In June, 2014 I was privileged to to try flyboarding — a very new sport at the time — while on an adventure-themed press trip in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. For those not familiar with flyboarding, it involves strapping on a pair of boots a lot like the ones worn by Iron Man while in the ocean and then jetting into the air by means of powerful water jets on the boots fed by a hose attached to the output of a nearby jet ski. It’s entirely as fun as it sounds. A Note: I’m personally not a big fan of fuel-powered sports — and I encourage anyone who tries flyboarding to also consider how much gas is being burned to fund their hour-long-session — but it is pretty awesome and I am glad I tried it once.

Learning to Flyboard

Flyboarding is pretty easy to get the hang of, but there is a bit of a learning curve to it. People who are accustomed to maintaining balance on moving surface, such as skateboarders, surfers, skiers, and snowboarders, will probably find it a bit easier than others. Here are the steps that my instructor took me through.

Step 1: Levitating

The first step in learning to flyboard is learning to simply stand on it, which is not quite as easy as it sounds. To do this, you will position yourself upright in the water with your feet beneath you. When you give your instructor the thumbs-up, he will increase the throttle, and the jets on the boots will propel you you up out of the water.

As many of my fellow board-sport lovers have learned over time, when learning to ride a board that has a life of its own it’s easier to keep your balance by continually adjusting back and forth than it is to try to stand upright and stationary. On my first few attempts, I tried to blast up out of the water and stand stationary, but each time I quickly fell. So, next I tried maintaining balance by tilting the board forwards and backwards in rapid succession, constantly adjusting to keep myself upright. It was surprisingly easy to stay upright this way.

Step 2: Front Dive

Next, my instructor told me to dive into the water and then try to turn 180 degrees and shoot straight back up out of the water back into a standing levitating position.  This only took a few tries. The instructor gave me a bit of a boost into the air by throttling the jets and then I dove into the water. I allowed myself to go fairly deep to allow enough room to turn around and then simply curved my body by sticking my chest out and throwing my head back, which turned me back toward the surface. The trickiest part was maintaining my balance once I was back in the air.

Step 3: The Dolphin

This is where things start to get fun. The dolphin looks a lot like it sounds. You dive into the water, turn around and fly back up into the air, and then immediately dive again, and repeat this over and over, just like a dolphin. There is a bit of a trick to this. It’s really just like repeating the diving manoeuvre over and over. Because of the foreword motion you’ll feel tempted to exit the water at an angle moving forward. You really don’t want to do this though, because you won’t gain enough height to keep going. You want to exit the water going almost straight up.

The only forward motion will occur when you are diving, not ascending. There is one important thing to note here. When I was doing this, I misheard my instructor. I thought he told me to keep my arms by my sides, so I was hitting the water with my head (wearing a helmet, of course). After slamming my head into the water a dozen times it started to get pretty sore. The lesson: keep your arms out in front of you, like you’re diving, to break the water before your head hits it.

Step 4: Back Dive

This one requires little explanation. It’s just like the front dive, except you throw your arms up over your head and try to dive backward into the water. Not seeing where you are going may feel a little intimidating, but this is pretty easy.

Step 5: Back Flip

This is the last manoeuvre I tried, but I wasn’t able to master it. This trick requires a lot more height than the others because you are trying to complete a full flip in the air and still land with enough distance between you and the surface of the water for the jets to keep you aloft. There is also the issue of keeping your balance when you land from the backflip. When you try a backflip your instructor will have to open up the throttle to jet you really high in the air.

The instructor will wait for you to get your balance and give him the thumbs up. Then he’ll rocket you up into the air. The key here is to try and time your backflip with the peak of your ascent. When you think you’re near the peak throw your arms and head back as hard as you can and then…well…basically hope for the best. I can’t tell you how to land a backflip, because I wasn’t able to. But, if you make it this far in your first lesson, you’ll probably be too tired to even care. I sure was.

Disclaimer: My trip to Puerto Vallarta was provided courtesy of the Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board. However, the things I chose to write about the trip were completely at my discretion and all opinions expressed in this article are my own.

