Puerto Vallarta

It's my third annual trip to Mexico in January, this time in Puerto Vallarta. I  am following the same formula I used for my last two visits to Los Cabos and Playa del Carmen: I picked a random tourist location with cheap flights, booked a room at one of the Riu all-inclusive resorts, and will now spend my time eating buffet food, drinking low-quality booze, and sitting around not doing much else. I read a little more than 300 pages on the trip down, and plan to at least double that before I get home.

Even though I've taken almost this exact trip before, I got a unanimously negative response from my family at the Christmas gathering. I had several conversations that went exactly like this:

Family Member: "What trips do you have coming up? I hope you're not going to Mexico."
Me: "Actually, I'll be in Puerto Vallarta in a couple of weeks."
Family Member: "BY YOURSELF?!"
Me: "Yep, I pretty much always travel on my own, you know that."
Family Member: "Oh no, you can't go there. It's too dangerous. They keep shooting tourists on the buses."
Me, sighing: "I will fly in, take a pre-booked shuttle to an all-inclusive resort, where I'll stay until I shuttle back to airport for home. I'm not going to get shot on a bus."
Family Member, skeptically: "Well you better be REALLY careful."

At least my dad had the decency to trade the you're going to get shot line for "Just promise me you'll stay in the compound."

So here I am, staying in the compound. After a long flight, a gauntlet of salesmen on the way out of the airport, and a shocking transition to warm humid air, that is. My room is on one of the top floors, and if I look out my window I have a lovely view.

I always spend a decent amount of time on my balcony on these trips, reading or just sitting with a beer. So when I checked in and saw my prime parking lot vista, I thought, shit, should've paid the extra $100 for an ocean view. Then I walked out on the balcony and took a look to my right. Oh, there it is.

Because I arrived around 6pm local time, having been up since 4:30am Seattle time, I probably won't do much tonight. I plan to explore the resort a bit, get some food, and start the relaxation process. And make good use of the in-room liquor dispenser of course. I mean, hell, that's what it's there for!