Last day in Mexico!

Can you tell I am excited to leave Mexico and get back to the States? We had a really fantastic trip, but I am looking forward to returning to the States, particularly after being here for Semana Santa. One thing both Luke and I are not looking forward to are the increased prices in the States and finding a job.

The buses keep rolling in to town. Today we got up and there was a car parked in front of the driveway/gate so we couldn't drive anywhere until Mom found the owner to move the car. Luckily they were staying at the bungalows a few doors down and they promptly moved their car. There are no parking signs in front of the house, but it's Mexico and anything goes here.............. Also, there was a tent set up in the street in front of the house and guys sleeping on the sidewalk right in front of our front door.

We drove over to La Penita today to go to the Tianguis, which was pretty crowded with Mexican tourists, and bought about 3 kilos of coffee (you can't beat $3 per pound) and 1 kilo of jamaica to bring back to the States. Wow, my backpack is 100% full, that stuff takes up alot of space. The tianguis wasn't too eventful, we got what we needed and got out of there quickly to get back to the house. However, we got stuck in the traffic jam of tourists heading south to Guayabitos from Guadalajara and the interstate. It took about 20 minutes or more to go 2 miles, usually it only takes about 5 minutes.

Tonight I went out to dinner at Ricardo's Pizza for pizza and calzones as my last meal in Mexico. Then we took a walk on the beach to see what the scene was like around 6pm and it was pretty busy still, many bands patrolling the beach looking for a paying customer to play for. Tomorrow I will get up and head back through the traffic jam to La Penita in order to catch the Pacifico bus back to Puerto Vallarta and catch my Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. My friend Anne will be picking me up and we will head right to her home in Wenatchee, WA. Next week I head to Victor, Idaho, to visit my sister for 6 days, then to Boulder, CO to visit my brother. Luke and I meet up in Colorado on April 19 (finally!) where we will meet up with friends Adam and Mara for about 10 days.

It is back to Alaska in early May where we will have to find new jobs and move back into our house. I am looking forward to not living out of a backpack and getting the summer started! Perfect timing on our return date, we will make it there to see green up (spring). We'll probably post some Alaskan type blog entries when we return, and we will try to have a follow-up blog entry describing our culture shock returning to the states and reflections of the trip. We hope you enjoyed following our trip on this blog!

Hasta la vista!