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A tour guide always plays a big role in making a good experience, and ours was fantastic. I was also very impressed by how socially and environmentally responsible the trip was.

The Sea Safari started in a an inflatable motor boat with about 20 attendees. Our enthusiastic guide took the time to memorize the name of every person on the boat, and made quite a show of it. By the time we arrived at the first point of interest, he stood at the head of the boat and pointed out every passenger by name.

As we headed away from the marina we got a fantastic view of Puerto Vallarta just after sunrise.

Our first stop was a brief one, at a series of rock formations called Los Arcos with shapely arches jutting out of the sea.

The rock formations were covered in booby birds, which I had never seen before. Surprisingly, they bear little resemblance to the boobies that I was first introduced to by the television show Baywatch.

After around an hour we arrived at a small fishing village. The village is accessible only by boat. No roads lead in or out of it. It was super cute.

The waters near the shore were dotted with small anchored boats, which were covered in hordes of pelicans. It is very likely that I will never see so many pelicans in one place again.

The view of the unspoiled coastline was idyllic. (If you’d rather see some extremely unidyllic coastlines, check this out).

After a wander through the village and a bathroom break, we arrived at a river where our horses were kept. Actually, I don’t think they were horses. They were smaller, probably donkeys or mules. I was happy to see that they were well-cared for because I’ve seen many companies that don’t care for their animals so well.

There were flocks of butterflies in the air and beside the river in most places.

Our donkeys, or mules, or whatever they were, knew the trail perfectly. I rode the lead mule, and eventually just dropped the reigns because there was no need to steer him.

After thirty or forty minutes we arrived at a waterfall. Vallarta Adventures had a photographer on hand to capture the moment for people (and, of course, sell them their ‘moments’ later).

The waterfall was not ugly.

I decided to take my GoPro and swim as close as possible to the waterfall to take a waterfall selfie.

This is what I got.

After about an hour we hopped on our trusty steeds and meandered back to the village. On the way I took a mule selfie.

 We all hopped back in the boat and went snorkelling. So, I had a friend take a snorkelling selfie of me.

I am, as a matter of fact, the selfie master.

One of our guides managed to grab a puffer fish for me to take a photo of, which was pretty awesome.

Finally we arrived at Pizota, a private beach where they had set up an open bar, barbecue buffet, hammocks beach mats, and sea kayaks. It was pretty sweet. The coolest part for me, though, was that the beach was filled with holes dug by crabs.

The crabs were colourful, cute, and everywhere, digging away at their holes. What the holes were for, i have no idea.

A little away from the beach I found a cliff that was swarming with crabs. It was like the cliff was alive.

After a nice long beach break, we returned to Puerto Vallarta.

This trip was provided by the Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board, but all opinions are my own. 

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Mazatlan is a cultural destination. If you’re looking for cobblestone streets, outdoor live music, art galleries, and colonial architecture, then Mazatlan is where you want to be. We stayed at the El Cid Marina Resort and spent most of our time learning about they city’s arts, culture, and gastronomy. Of course there are many places to stay in Mazatlan and it is best to read  reviews of Mexican hotels and compare their prices online.

Despite the trip’s focus on culture, I was able to find a few sweet outdoors escapes in and around the city.

Mazatlan Adventure #1: Zip Lining

There’s more than one zip lining outfit near Mazatlan. We went with Huana Coa Canopy Adventures, which is a short drive from Mazatlan near the village of La Noria. I love zip lining because it’s not too expensive, anyone can do it, and it’s a fairly exciting way to appreciate the natural beauty of a place.

Huana Coa has one advantage over other zip line tours in the area; it’s basically next door to the Los Osuna distillery, so after touring the fields of agave from above, you can tour the facility where Los Osuna produces its award-winning agave liquor and, of course, sample some. Interested in learning more? Read this detailed post about my trip.

Mazatlan Adventure #2: Booze Cruise

There were some aspects of our trip’s organization that I questioned. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think that sending a bunch of bloggers and social media superstars on a booze cruise to get drunk, go snorkelling, and tweet happy tweets about Mazatlan = winning strategy.

