Tides of Jalisco
It was gloomy in LA.
I’d just spent a cold Christmas in Chicago, socially distant from much of my family. Excited to return to the sun, I was disappointed to find LA cold and rainy.
The girl I’d been seeing, Corey, had spent her own Christmas in the cold, in the mountains of Santa Fe. Both of us being over the chilly weather, we decided to find somewhere warm to spend New Year’s.
We were supposed to celebrate New Year’s Eve with my classmates in Palm Springs, but that had been cancelled due to covid. So we decided to make an adventure of our own. Corey had floated the idea of Hawaii, until we discovered it’d be raining all week. Then we considered Caribbean Islands, until finding many had stringent tourist restrictions. And that’s how we settled on Mexico.
Whereabouts in Mexico though? Tulum was a little far away, plus I’d been there. Cabo felt like we’d do little but lounge at the beach, plus was fairly expensive. Thus we agreed on Puerto Vallarta, a place she’d had on her list but I’d never heard of, a place with mountains and beaches alike.
Three days before we’d leave, we still hadn’t booked anything. I sent Corey the cheapest hotel I could find: Club Regina. Later she facetimed me: “You won’t believe this... That hotel you sent me is the same one my great aunt went to for years with her husband! It feels like the stars are aligning. Let’s book it.”
It all felt a bit unreal to me. Going on a New Year’s Eve vacation to Mexico with a girl I’d met not even two months ago. Could this really be? We weren’t even officially dating. Part of me worried some hiccup would derail the trip. And if not, would we get along? Spending a week all alone, in a foreign country, possibly faced with stressful situations — would we like each other afterwards?
Who could know. We booked the trip anyway.
The morning of our departure brought another rainy day, yet we felt optimistic. Yeah, this would be a test for us, but I thought: “Think about how fun it might be! Think about how well it might go!”
Corey wore my llama sweatshirt over my peacock shirt. Once in the airport, I followed her lead and kept my sunglasses on. As we waited for boarding, and then for our plane to take off, we kissed a few times with masks still on, heads tilting back and forth as if we were puppets.
The plane took off and rose high above the clouds, high above the rain. Untethered from worldly worry, I gazed down on the Gulf of California, recalling the last time I’d been down the western coast of Mexico. It was thirteen years before, when I’d been a freshman in high school, and it’d been me, my mom, and my seven-year-old brother. Now I traveled alone with a woman, both of us in our late twenties.
As we descended, we alternately saw mountainous jungles and calm bay water. It felt as if some strange dream was materializing before my very eyes.
After passing through customs, a taxi drove us to the hotel. I felt nervous upon this final stretch — I’d booked through Roomdi, some aggregator I’d never heard of. What if things had changed since Corey’s aunt had been here, if the hotel was cheap for a reason, if Roomdi wasn’t even legit?
My fears were put to rest as we successfully checked in. A woman named Gloria briefed us on all the resort’s amenities, asking what brought us to Club Regina. Corey quickly responded “We’re on our honeymoon!” “Oh! Congratulations!”
It might as well have been our honeymoon, as we opened the door to our room and found it was a suite, complete with a balcony featuring an outdoor jacuzzi. Corey was so excited that she filmed a walkthrough of the place, posting it to her story. I felt now was the time to give her my note.
She’d given me a Christmas gift back in LA, but I’d told her I’d wanted to wait before giving her mine. First I handed her a small box, the wrapping paper pink streaked with gold. She opened it to find a jade butterfly brooch inside. I’d come across it in Canada and it had made me think of her.
“Oh and here’s the card,” I added as if an afterthought, handing her a pink envelope. “Cuuute envelope.” She opened it, took one glance at what was written inside, and dropped the letter, wrapping her arms around me. “Ohmygod Lyle! Yes!” I’d asked her to be my girlfriend.
So while it wasn’t our actual honeymoon, I suppose it was our relationship honeymoon.
