Canopy Tours and Shopping in Puerto Vallarta

My sister disappears into the forest on our canopy tour
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After two full days at sea, we finally made it to Mexico!  Puerto Vallarta was our first stop.  A warning to future cruise-tourists:  the cabs in the port area are expensive!  We were too eager to leave to take the time to search for something else, so we settled for one of the white taxi-busses.  For $4 each (there were nine passengers) we were taken to our destination, but we were the last party in the cab dropped off.  Good thing we had factored in enough time to arrive at our destination!

The river at Los Veranos
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We were dropped off at the office of our chosen tour company, Canopy Tour Los Veranos.  This is a tour I had found on the internet and booked through their website.  For $71 each, it was a little expensive, but the tour ended up being so much fun that we all found it worth the price.  There were plenty of funny, extremely friendly tour guides to handle the large group of people on our tour.  As we toured the forest, riding zip-lines from tree to tree, the large group spread out some and you could hardly tell that there were so many people around.  This tour was a wonderful way to observe the gorgeous forest while getting a bit of an adrenaline rush.  You even get a bit of a walk in, as you climb hills to get to the next zip-line.  The best part is the length of these lines - you literally cannot see where you are going, as you take off from the platform.  Zooming through trees and across the canyon, over the river, was an experience anyone would love to repeat!  Obviously whoever planned these zip-lines realized that, since the tour has you crossing the canyon back and forth at least four times.  We rode about 14 different cables, and the longest was 400 meters!  After we were done with the tour, we were free to stay and swim in the river as long as we wanted.  There were two stone water-slides for the more brave (not me) and a restaurant for the not cheap (again, not me).

Puerto Vallarta
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After fooling around in the river a bit, we rode back in to town and proceeded to eat lunch and shop.  The restaurant, recommended by one of our Los Veranos guides, was good enough but nothing special.  We were just happy to find a toilet we could use, and cool drinks to provide relief from the sun!  We walked around the narrow, cobbled streets of old town and found some interesting shopping at cheap stalls.  Eventually, all the jewelry and do-dads start to look exactly alike.  We also saw the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but unfortunately could not go in due to our attire - when it is hot, I like to wear shorts!  I also enjoyed just walking along the waterfront - there was some interesting sand art, and the wide pedestrian walk was far more comfortable than the narrow side of the street.  When we got tired we caught a bus back to the port area - talk about crowded!  Still, the price was right, and I never mind sitting on my friend's laps.