure, but please be careful with mine, will ya?





N o w g e n t l y : k e e p i t c o m i n'

[MikenJulie]

The insanity of Feb 20th continued................

..............So my TA tells me $678 for one week, 3 star AI, transportation included, direct our of Prince George, taxes and insurance, add that in just under 2 grand Cdn for both of us........Julie has probly said over the last 2 years a thousand times we NEED to jump on a last minute deal one of these winter seasons, this once a year bullsh1t just won't do.........

$678.......direct out of PG, it' flawless!!!

In my stunned noggin something just clicks, my responsibilities, obligations, my obvious insecurities of leaving the business in the worst time of year for breakdowns, maintenance AND market........ fugit, Mexico is calling. A well oiled machine runs itself. Amen!!

I grab my cell and check with Julie. She freaks, book it!! I phone the office...... nothing pressing I can't change, book it!! I check with the grandparents...... everyone will be here and the fighting over who gets the girls for 4 days and who gets the 3 has already started, book it!!! One item left, a trip Vido and I are supposed to take with one supplier to visit thier factory. Plane tickets, hotel, food, booze and a Canuck game all included.!! Phoned to check if the guy wouldn't mind cancelling, he said if I don't take it he'll cancel on ME and book it himself. Done, we go to Mexico.

I walk out, Mike is laughing since I came in for something completely different and he got me on a trip to Mexico in under 10 minutes. I'm excited, adrenaline is flowing, I can smell the salt in the air as we walk down the beach, I'M ALMOST GETTING A BUZZ HERE, MORE MORE MORE!!!

Two problems exist though, I still have to wait about 7 hours before I can celebrate by getting loaded on a Wednesday, and Julie has only 9 days of shopping. The horror of it all.

Next, Feb 29th, officially on vacation, shirt, shorts, flip flops lock n' loaded

an a fridge full of beer, tequila, and wisky

[NoAngelx]

Originally Posted by MikenJulie

an a fridge full of beer, tequila, and wisky

Minus the Tequila that looks like my fridge!!!

[TAPPY]

Whoo hoo - gotta love a good deal !!!

[Rissask]

and the hotel is...lemme guess...Decameron de los Cocos- right?

[Mogley]

Originally Posted by MikenJulie

an a fridge full of beer, tequila, and wisky

Micky's Big Mouth and Molson's " when your to drunk to know the difference"

[MikenJulie]

The morning of Feb 29th..........

..............And what a great freakin' morning it is too!!!! My oldest girl Olivia is up early with me at 4:30am, we sit up and watch Gilligan's Island. Emily wakes up around 5:30am to go to the bathroom. Then with very little coaxing I convinced the girls we should go steamroll mom, and once there's no chance for her to fall back asleep, cursing my name, I'm out the door and leave her with a 3 and 5 year old all wired and awake Gotta be tough living with 3 morning people, hahahaaaaaaa!!!

I love these days, the last day of work, dinner is usually something a bit more festive, and we're guaranteed to get LOADED The day goes off without a hitch, heck I even leave work EARLY which I can't even say when the last time I did that. Nice relaxing dinner with the kids, we take them to my parents, now it's time for booze.

Now we're not just talking about drinkin', we're taking metal preparation, planned and structured competition-like drinkin'. You dream it, you plan it for days, weeks even. Hold meetings, do up graphs, charts, go to drinking support groups, talk to whinos out behind the 7-11, have backup alcoholic friends on speed dial to fill in if someone has an emergency or is just to damn scared to show up. This is drinkin' time, stupid scary drinkin' where you have to clean out the "empties" garbage can 2-3 times in a night and there's only 4 damn people. Where you put in the Jerry Reed Bandit soundtrack and listen to the theme song 50 times and strut around like there's a remote chance you're still cool. Where you talk about that one friend that still has the huge mullet, and you wish you still had one. Where you wish you could purge up your dinner since it's taking up valuable space for booze. Where you repack the fridge for optimum efficiency for beer, mix, and tequila because simply just reaching in there isn't damn good enough for some reason.

Yes, this is a drinkin' night. A night of champions, a night for liver abuse, a night for a designated driver.