However, scheduling said bloggers and tweeters to return from half the day drinking in the sun to a meeting during in which they are expected to listen to a long presentation from a tourism board bigwig about the area’s history and culture = recipe for inappropriate head-on-table naps.

Either way, our booze cruise to Deer Island was definitely a good time.

Mazatlan Adventure #3: Surfing

I don’t get the opportunity to surf that often, so whenever one comes up I jump on it. When I asked the folks from Go Mazatlan about arranging a surf trip, they were all over it. In fact, they arranged two. Mazatlan doesn’t have the most incredible surf in Mexico. This is true. However, it does have good surf and there aren’t a lot of surfers.

There are a few breaks in the city itself. We stopped by a couple. They were fairly small, but not too crowded. We also visited a break about a 30-minute drive north of the city. We were practically the only people there. If you’re like me and prefer a small empty break to a big crowded one, then you’ll love surfing around Mazatlan.

The post Three Outdoors Adventures in Mazatlan, Mexico appeared first on XpatMatt.

It’s no secret that I’m a big advocate of environmentally-friendly travel that encourages people to appreciate the outdoors and supports local economies. Ziplining does all of those things. Since you spend most of the activity suspended above the ecosystem that you’re viewing you have very little impact on it. It’s an exceptional way to appreciate nature. It’s adventurous. It can be done by people of all physical abilities and ages.

Perhaps best of all, it requires a relatively small investment to set up, which means that even people in less-developed countries are able to set up these eco-friendly tour businesses and increase their earnings through responsible and somewhat educational tourism.

As far as I’m concerned it’s an all-round winning prospect.  So, I was pretty excited when I found out that ziplining was on the agenda while visiting Mazatlan with Go Mazatlan.

Safety

Since ziplines are often hung hundreds of feet above the ground safety is a very serious concern. Your equipment is the only thing separating you from a plunge into the fields of agave plants below.

When ziplining you’re  strapped into a harness that is attached to two lines (in case one breaks) by two pulleys (in case one breaks) so that if any one part of the system breaks there’s always going to be a fail safe.

We were given a twenty-minute safety brief that discussed the safety features of the zipline and harness, how to slow down when approaching the platform, how to keep yourself facing forwards, and how to pull yourself hand-over-hand to the platform if you slow yourself too much and accidentally stop in the middle of the line.

The Green Beast

The first part of the adventure was the ride to the top of the mountain in a six-wheeled military-looking beast of a truck called a Pinzgauer Swiss Army Vehicle, an all-terrain vehicle made to climb slopes of up to 70 degrees. The road was extremely steep and bumpy — and fun. The ride up was almost as exciting as the ziplines we were about to ride back down.

Zipping Above Fields of Agave

Huana Coa has nine lines that total 1.6km in length. They vary in distance and height.

The landscape was dry and desert-like. Dry brown bushes and trees and cacti contrasted by a deep blue sky was most of what we saw. Only the last one actually crosses a field of agave.

After a couple of zips we all got the hang of controlling our speed and stopping at the platform and everything went very smoothly.

One of the funnest parts of the day was rappelling about 30 feet from the last platform to the ground. The sinking feeling during the fast drop was awesome.

The Zipline Company: Huana Coa Canopy Adventure

The canopy tour is only one of several that Huana Coa offers. They also have horseback riding, ATV tours, and are just up the road from the Los Osena distillery, which offers tours of its own (and are a great way to wrap up a day of adventure).

The Huana Coa canopy tour is a short drive from Mazatlan in the Vinata of Osuna, near the village of La Noria.

You contact them at:

Phone: 0052 (669) 9901100

Address: Av. del Mar 1111 Local 10

Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico

Hotel Don Pelayo

Website: www.HuanaCoa.com

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Place

Los Cabos, Mexico

Los Cabos Location

Los Cabos is a 3,452 square kilometer municipality at the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico.

Major Cities in Los Cabos

The largest cities in Los Cabos include San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, both of which have populations near 70,000. Colonia del Sol is the third largest city in the region with just over 48,000 residents.