Honeymooners, like anyone else, need their food. It was late, and we worried nothing would be open, but luckily the resort’s restaurant still was.
We sat at a table outside, tired and hungry yet still feeling as if high up in the clouds. “Girlfriend! I’m your girlfriend! You’re my boyfriend!”
We ate big from the buffet, and then walked to the beach to feel the sand on our toes and listen to the ocean before heading to sleep.
I woke early and watched the sunrise from our balcony while Corey slept, birds flocking around as a line of light hit the trees.
We got dressed and walked to the nearby marina for breakfast, exploring it before settling on a cute restaurant whose terrace extended over the water.
A family sat at the table across from us: two sisters, their husbands, and their kids, the latter of whom were drinking juice from straws out of chalices the size of their heads. Corey smiled at them as they looked our way. “Awww they’re so cute.” The kids waved at us so we waved back and we smiled and laughed with the parents.
Corey couldn’t resist an OJ chalice of her own, which accompanied a big bowl of oatmeal featuring strawberries and bananas. I got the huevos motuletos — eggs over a crunchy tortilla with chorizo, plantains, and one small green pepper.
So, this is what vacation feels like.
Bellies full, we strolled to the beach, passing an iguana scurrying across the grass, a sculpture of a momma and baby whale, a wooden manta ray, and a banana tree.
Upon reaching the hot sand, we turned our chairs to face the sun, gazing out at the waves lapping the shore, the hazy mountains across the bay, the skydivers parachuting near downtown, the palm trees waving in the breeze, the people milling about the land and the sea.
Corey reclined in her pink swimsuit and my panama hat as a server brought a husband and wife near us a massive plate of oysters. So we ordered two pina coladas, and ended up chatting with the couple, from Vancouver Island. “Oh it’s your first time here? What are your plans for tonight?” Tonight being New Year’s Eve. “Oh we’re going to go downtown and watch the fireworks from there.” “Honestly, it’s going to be crazy down there. I’d watch from this beach. You get to see the whole horseshoe of fireworks around the bay.”
Warm from the sun, we were ready to dive beneath the blue waves. We let the water touch our feet at first, then our ankles, then up to our knees. It wasn’t too cold, as ocean water goes. So I dove in and Corey followed.
She jumped into my arms and I held her as we kissed and prattled and kissed, salt on our mouths. I felt blissful, like the characters in Tender is the Night yearn to feel, the French Riviera insufficient to fill the hole in their hearts. Rather than empty, I felt full. Maybe if I can just keep floating, I’ll keep this feeling forever, a kernel stored deep inside as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune inevitably return one day.
That night we found a sports bar in the marina to watch Michigan football play Georgia, Corey dancing in excitement as they brought out the food. The game soon got out of hand, so we decamped in search of a more festive mood, settling on Las Palomas Doradas, where the owner stood out front, chatting with us before seating us at a prime table. “That’s great hospitality.”
We shared champagne and soon noticed activity down the marina. “Is that a dance floor?” Our meal finished, we felt inclined to investigate, and were not disappointed, by now feeling so festive that we danced all the way down the cobblestone walk.
Back at the hotel we changed and headed to the beach to welcome in 2022. Waiting for the fireworks to begin, we sat near a beachside party, grooving to its music. From there we spied fireworks ready to blow. Soon enough, they did.
True to our friends at the beach’s word, the crescent bay filled with light. When the fireworks ended, we continued staring up at the stars.
Early the next morning we rushed to catch a boat. Corey had proposed we book some excursions — “something with snorkeling and something with ziplining” — and today we’d be doing the ziplining. Only problem was it wasn’t just ziplining. Corey had looked at the description the night before — “Lyle did you read this?” “Uhhh, not really” “It says we’re going to get very wet. I don’t have shoes for that!”
Yet she didn’t balk; we decided we’d send it anyways. Her faith was rewarded when we found pink water shoes in the convenience store while waiting for our taxi.