. ...........At least that's my perspective, good thing Julie didn't let loose like I did or we wouldn't of made the flight the next day. A few friends of ours stopped in, Steve and Crystal, Steve and I cut loose right off the bat. He gets excited about a good drinking session just like I do, not sure if that's something to be proud of........ anyways I was waiting for him in the garage when they pulled up, booze consumption strategy and planning all laid out, very excited by this point. We chase Crystal inside the house with some foofy Smirnoff Apple cooler things.

We have Coronas, Sol, and Modelo Negro so cold another degree they'd freeze (took me a whole month to tune my frige that precise), nice little key limes (for up here anyway), coarse ground sea salt, several bottles of Cabo Wabo Reposado and Anjeo, Gibson's finest Wisky, Smornoff Vodka, fresh smokes, Rumbon on the sat radio, and Nascar on the TV. We got chills I tell you, chills!! No ice though, the freezer side is full or 60-pounders. Top it off, Steve brought some nice fine cigarillos, not huge footlong Havanas or anything, just some nice small pinky-sized cigars with a neat vanilla taste to them.

We're boozing, shots, beers, chain-smoking so bad I have to leave the 16'x8' garage door open Julie phones, wants us to come inside the house to be sociable and give "Two Man Party Garage" a rest. We go inside, the reeking of cigarettes and cigars, along with the nascar disussion was too much for the girls, they now chase us back to the garage

The night rolls on, we're wrecked, literally smoked out by now, lungs are hurting. We've drank 1.5 bottles of Anjeo, 1/2 a bottle of wisky, no idea how many beers, we're not even pouring shots or mixing drinks, just pulling right off the bottles. Smoked about $50 in tobacco, I have yellow finger to my elbow, and before we know it it's 2am, we need to be up by 6:30AM to get into the airport nice and early. Steve and Crystal leave, a couple quick showers, I pass out face down on the living room floor in front of the TV, like so many times before

March 1st, 6:30am.....

4.5 hours later, Julie is kicking me in the head, time to get up. OMFREAKIN'G am I hung over. The pain, the complete disconnection of reality around me. I have the remote control print on the left side of my face, slept on it. Stumbling around, gather everything together, we're off for a 1hour 15min drive.

........... We check in early, I want to make sure we got emergency row seats before the other passengers. We go back to town for breakfast, I couldn't taste anything, my tougue is dead Flight leaves at 11AM, I'm doing the hot-cold water splashing to the face, trying to shake off the hideously gross feeling I have. I feel bad for the people sitting next to me, I must reek like booze something awful.

5 hurting hours later, we land


To be continued........

[Tommygurl]

I would have drank the Mikes Hard in your fridge.

[MartyC]

Guyabitos is a great place. The beach is wonderful and it's so pretty there. Can't wait to read more.

[Rissask]

helloooo *knock knock*

Mike? Continue please?

[playawannabe]

I think he may still be sleeping off his hangover

[MikenJulie]

March1st continued..........

We arrived on time, got the green light, off to the tour bus



It's getting dark, not much time for pics, maybe an hour if that. One thing that stood out, NO BEER VENDORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could buy beer inside but it was very busy and I couldn't risk missing the bus, so no beer. The bus didn't stop either, so we, well actually I, had to wait over 2 1/2 hours after getting to Mexico before even having a beer, sacriledge!!!

So be it, we're here, quit whining. We get to the Decameron Los Cocos Hotel, grab our bags and run for the check in. Requested a king bed, possible room upgrade to the beach, got a room and the usual "I don't know if this one is king or not" which means two double beds. Hey if I was Julie I wouldn't want to share a bed with me either. Quick check in, we get to our room, great spot, close to the upper pool, close to the bar, HUGE sized room, could put a few more beds in there no prob.

AC doesn't work, panel is dead. I phone the front desk, ask for a different room, denied, they're sending up a repairman. I DON'T WANT A REPAIRMAN............ but wait, I just a noob tourist, might be a trick to the AC..... service guy comes in, quick flick of a switch behind the lamp as you see here

ta daaaa I look stupid, even more than usual.

