S

wimming Along

 

Cool Places







Mexican Flag




When we are travelling, most of our exercise must come just from walking about. But in second place, maybe a close second, or even first place at times is swimming. We are always happy when our hotel has a swimming pool. When a friend or relative (we don't choose them for that) has a pool that's great too. For the first few months of 2003 we didn't swim. It was too cold outside in the D.C. area and too expensive inside. But in mid-March we headed south and found warmth and water. In the ten months since then we have probably spent nine or ten weeks at some place with a pool. That approaches 20%, not too bad. The first half of our dips were taken in US pools. The rest were here in Mexico:



Hermosillo hotel pool

From Las Vegas we went back to Phoenix and then Tucson and had more pools, but they were all tiny and not worth reporting on. We were glad to have them but didn't stay around for any of them. But in Hermosillo, the first big city we came to in Mexico, we found a pool we really liked, so stayed and stayed, until we thought we really should move on if we were going to see the good stuff in Mexico. One downside to this pool was that two or three dozen pigeons wanted to share the pool with us. We'd try to shoo them away but if we were at one end they would swoop down to drink from the other end.



Gerry in Hermosillo pool

Gerry, in the Hermosillo pool, is wearing the best swim goggles he has ever had. Every other pair would leak water around his eyes. Somebody left this pair poolside. (Was it in Sharm-El-Sheik? No, that pool was too cold to swim in!) Wherever it was, Gerry appropriated them and threw away his old ones, and has been swimming clear-eyed ever since.




Recowata thermal springs pool near Creel,
Chihuahua

This isn't really a swimming pool, but it gets into this essay because it is a natural pool. We were told about a series of natural pools, fed by volcanic-heated springs, so we went, saw, and enjoyed.



Canyon wall above hot springs

This isn't a swimming pool either, but it is what we saw on the way to the hot springs pool, which is located at the bottom right, outside of the picture.



Puerto Vallarta pool

In Puerto Vallarta it was back to the pool, which even if a little small (but not as small as small pools in small US motels), was pretty good. The slightly out-of-focus look here is proof that Gerry's camera was starting to die of old age.



Jan in deck chair by pool

Don't believe it? Just ask Jan, busy here improving her relaxing score.
Our room here was a dream come true. We had a view of the ocean that was obstructed only by the tops of palm trees and we were treated to a glorious sunset each night that we spent here.



Puerto Vallarta pool

Unlike Mazatlan, in Melaque the hotel pool was teeny, but not too teeny for us to swim in.



Aloha Motel pool, McAllen, Texas

After the beaches we didn't find another pool in the Mexican hotels that got our trade. But back in the USA for some shopping and R&R (do we hear a guffaw?) we found another place for Jan to practice her favorite sport: anchoring a lounge chair. This is our motel in McAllen, Texas.


What's in the future? A tough time testing pools and beaches in Cancun, the Pacific, Rio, Mar del Plata, etc.
Care to help us out?




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October 16, 2003