Geography and Ecology of Los Cabos

Los Cabos is 3,452 square kilometers, making it about three times as big as Hong Kong, and slightly smaller than French Polynesia. Located on the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, the municipality is surrounded on three sides by water with the UNESCO World Heritage Site Gulf of California to the east and Pacific Ocean to the west.
The geography of Los Cabos is dry, rocky, and desert-like. The most prominent natural features include the UNESCO World Heritage Site the Arc (a majestic natural rock arch), the Sierra de la Laguna mountain range which touches on the northern end of the municipality, and, of course, numerous picturesque beaches.

The southern tip of the California Baja Peninsula used to be an island. Because of this it developed a unique ecology. There are many endemic species of plants in the area, especially in the Sierra de la Laguna mountains, which have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of their “highly important and contrasted ecosystems, including arid zones, matorrales, low deciduous forest type, evergreen oak, (etc.)”.

Los Cabos Weather and Climate

Los Cabos is warm all year round, with July, August, and September being the hottest and most humid months. The heat and humidity coincide with hurricane season, which lasts from June to October and reaches its peak in September.
The average temperature during the day in Los Cabos is around 26-28°C during the winter (October to April) and can rise to 38°C or higher during the summer. Los Cabos is said to receive between 300 and 350 sunny days per year and receive less than 10 inches of rain.

The temperature of the ocean around Los Cabos is hovers around 23-25°C in the winter and can rise to over 30°C in the summer.

Los Cabos Description

Los Cabos is no stranger to tourism. Cabo San Lucas and the Los Cabos Corridor (also known as the corridor del oro, or Golden Corridor) is one of the most popular and successful tourist destinations in the country. Located between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose, The Corridor is a twenty-mile stretch of coves and beaches filled with upscale resorts and golf courses that draw affluent clientele from around the world.

The area also has a wide variety of activities for outdoors lovers. No description of Los Cabos would be complete without a mention of fishing, which is a huge draw for sportsmen (Cabo San Lucas is home to the largest marlin fishing tournament in the world). The area is also rife with hiking trails, craggy cliffs for climbing, excellent surf breaks, scenic ocean kayaking, and breathtaking scuba diving and snorkeling sites.

The best natural features of the area include the UNESCO World Heritage sites the Arch and the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains. Los Cabos also well situated for whale watching, as many whales travel there each year to bear their young in the warm waters.

Los Cabos Outdoors Adventure Highlights

• Surfing in Los Cabos is excellent with breaks for everyone from beginners to experts both near the tourist corridor, and elsewhere.
• Cousteau called the UNESCO World Heritage site the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) “the world’s aquarium” and “the Galapos of the north”. The scuba diving and snorkeling are epic.
• Los Cabos is ideal for whale watching from January to March, as each year gray whales travel there from the cold waters of the north Pacific to bear their young.
• Ziplining in Los Cabos is an excellent way to view landscape without having an impact on the local environment. Los Cabos has some of the longest zip lines in Baja Mexico.

Los Cabos Outdoor Adventure Activities

• Surfing
• Stand-up paddle boarding
• Scuba diving (wreck, reef)
• Snorkeling
• Surfing (all levels)
• Whale watching
• Sailing
• Kitesurfing
• Windsurfing
• Parasailing
• Paragliding
• Hang gliding
• Sky diving
• Bungee jumping
• Hot air ballooning
• Kayaking (ocean)
• Hiking/trekking (all levels)
• Via Ferrata
• Canyoning
• Ziplining
• Rock climbing (all levels)
• Abseiling/rappelling
• Mountain Biking (novice to expert)
• Horseback Riding

Budget Travel in Los Cabos

Prices in Los Cabos are not cheap, especially by Mexican standards. Many of the people who visit Los Cabos stay in luxury timeshares, such as those at Fiesta Los Cabos.

Cheaper accommodations start at around $50 USD per night for a double room

Dining out in and around the tourist corridor is also fairly pricey. However, once you move away from the touristy spots you will find much better prices at local restaurants. There is also a great selection both American and local supermarkets in the area.