The room itself, on par with a 3 star, shower curtain was covered in black mold spots (the shower itlself was huge, maybe 5' x 8', so no risk of contact),and my personal favorite, window venting to the back of the room leaves anyone walking by, the MAIN access for all the rooms, within complete earshot of any "digestion issues"...........

A La Cartes are booked, huge lineup at the one buffet open tonight........ I'm busy running the 5star vs 3star comparison in my head now....... "No AC problems before, no lineups at buffets, never had the fear of bathroom "barking" scaring young children". I have begun talking myself out of the Decameron. We wait over an hour at the bar for the lineup to subside a bit. The tables are not separate, we sat a big table with......... never before for me, locals and their kids!!!!! Local families were here, I never noticed this before!!!!

I look around, I see the obvious white and ugly, pasty tourists like me, but this place is filled with locals!!! I'm not complaining, it's THIER country, turns out March 1st is the start of a big Mexican holiday for them, cool!! Very interested this place will be like if the locals frequent it..........

Dinner was very tasty, I had shredded beef with the usual delicious homemade salsa, grilled onions, blackened chicken, and rice. I must add, I'm not a fan of corn tortillas, the texture, hard to fold, but these were awesome!!!! In fact, everywhere we ate in town it was corn tortillas and they were all awesome. That and the picante sauce. Usually I stay away from picante, a bit too warm but this stuff, the more you put on the better it was. YUM!!!!

We walk around a bit, can't see anything, I'm eager to go to sleep, I do feel better but I still feel gross. Back in the room, maybe 10:30PM, doors slamming, people running, you hear everything. Best of all, a storage/service room is right across from us, that thing slams every 5 or so mintues. We can't sleep, all I can think about right now are my "uppity" standards. Sure the food was great, but I never had to wait before for food or booze, or this or that, noisy, blah blah whine whine, waaaaaaa (all to myself, I'm not crabbing at Julie just yet).

March 2nd,
I'm up early, I see the light peeking in around the balcony curtain, not used to waking up and seeing light. I open and........ wait a minute, this place looks great!!!!

The ocean view from the balcony


View to the right


The small bar right below us, a few lounge tables.

Right next to it is one of the restaurants, they did the breafast everyday, very convenient!

The 12 yr and up pool, nice and quiet, awesome location for booze or a bathroom break. Oh yea, what was I complaining about last night........ nevermind.

Onto the beer, oh the beer, IT'S BOTTLED, NO DRAFT!!! SOL AND PACIFICO, IT WAS HEAVEN!!!!!! One other slice of heaven I've never seen before, it was magnificent

Smokes, included!!!!! WTF?!?!?!?!? Julie saw this and laughed, she new it was not a week for the liver OR the lungs. They were called Boots, very smooth cut tobacco, no harsh taste, very fresh. Never stale either, every smoker around took advantage of this luxury.

Anyways, off to the beach.


This is a shot standing up by the pool and the main roads leading in and around the Decameron.


Looking back at our building, we're down at the main road.


Up the hill there's laundry service, 5 pesos per 100g, and a vendor with killer hot dogs.


Looking the other way, the Decameron Logo


.........and past the sign lies a small corner store called Palmita's. One stop shopping, 946ml Sol for 17 pesos, I would buy beer here until the bar opened up at 10am.

To the beach




Other people working their way out to the water. Lots of children here, very family-friendly.



The sun still coming


Pelicans hanging out


Nice and relaxing


The first of many


I couldn't help it, I had to get on of my usual "Giligan" hats.......... man I should of fake n' baked, I'm whiter than cheese.

To be continued........

[Rissask]

We wait over an hour at the bar for the lineup to subside a bit. The tables are not separate, we sat a big table with......... never before for me, locals and their kids!!!!! Local families were here, I never noticed this before!!!!


I look around, I see the obvious white and ugly, pasty tourists like me, but this place is filled with locals!!! I'm not complaining, it's THIER country, turns out March 1st is the start of a big Mexican holiday for them, cool!! Very interested this place will be like if the locals frequent it..........

Welcome to Pacific Coast Mexico! Very common everywhere we have gone at that coast. (Don't tell Just Lucky that there are Mexicans traveling in Mexico though. He might keel over in shock.)

But free smokes...that is a new one.