Lauren and I decided that if we were in Tijuana, we should party like it. So around 11pm, we reluctantly dragged ourselves out of our hotel and went out in search of a beer. We had barely exited when a guy from a bar across the street started calling out to us. When we didn’t respond, he ran up to us, telling us him name was Alex and explaining that they were having 2 for 1 beers. We told him we had to run an errand (to put up a blog) and we’d come back later.

When we came up the stairs and were seated with much ado on the balcony, right in view of passers by, we had to really argue with Alex to get out of him exactly how much the 2 for 1 cost. (more…)

We rolled into Mazatlan and immediately purchased our tickets for home - Tijuana. It would be a grueling 26-hour bus ride, and we had planned to spend a day and a half of relaxation to prepare for it. We marveled at the fact that this was the last bus ticket we’d have to buy on our trip, and took a cab into the city.

We were looking forward to Mazatlan because it looked cheap, but that turned out to not be the case. It was a $4 cab ride that we had prepaid at the station, a bit much for the short jaunt into town. We got to the hotel and learned that prices had severely increased to nearly double. The cab driver offered to drive us down the way to another hotel. We passed one that was advertising $35 a night, but he insisted that was not during high season. The next hotel was too much. We drove on. (more…)

Lauren: We arrived in Puerto Vallarta well rested from our 16-hour bus ride, thanks to Dramamine. In the bus station we noticed that there was a bus that went directly to Tijuana. We had planned on taking a ferry from Mazatlan, a port city 10-hours north, to La Paz in Baja and working our way north from there. We learned from the ticket guy that it was “only” a 26 hour busride from Mazatlan to Tijuana, and decided that we’d go for it. It meant less hassle, less money, and more time in Puerto Vallarta. We bought our ticket to Mazatlan, extending our stay in Puerto Vallarta.

The taxis were a whopping $9 to get into town, so we opted for the bus. For just 50 cents each, we rolled our way into town at a snail’s pace, and got dropped off in front of a travel agency. I chomped on a granola bar while Beth chatted up the guy hassling her to buy a package tour. She learned that he had been to the US, spent 5 years there actually, between his trysts at a NY and a Texas Prison. I took off to find a hotel. (more…)

Zihuatenejo is otherwise known as the poor man’s Ixtapa. Ixtapa only has $200+ per night high-rise luxury hotels, well out of our price range, even on a splurge. But Zihuatenejo, just 15 minutes away, is a much smaller and cheaper beach town. Though the beach isn’t as nice, it has frequent, cheap buses to Ixtapa. Much more our style.

We arrived in Zihuatenejo from Acapulco by mid-afternoon. Even though it was only a 5 hour bus ride, Lauren and I had spent more than 375 hours (15 days!) on buses since arriving in Buenos Aires in April, and they were really wearing on us. (more…)

We got up at 3:45 in Puerto Escondido for our 4am taxi. We made it to our bus with time to spare. The porters accidentally put our bags on the wrong bus and we managed to get them off right before it left. We loaded our bags ourselves on the right bus, hopped on, and stretched out. We were the only ones on the huge air-conditioned bus to Alcapulco. I slept most of the way there, and we got in at 1pm.

For the first time ever, Beth and I had started to let our eyes wander over to the “Mid-Range” hotel section of our travel book. During our whole year of travel, we had always stuck to the “Budget” section, without even a glance at better options. But even though we’re in the home stretch, we were tired of dungeons with bald light bulbs and crumbling walls. We’d rough it on food, we figured, but we wanted comfort in lodgings. (more…)

When we arrived in Puerto Escondido, Lauren and I grabbed a taxi to a hotel listed in the Lonely Planet named Las Olas. Its primary features were that it was near the beach and it had a refrigerator in the room — a luxury we had never been able to afford ourselves.

We were excited to discover that the price was right — just $25 a night — and Lauren was able to swing getting us a balcony.

(more…)

North America! We had finally made it to our last destination, the much anticipated Mexico, home of the best food in the world (Thailand excluded), Pacific Coast Beaches, and Spring Break Utopias. We were psyched, we were ready. But our first few days in Mexico were a bit… chaotic.

We had woken in the morning in Caye Caulker, taken a boat to Belize City, and hopped on a bus to Chetumal, a border town in Mexico. As soon as we crossed the border, we were welcomed by the sight of tanks, hummers, and military personnel wielding large automatic weapons. A sign of things to come. (more…)