We squeezed in a quick breakfast of coffee & smoothies before our speedboat arrived and we sat down in the front, bouncing as it swept across the bay. Spying movement in the distance, I pointed to Corey: “I think those are whales!”
As we approached port — tucked away in an inlet — we gazed at houses embedded in the hills. We hopped out of our boat and into a yellow jeep, driving up the hills to Bohemian Rhapsody.
We turned right onto a dirt road, where our jeep stopped to pick up what appeared to be a hitchhiker, dropping him a few miles up in a small village. Not long after that we arrived at base to switch to our next mode of transportation: mules.
From smallest to largest they paired each rider with an animal. Corey had already started up the mountain by the time they beckoned to the mom of a family from Colorado: “I want one that goes fast. Does this one go fast?” Our associates conferred in Spanish, then wheeled her out a speed demon, while I was stuck with the one she was supposed to get.
As my mule started up the mountain, I saw another heading down — by all accounts the wrong direction. It was Corey’s. “No, no, stop! Turn around!” Eventually it did, and we rode side-by-side the rest of the way up, our mules constantly bumping into each other.
We dismounted and walked the final bit to the top. Corey held my hand during the safety briefing. “I’m nervous” “Have you ziplined before?” “Yes, still nervous though” “Well, it’s going to be fine. And fun.” “I’m going to scream the whole way.”
She did. It was a happy scream.
By ziplines, rappels, and waterslides, we zigzagged our way through the forested hills. We hung upside-down, we scaled a waterfall, we dropped straight down à la Mission Impossible. On one waterslide we went together on a mat, the next solo at nearly a ninety-degree angle.
This all made me wonder how people navigated this forest without ziplines and waterslides. It felt as if we were worlds away from the resort and from the bay — and even from the small town at which we’d landed.
It was a good thing Corey found water shoes, because we got very wet.
Throughout our descent we got acquainted with some of the others: two teenage sisters (whose mom had asked for the fast steed), a young kid who got scared of the steep waterslide and bypassed it with his dad, a local couple who later offered us crickets to snack on (which I graciously accepted).
Towards the end of our descent, we strapped in to a swinging metal pole, and our guides advised us to “hold your nose, close your mouth, and close your eyes once you get to the end.” You can see why:
Back at base we lounged on wooden swings before hopping back in our yellow jeep to return to the boat. On the breezy drive down, we passed a roofless car in which a family of seven stood with their heads poking out the top — their toddler held in front like Simba.
The port town had felt sleepy when we’d arrived but now was wide awake. Suppose it makes sense given it was both a Saturday and a holiday. I wished we could have spent the rest of the afternoon here, reclining in a beach shack as we drank coca cola and ate tacos, alternately sunning and dipping in the water. Instead we got back in our speedboat.
Our boat cut straight across the bay, closer to the city this time. We could clearly see the downtown, and all the hills and houses, and boats lingering by the rocks waiting for their snorkelers to return.
Back at port, we bid farewell to the family from Colorado, as well as a family of iguanas. By now we were exhausted and hungry, having eaten little other than power bars, and closed out the daylight hour by the pool, before watching sunset from the beach and returning to the room for a nap.
The nap went a little longer than expected, as we woke up at 9:45pm. We worried the restaurant downstairs would be closed, but happily that was not the case, and I enjoyed a massive margarita to go along with enchiladas. As a cat looked at us from across the patio, I thought of the book I’m reading:
“I am no human cog. I am a cat, a being sensitive to the most subtle shades of thought and feeling.”
We went to bed not long after, waking up early the next morning to return to the same port as the day before. This time, we boarded a large catamaran and pushed off for the islands.
Immediately upon arrival to Islas Marietas, it was time to snorkel. Corey had never successfully snorkeled in her life, yet despite some trepidation she suited up, asking our trip leader: “Are there any sharks in there?” “No sharks... except for the little ones. Don’t worry about them.” As we neared the water she grabbed my hand: “Don’t let go the entire time. Okay?”