Travel Insurance

I like to use World Nomads. It’s not too expensive and signing up is fast and straightforward. They also have pretty good coverage for sports equipment like surf and snowboards, but it varies depending on your country of origin, so be sure double check. You can get a free quote on their website.

Los Cabos Photos

[nggallery id=54]

Images (in order) courtesy DieselDemon, HawaiianVirtualTours, Melanie Lukesh, *r3M’S*, *r3M’S*, *r3M’S*, cplbasilisk, Susan E Adams, *r3M’S*, Sirsnapsalot, Camerons Personal Page, and lecates on Flickr.

Suggested Reading

Click on the images for more information

Los Cabos Map

View Larger Map

Disclosure: If you purchase insurance, book a hostel, or purchase one of the recommended books on this page using the links provided, I will receive a small commission. I do not, however, recommend these products simply to make money. I recommend World Nomads travel insurance because I use it myself and feel that they offer a good product that suits my needs at a fair price. I recommend Hostelbookers.com because they have the cheapest booking prices that I have seen online and a large selection, and I recommend the selected books from Amazon.com because they have reputations for quality information and were up to date at the time of writing. If you have found my blog useful I hope that you will consider purchasing some of these products using the links on this page to help me to continue providing free information about adventure travel around the world.

Los Cabos Vacations

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Watch it now! (29 min)

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– A twelve hour bus ride from Cranbrook to the Calgary airport (don’t even ask why it took so long).

– Two hours of sleep.

– Two hours detained by a mongoloid U.S. customs officer for no reason.  The guy said he was afraid that I might try to stay in the USA because I didn’t have an ongoing ticket.  I wittily responded, “Actually, I’m an American citizen,” which I thought would sink his argument.  But he countered with the ingenious rebuttal: “That doesn’t matter,” and sent me off to the Customs Time-Out room to think about the consequences of being witty to a customs officer.  I subsequently missed my flight, and had to take a later one.

– A beautiful, and expensive, but all too short four day layover in LA on Venice Beach.

– A two day car ride halfway across Mexico with Mike Sanchez, who I found on Craigslist, and who turned out to be like the smartest living creature in the universe. Really.  He was Google personified — except for Google stops belching meaningless shit at you if you ignore it.  So, I basically drove halfway across Mexico with an auto audio-Google machine on repeat constantly spewing whatever popped into his little search engine brain to fill the silence of his radioless car.

– A twelve hour bus ride to Mexico City, which arrived at Mexico City Central Station at 1am, and then a 10 hour wait for my next bus during which I didn’t sleep for fear of my bags being stolen, which was still way better than being stuck in a car with Mike Sanchez.

– A twelve hour ride to Tuxtla Gutierrez in Chiapas, which arrived at midnight, just in time to connect with my bus, a six hour ride to the Guatemalan border.

– A 10 minute wait in Guatemalan customs during which I saw a guy ingeniously talk the border guard into letting his buddy cross into Mexico even though he had no passport and was not a citizen, based only on the promise that they’d “be right back”.

– A four hour bus ride on an infamous Guatemalan ‘chicken bus’, during which I really had to go pee.

All to arrive in this beautiful little Guatemalan City of Quetzaltenango, which is situated in the western mountains beneath an active volcano that gushes a beautiful plume of smoke across the sky.  I’ve been in touch with the Lonely Planet writer for Guatemala who lives here, and who I will meet in a couple of weeks to see if he can help me get in with them. And now, I just came home from eating a four dollar steak dinner, and I’m sitting in my six dollar room, which is attached to a Spanish school that’s currently having a graduation party in the central patio.

But tomorrow I’m leaving.  I’m going to a small town on Lake Atitilan, which I can probably only get to by ferry, where it’s even cheaper.  Lonely Planet speaks of rooms for two and three dollars per night.  Spanish lessons for two dollars per hour and a bar that servers Cuba Libres for 30 cents apiece!

I can wake up every morning and go swimming in the lake and then I can go for a for a run up the volcano next to town and come home and study Spanish and write.

Where else could I possibly go?

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