My husband and I took a vacation, without the children, in Puerto Vallarta. It was heaven. It was romantic. It was adventurous. It was stunning. It was just what we needed to rekindle our marriage, get to know each other again, and have some adventures together.

There were so many amazing moments on this trip. For me, it was overcoming my fear of zip-lines and learning I LOVE them. For my husband it was being re-introduced to scuba diving and swimming with a manta ray. This was the trip of a lifetime for us. Hopefully the first of many to come!

While in Puerto Vallarta, we stayed at the Casa Magna Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. It’s a beautiful hotel, near the Puerto Vallarta Marina and very close to the Airport. We absolutely loved the hotel. It was quiet and that was just what we needed for spending some time together without our children. The gardens and views from the hotel were gorgeous!

Our first adventure was scuba diving. We took a boat out to Los Arcos, a local island dive site. It was certainly an adventure because I got really seasick! We saw some amazing animals on the dive including sea snakes, multicoloured fish, sea turtles, an eel, sting rays and even a huge manta ray! The ray was amazing. It was wider than our boat! I finally started feeling better on the way back to the city. The dive crew at PV Scuba were wonderful and made me feel comfortable when I was sick. I’ll never forget that day!

Luckily the rest of the day was much better for me. It was Valentine’s Day and we had booked the fanciest, most romantic restaurant in town: Vista Grill! The restaurant is at the top of a big hill overlooking the whole city. We were ready a little early and took a taxi to the Romantic Zone. That’s when I made a silly decision. Even though I had heels on, I thought we could take our time and walk up the hill (in the mid-day sun) to the restaurant. I thought it would be a nice romantic walk and we would have plenty of time. I was wrong! We took the hard way (of course) and walked straight up a 75% incline, on a cobblestone street, with me in heels! When we got to Vista Grill we were both sweating buckets! Thank gosh it is open air and we were seated right on the edge of the patio. We got over our climb quickly, because the view blew us away and then the sun started setting. We had the most romantic dinner of our relationship!

The food was delicious and the service fantastic.  Speaking of food. We had some of the most delicious meals during our stay in Puerto Vallarta. My husband loved the breakfast dish Chilaquiles, a local specialty in Jalisco. It is made up of taco chips, fried egg, chicken, cheese, and tomatilla sauce. All of the traditional Mexican dishes we had on our vacation were delicious.

The next day we went to Canopy River early in the morning, to do their zip-line tour. I was really nervous about zip-lining after my rough day of diving but I wasn’t giving up on this adventure! The first line we had to do was called the “baby line.” As soon as I sat back in the harness and started flying through the air I knew I didn’t have to worry any more. I LOVED IT! I feel like I was flying on the zip-lines 300 feet above the canyon floor. We went up to 55 miles/hour and it was a blast! I don’t think I stopped smiling the whole time.

Also, the view from Canopy River was amazing! We had so many amazing views from all over Puerto Vallarta.

Our last day in Puerto Vallarta was spent walking around downtown and enjoying the Malecon boardwalk on the ocean, shopping for souvenirs in the stores and market and just sitting on the beach in the sun. It was late in the afternoon when I was looking out to the ocean, really hoping to see the whales I had heard so much about, when I finally saw a single whale fin. It was a magical end to a wonderful trip. We spent a lot of time together, encouraged each other on the zip lines, explored under the water, ate romantic dinner’s together, sat in the sun and just enjoyed each other’s presence. I really hope we get to do it again soon and also get to bring our children back to Puerto Vallarta to show them this wonderful city we fell in love with.

This article was previously published at My Life In the Sun.