Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 69 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well today.
I just recently came back from a trip and that's actually going to be the topic of this episode.
My recent trip to Nuevo Vallarta, and which is a beach destination here in Mexico, not too far from where I live.
So I'm happy to talk about that today, and this trip is still fresh in my mind, so I'll be able to remember everything that I did more easily than if it had happened many months ago.
So I know it's been a while since I've done an episode on one of my road trips or one of my other types of travels.
So I'm excited to talk about that today.
Remember that if you want more listening time, if two episodes per month isn't enough for you, then make sure to sign up to become a listening time member and you'll receive my bonus podcast episodes.
And if you want my advanced podcast, make sure to become a Listening Time family member.
In my advanced podcast episodes, I talk at normal speed, so I speak fast.
And it's great practice for you to get used to normal speech, native speakers speaking at normal speed.
So if this podcast has already become pretty comfortable for you, if it's pretty easy for you to understand me in the normal listening time podcast, then it's definitely time for you to move up to the next level and try the listening time advanced podcast.
So if you want that, just click on the link in the description.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
You'll find that link below this episode in the episode description.
So click on that and become a Listening Time family member if you want my advanced podcast.
And, of course, remember that you have the transcript available for this episode, underneath the episode in the description.
And please give this podcast a five-star rating if you like it, which will help this podcast grow.
Alright, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about my trip to Nueva Vallarta.
So first of all, let me explain where Nueva Vallarta is.
It's in the state of Nayarit.
It's in the very south of the state here in Mexico.
And it's right on the Pacific Ocean.
It's very close to a more well-known city called Puerto Vallarta.
You might have already heard of this city before.
This is a major tourist destination here in Mexico.
But Nueva Vallarta is also a big tourist place, it's just not quite as popular as Puerto Vallarta.
So Nueva Vallarta is much smaller and it's mostly a lot of hotels and resorts, whereas Puerto Vallarta has an actual city with a downtown and all of that.
I've already been to Puerto Vallarta a couple times, so this time we went to Nuevo Vallarta, which is a new place for me.
So we stayed in a resort, which is not normal for me, because I normally can't afford to stay in a resort.
In English, when we say you can't afford something, this means that you don't have enough money to buy something.
So if I say I can't afford a new car right now, I'm saying that I don't have enough money to buy a new car.
So normally I don't stay in resorts because I can't afford it, but this time my aunt gave me this week at this resort as a gift.
So I actually didn't pay anything for the resort.
So that's the reason why we stayed there.
Normally we would stay in a cheap Airbnb and that's more of my style of traveling.
But this time we got this gift to stay in a nice resort.
So we decided to enjoy ourselves there and enjoy this more luxurious style of travel.
However, one thing that I don't really like about staying in resorts is that all of the food, the restaurants there, everything is really expensive.
So even though I stayed for free at this resort, it didn't feel that comfortable for me to stay there all day, because if we wanted to buy food, it was definitely expensive.
All of the restaurants are pretty nice and it's a little bit out of my price range.
In English, when we say that something is out of your price range, this just means that it's a little too expensive for you.
So, if you guys have ever stayed in resorts before, you know what I'm talking about.
Everything is more expensive than in other places.
Alright, well let's talk a little bit about my road trip to Nueva Vallarta.
So we actually had to drive about five hours to get there.
At the beginning of the episode I mentioned that Nueva Vallarta isn't that far and you're probably wondering How is that possible.
You had to drive five hours to get there.
That seems pretty far.
Well, geographically, Nueva Vallarta isn't very far from where I live here in my city.
However, there's no highway that goes there. directly in a straight line to the coast.
So it's a lot of windy roads that go up and down and north and south, and it takes a long time to get there.
In English, when we say the phrase windy roads, We're talking about roads that go left and right and up and down.
They're not straight.
They look like a snake, kind of.
So these are windy roads.
So that's why I said that Nueva Vallarta is not very far geographically, but it takes a long time to drive there.
So the road trip to go there is beautiful.
It's a fantastic road trip.
Everything from my city until Nueva Vallarta is nice and green and beautiful, especially right now because we're at the end of the rainy season here.
And so it's been raining a lot the last three months.
And so everything is green and lush and beautiful.
When we say that something is lush in English, we mean that there's a lot of green nature and plants and things like that.
So it's beautiful and lush right now.
So it's a really enjoyable road trip.
Even though you have to drive a lot of hours, you really enjoy it because you get to really take in the scenery and enjoy the views.
In English, when we say that you take in some view or scenery, it just means that you look at it and admire it and enjoy it.