Her breath quickened as we jumped in. “How deep is this?” “About 30 feet” “Ahhhh so deep and it’s not even clear!! I don’t know if I can do this.” “It’ll get better as we near the shore.”
And so it did. Corey settled in and the fish swam up close. She became so captivated that, forgetting her snorkel, she dipped her head down to look behind, until the snorkel filled up and she coughed out saltwater.
I spent time observing not just the sea-life below but also the air-life above, floating on my back as many of the blue-footed booby, a bird my parents had seen in the Galapagos and told me about as a kid, walked upon the island’s small cliffs.
Back on the boat, we quickly toured the island and watched the birds overhead, before setting off across the bay to a private beach. They opened the bar the minute lunch ended, and started playing clubby music, many on the boat dancing.
At the little beach, the Playa Majahuitas, we lounged in a hammock before trying our hand at paddleboarding, kayaking, and of course the banana boat.
We left port at around the same time as a pirate ship, which towed a banana boat of its own. Then a whale jumped high out of the water in front of us, twisting in the air before smacking down. We stopped to watch. “This is their breeding season, and the males are trying to attract the females.” The whole boat spectated — cheering and yelling as whales breached and jumped and leaped. At one point two went back to back, as if a part of some dancing routine.
Eventually we left the whales to their fun. Our boat had turned party boat, but Corey & I weren’t really in such a mood, sitting quietly most of the way back.
Back in the room we made good use of our balcony jacuzzi, then returned to the marina for dinner and chose a classic Mexican place purely based on vibes. Indeed they serenaded us, made tableside guac, and brought sizzling fajitas.
The next morning, after my first class of the new semester (three hours on zoom), we finally visited the downtown.
Papel picado lined cobblestone roads as we passed ceramic street signs, a mural of a fighting turtle, seahorse lampposts, statues of creatures from the deep, and a church topped with a patina crown.
We stopped to gaze down a beach full of people, to rest on tiled concrete benches that reminded me of my elementary school, to kiss beneath a gazebo, and to graze a couple times — marlin tostada on the beach, oysters in town, sorbet on the boardwalk.
At night, crossing a river as we returned home, it felt like we were back in the jungle — first we walked across a bouncy wooden bridge, then we descended the bank to step over the small stream. As we reached the shore, we spied the pirate ship from the day before as it shot fireworks into the sky.
On the final morning we sat for a leisurely breakfast. Perhaps too leisurely — I looked at the time and saw my zoom class was about to start, so I pulled out my phone to log on. Camera off, of course. Until, it being the first class, we all went around and introduced ourselves. As I turned on my camera, many classmates noticed the palm trees in the background: “Where are you??” “OMG Lyle…” “Still in Mexico?”
On a break between classes we walked to the beach and out on the rocks, seeing little crabs scurry over and under the surf. Then we went in the water one last time, Corey looking like a Bond Girl, her green eyes matching the sea, her blonde hair matching the sand.
We went out with a massive feast at the poolside restaurant. Then the sun set and it was time to go.
After spending nearly three weeks apart, Corey & I spent virtually every moment together, waking and sleeping, for an entire week. We’d left the country as two and returned as one.
My start to the winter had been one of ebbs & flows. My Paris trip, my New Year’s party with friends, and in-person classes all hit the chopping block. Yet if not for that, I never would have seen a new region of Mexico, never would have gone on a “relationship honeymoon.” Luck is like the tides — sometimes up, sometimes down, but always changing. This week with Corey, the tide was high.
It was the most impromptu trip I’d ever taken. Yet I never would have done it by myself. In Corey I’ve finally found someone to explore with, someone who will push on, despite setbacks that can feel brutally random. She’s someone who’s searching for better — and she knows, if not the destination, at least the direction to steer.
