The thing about Mexico is there is always so much to tell 🙂 Here is part 3 (and likely the last part) of our trip to Mexico. If you haven’t yet, you may want to read part 1 and part 2 before so as to catch up… It’s ok, I’ll wait. Come on back when you’re ready.

Alrighty! One of the evenings we were at the beach we hauled it up to a point that had an amazing view of the sun set. Seriously, amazing.

This was the beach we swam at, walked on and ate up and down the whole time we were there. Our Cabana was just off the beach and over in the corner behind the rocks in the above photo.

I snapped so many photos while we were out here!! I t was so beautiful it was easy to go nuts.

siblings!! har har har

It was so lovely to turn around and see the moon coming up behind us! Ah, I love Mexico 🙂

… so pretty!!

After the sunset we hiked back down to our Cabana got some snacks and cracked open a bottle of wine. A walk down the beach + an hour later led to these magnificent works of art…

Mur + Margee fighting over wine. Typical.

Those 3 (and the ‘wine’ ones from above) are all night shots from down on the beach. Each was taken for about 30 seconds to get a good exposure. I think the top 2 beach ones look a lot like scenes in daylight, but nope – they are definitely night shots! On vacation the fun with me is never ending 🙂

After that it was basically retracing our initial steps – still fun, but not much new – for the next 2 days. We took the bus back up to San Jose del Pacifico, got another Cabana, had another great dinner, took another bus ride, got to Oaxaca and resumed shopping. There was one place in particular I really wanted to go – Mujeres Artesanas de las Regiones de Oaxaca – it’s a women’s coop that had all kinds of handmade crafts. Hit the jackpot there again! And after shopping we got back to our amazing hotel and grabbed a few Coronas. It was delicious after hiking around with our packs and shopping in the hot sun.

We met up with Margee again, which was great. And she took us out on the town again for our last night in Mexico. It was all about the food that night – what did we have to eat before we left that we hadn’t eaten yet or even that we wanted more of.

… shrimp at Marco Polos

… street corn

… and grasshoppers + mezcal. 2 separate places but both quite interesting!

We walked around the Zocolo for a little while before heading back to our abode for the night. It was really neat to see the streets lit up at night!

… and once we got back, there was one last sibling fight before we called it a night.

The next morning we got a taxi to the airport real early to catch our flight to Houston. And for those who care, my missing flip-flop was not in the trunk. Once checked into our flight we got breakfast and had time to relax {and wake up!} before heading to our seats on the plane.

Once in Houston poo hit fan … As a preview to the end of the story – we made our flight. But the journey to get there seemed like the longest 2 hours ever! Course we picked the slowest line coming through immigration {isn’t that how it always goes, though?} and then I got pulled aside to have my luggage searched. I was behind a couple who had 2 carts full of luggage, a man who had inappropriate photos on his computer and a dude they felt had far too many DVDs to not be selling them when he came into the country. I felt like the cards were stacked against me. I just wanted to say “hey! I can unpack my bag if you want to just come take a look at it! I’ve got nothing to hide but I do have a plane to catch!” Finally it was my turn and I heaved my big pack up on the conveyor belt and the security guard started explaining why I was there {I’m the lucky one from that flight that got randomly picked} and that he would try to go as quickly as possible. That made me feel better but still I knew he wouldn’t lose sleep if I missed my flight. He started pulling my bag apart and searching things to make sure I wasn’t smuggling something/anything back in. I had declared everything and was not smuggling so I felt pretty ok – until he found the worm salt for the Mezcal we were bringing back. I hadn’t actually been in on the conversation about what that stuff was so my stomach dropped when he pulled it out and in his thick Boston accent said…
“Waz dis?”
I stumbled. I muttered. I said “Umm. Honestly? I don’t know. Um… I know it goes with the Mezcal…”
“Da wha?”
Eek!
“The Mezcal? It’s the liquor I declared on my form there and have wrapped up in my bag in that blanket right there?” 
… he turned this tiny little twisty-tied bag of orange powder around in his hands. Looking at it. Studying it. Then shrugs his shoulders and tosses it aside.
Phew … and I didn’t even puke 🙂

From there on it was a pretty harmless search – we chatted about the winter and the snow {since he was originally from Boston and I was from MPLS} and how Houston is a woos about what they call a blizzard. He finished the search and said I could pack things up and head out, so I did. Apparently after that you still have to go through security. And after that you have to verify your gate hasn’t changed – best to do that before you get to the original gate.

We found ourselves running down the hallways to get to our gate in order to make our flight. We made it in time {with actually “plenty” of time by airline standards}, grabbed 2 bottles of water and some pretty crappy airport food and got our seats on the MPLS flight. Thank goodness. I was ready for another blizzard and would have been sad to have missed it by being stuck in Houston 🙂

Overall, it was an AMAZING vacation. Wonderful. Yummy. Beautiful. Fun. It was exactly what I needed after such a long 2010! Thanks so much to Margee for being such an amazing tour-guide!! We had so much fun and I hope you enjoy the photos to accompany our great stories. Can’t wait to come back Please don’t move … Unless it’s to someplace more beachy.