So it was nice to drive there and I was able to take in all of this beautiful scenery.
So I really liked that, especially closer to the coast because it becomes a little more jungly.
It's kind of like a tropical forest.
I don't know if that forest is actually classified as a tropical forest or not.
But it looks more tropical and it's very dense.
And there are really cool looking trees and plants everywhere.
And there are like tunnels of trees where the trees are overhead.
They're over you and they create kind of a tunnel that you drive through.
So I really liked the road trip there.
So that part was really fun.
The part that I didn't like about the road trip is that you have to pay tolls.
In English, a toll is an amount of money that you have to pay to drive on some road.
So, as I've mentioned before in other episodes where I talked about road trips in Mexico, if you want to take the good highways, then you have to pay tolls and you have to pay a lot of them.
So I think during my road trip, we paid like four or five tolls.
So that's very normal in Mexico.
If you're going to drive five hours, you're probably going to pay five tolls.
So I don't like that part because it costs more money.
And I don't like that some of the roads are not very well maintained.
And so you have to be very careful because there are holes and other things like that that you need to avoid as you're driving.
So there are some things like that that make it a little bit hard.
But overall, like I mentioned, it's a fun road trip.
So I can't complain.
Let me talk about the weather in Nuevo Vallarta.
So this is a negative point for some people because it's very hot and humid.
When you walk outside, you're immediately hit by this heat and this heat. heaviness in the air.
It's very humid and so you sweat all day when you're outside.
I was sweating constantly when I was there.
I was always wet because of this, because it just feels so tropical, so hot and humid and And so a lot of people they just want to go inside and turn on the AC and just cool down.
In English, when we say AC, we're referring to air conditioning.
So every building in Nueva Vallarta has air conditioning.
And so when you walk inside some building or you go inside the hotel, it's really cold compared to outside.
So I don't really like this type of heat.
As you might know by now, I really like sunny weather and I like hot weather, but I prefer dry heat.
I prefer more desert like weather.
So for me, I like the hot weather in places on the coast, but I don't really like how humid it is.
It's not very comfortable.
But I don't complain because I prefer the sun rather than the rain or cloudy days.
It rained a little bit when we were there.
I think it rained on two of the days, maybe.
But it was in the evening and we still got many hours of sunlight, so it wasn't bad.
Let me talk a little bit more about the resort now.
So we stayed in a very beautiful room.
I really appreciated the room that my aunt got us because it had a really big balcony overlooking the pool area and the ocean.
And there was a bathtub inside the bedroom and there were nice showers and everything was nice and clean and it felt really cool to be in there.
So I really appreciated that.
It was a great room to stay in.
The pool was fantastic too.
It was really nice to be able to take my one-year-old son into the water because he loves the pool.
So he spent hours and hours in the water and it was really fun to just watch him be happy and play with his toys in the water, and it was really cool.
So that was great for him and for us too.
We really enjoyed being in the pool for many hours with him.
I'm not a big pool person.
I grew up with a swimming pool actually, but I never really swam that much when I was younger.
I'm not a water person in general, but it was nice to spend a lot of time in the pool during this vacation because it was relaxing and because my son had so much fun.
So even though I'm not a big pool person, it was still really cool to spend a lot of time in the pool this last week.
So the pool was great.
And if you stay at a resort like this, you have access to the beach directly from the resort, which is cool.
So if you walk through the pool area you can go down to the beach and it's kind of like your own private beach.
Of course there are other people that can access the beach if they just walk on the sand from some other point.
But it feels like there aren't a lot of people there and it's just the people at the hotel.
So that was cool.
But during this week, I think there was a hurricane in some other place on the coast of Mexico.
And this kind of affected the waves and the ocean where we were.
And so there were some days I think two days or maybe three days where it was a little bit rough in the water.
When I use the word rough like this, I'm saying that it was a little bit extreme.
It was not very calm.
So there were some huge waves and it was a little bit dangerous.
And so on those days, I didn't go in the water.
But on the other days, it was really nice.
And there were always a lot of waves when we were there.
And I really like waves.
I prefer waves going in the ocean.
When there are waves, it's cool to go in the ocean when it's really calm and clear as well, but honestly, I prefer playing in the waves a little bit.
I like to go over the waves and go under them and swim with them.
So I had a lot of fun actually, but a lot of other people didn't want to go in the water because there were too many waves for them.
So it was great for me, but not so great for some of the other people.
But I had a great time at the beach going in the water.
I'm not a beach person.
I don't usually like to spend a lot of time lying on the sand under the sun.
I don't really like all of that, but I really like going in the ocean down here in Mexico because it's very warm.
The water is awesome.
It's like being in a bathtub.
So I really like being in the water.
But I don't like spending time on the sand at the beach.
So I usually just go in the water and then come back out and dry off and leave.
And of course, we ate at some of the restaurants at the resort.
But as I mentioned, they're pretty expensive.
And so we tried to eat outside of the resort at some other places on many of the days.
But it was cool to get a little taste of this luxurious vacationing, right?
Staying in a resort, ordering room service, things like that.
It was cool to do that.
But as I mentioned, it's not my style of travel.
So I would only do this type of trip if someone gives it to me as a present.
So I think that I won't do another trip like this for a while, probably.
And now I want to mention one of the other towns that we drove to one of the days that we were staying in Nueva Vallarta.
And it's called Sayulita.
And this is a magic town in Mexico.
A magic town is a town that has been designated as being important for tourism or culture by the Mexican government.
And so these towns are a little bit nicer and well-maintained than other towns in the country.
So Sayulita is a cool magic town on the coast of Mexico.
And it's especially famous because it's a great place to surf.
So it has a lot of great waves for surfers.
And so people that love surfing, they love this town.
And we went there one of the days that we were staying in Nueva Vallarta.
And we watched these surfers catch these waves and ride the waves for hours, actually.
And it was really cool.
I don't surf.
I don't know how to surf.
I don't think I ever will become a surfer or anything like that.
But I really like watching people surf.
It's really fun to see them with their skills, doing different tricks and things like that.
So that was really fun.
Of course, I also went in the water and it was warm.
Of course, there were some nice waves for me as well.
So that was great.
And the town is pretty cute.
It's a charming town and there are a lot of foreigners there.
So a lot of people move there and actually buy an apartment or something like that if they really love surfing, if they really love the ocean.
So we saw a lot of foreigners, a lot of Americans, Canadians probably move.
So this is a great place if you want to just retire maybe, or you just want to find a place close to the ocean where you can surf every day and live that type of lifestyle.
Sayulita is a good place for that.
And we ate at a great restaurant there and it looked like they had a lot of good food in this town.
So it's a really great place to visit in my opinion.
So that was a cool day trip that we did.
In English, when we use the phrase day trip, we're referring to a trip that you take, where you only go for one day.
You don't stay the night at that place.
You just go there and come back the same day.
That's a day trip.
So this was great.
I really liked that town.
And I could definitely see myself going back there again and enjoying all the cool things there.
So I really liked that.
One last thing that I want to mention is that we went to a crocodile sanctuary.
This was a pretty unique experience.
There, close to Nueva Vallarta, there are crocodiles actually.
And so we went to this sanctuary where they have some of these crocodiles and we got to see some of the baby crocs and that was pretty cool.
It's like looking at a very big lizard.
So I hadn't seen any baby crocodiles in person before.
That was cool.
And then there were also a couple big crocodiles, and they were swimming in the little pond underneath us.
And It was a little bit scary to see them.
I'm not super scared of crocodiles, but my wife is.
And so for her, it was an interesting experience to see these big crocodiles swimming below her.
But I really enjoyed it.
And they had some other animals there and they had other interesting birds and other types of land animals too.
But the main attraction was these crocodiles.
So that's another thing that's pretty cool to do if you're in that area is to go see crocodiles, if this is something that you like.
So that was another day trip that we did.
And overall, I really enjoyed my time in Nueva Vallarta.
It was a great time to relax in the pool and allow my son to enjoy the water and to just relax and enjoy family and enjoy some quality time there.
And, as I mentioned, it was also a good time for me to play in the ocean a little bit with the big waves and enjoy the warm water there.
And I actually got to do a lot of reading as well, which I really enjoyed.
I took my Kindle with me.
Thank you so much for watching.
So I really enjoyed that as well.
But as I mentioned, this type of vacation isn't really my style.
So I'm probably not going to take another vacation like this for a while.
But it was really fun to do that this past week.
All right.
Well, why don't we stop there for today?
I hope this episode was interesting for you and I hope it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that if you want more listening time episodes, if you want my bonus episodes, then become a listening time member.
And if you want my advanced podcast, then become a listening time family member.
So you can understand what I'm saying. and you can practice with real English.
So make sure to sign up.
The link is in the episode description below this episode.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
And please give this podcast a five-star rating if you like it and share it with anyone else who might find it useful and help this podcast grow.
All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
