Mexico: My Beautiful Vallarta
I wrote an article in 2013 about Puerto Vallarta but didn’t keep a pdf of the actual article. I can’t find a link on the Sault Star website either. Luckily, I have my original document.
Here’s that document containing the original article. I’ve interspersed the text with photos from that time. Enjoy.
My Beautiful Vallarta
By Pauline Clark
There are two kinds of people in this world; those who love Mexico and those who believe you’re going to die if you go there.
My husband and I fall into the first group. We love Mexico; Puerto Vallarta to be exact.
“Why go to the same place over and over? Why not try some place new?” people ask. We’d love to go somewhere else but — we’re not done in Vallarta.
So what’s the big attraction? What makes Puerto Vallarta different from other tourist areas? It’s a question we asked ourselves during a recent visit.
Perhaps it’s how comfortable one feels there. Once you’ve been there, you will almost certainly have friends to go back to, whether it’s fellow countrymen, or employees at local businesses. You might even meet people with a connection to home—like we did.
Right after our arrival on March 1, we met up with Don and Karen Diehl of Port Huron MI, a couple we’d first encountered at a bus stop there the previous year. Busses, though sometimes old and rickety, are a convenient way to travel. A ticket costs just 7.5 pesos (.62 CA).
My husband was chatting with Don at that first meeting and mentioned we were from a small town they’d likely never heard of. It turned out they had. Karen’s great-aunt was the famed long-time lighthouse keeper in Thessalon years ago. My husband immediately told them that I’d written an article about that “lady of the light”, Esther (Glanville) Harvey. The man who was searching for information on the lighthouse keeper and who I’d interviewed for that story turned out to be Karen’s nephew.
The Diehls visited Vallarta for nearly a month this year.
“All the things I thought I wouldn’t like Mexico for are my favorites,” says Don. “I didn’t think I’d like the food. Wrong! I didn’t want to be around all the begging third world poor people. They may not have a lot of money but they are not poor and they are so welcoming and happy to see us and they appreciate my poco español.”
For my husband and I, Vallarta is more of an artsy, cultural neighbourhood than a tourist town. There are plenty of touristy things to see and do though. There’s the malecon (boardwalk) beside the ocean where most evenings you’ll find vendors, food, artists and performers. There are lots of attractions in the region including Los Arcos (the arches) and Mismaloya where the movie, Night of the Iguana was filmed in 1963.
That movie put Vallarta on the map when director John Huston brought his cast and crew to the small fishing village. Actor Richard Burton brought along Elizabeth Taylor who he was having a scandalous affair with at the time. The press couldn’t stay away from the famous couple and Puerto Vallarta soon became a popular destination.
Vallarta’s population has grown to 256,000. There are so many North Americans there in high season, it’s hard to remember you’re in Mexico. Wander the streets a little farther from the ocean and you’ll recognize that you are truly in a foreign but beautiful and interesting place.
Is it safe to wander around those streets?
“We tell people there were more shootings and robberies in their city than in PV—though maybe not than in Thessalon,” joke the Diehls, that couple we met up with early on in our visit.
They’re right. According to statistics I found for 2010, there were 50,000 expats and 1.5 million tourists in Vallarta and yet not one Canadian or American tourist was killed.
Puerto Vallarta is a friendly city. Locals will greet you with a friendly “hola” every time you meet and you’ll find yourself chatting with people everywhere you go.
Some of our conversations on our recent trip were with a couple from Arizona; he, a retired chiropractor and she, a former Avon director. There was also the retired City of Chicago employee and his wife who frequently sat at a balcony table with us and later, their friend who stopped to introduce herself simply because she was a librarian and had heard I was a writer. Oscar Hilman, a retired brigadier general for the US Army stayed in the same hotel as us and often stopped to chat and we saw Roger who’s retired from the City of Saskatoon every day. All of these people return to Vallarta each year. Our hotel even hosted an 85th birthday party for George from Wisconsin, who was there for his 49th—and probably last year—according to his son. And yet, as George was escorted from his wheelchair to the waiting taxi on his last day, he gave us a wave and said, “See you next year.”
We missed meeting up with the retired Toronto cop-turned-PV bar owner we met last year. He sold the bar to a Vancouver woman. That’s where we watched the hometown boys in the Brier final. We sat once with Sandie from San Diego who provided us with a card should we wish to rent her condo and we spent more than one evening at A Page in the Sun, the local coffee shop/bookstore talking to part-time Toronto residents, Scottish-born Tom and his wife. Tom used to travel as far north as Wawa as an insurance agent.
And then there are locals like Francisco and Guadalupa whose small store we visited the past two years, Gerardo with the beautiful smile at the hotel desk and Eddie, our waiter at Fredy’s Tucan Restaurant.
These are the people of Vallarta; they come in all ages, from all walks of life, and they all very willingly, share stories and tips on vacationing—and living in this enchanting city.
For two weeks, we enjoyed early morning walks on the “malecon” which extends along the ocean on Banderas Bay from the pier near our hotel north to Hotel Rosita and beyond. The Rosita, the city’s first hotel, was built in 1948 and still maintains its original Mexican character.
Nearby, a Starbucks serves as many locals as tourists and a McDonald’s appears to be serving mostly locals. While we avoid Walmart and Costco, the locals like the good prices.
Jobs in the city are low-paying, an average of 50 pesos ($4.10) per day. Most people work 12 hours/day, 6 days/week and yet these are happier, friendlier people than we encounter most days in Canada.
You have to wonder why everyone’s so happy. Perhaps it’s the music everywhere. You’ll hear guitar solos on the beach and mariachi bands, dressed in the snazziest suits and hats, playing by your table in outdoor cafes. Be on the watch for Los Bambinos, the popular boy band who’ve grown up performing everything from Beatles to original tunes on the streets of Vallarta.
There are high quality stage shows in community theatres too. We went to four shows, one of which was The Wonderful World of Miss Conception featuring Miss Conception (aka Kevin Levesque) who performed in Thessalon last fall for a Rainbow Camp fundraiser.
And then there are the restaurants, galleries and boutiques. No wonder we like this Zona Romantica neighbourhood around our hotel in old town. In fact, we’ve never ventured to the hotel zone on the north side of the city. Many of the chain hotels like the Sheraton are there and you’d likely need to travel by bus or taxi to get to old town.
We prefer more traditional hotels like Playa Los Arcos and some of the smaller boutique hotels. These hotels are generally older but they’re great, so long as you’re not looking for a resort experience.
If that’s what you want, you might be more suited to Nuevo Vallarta, a newer planned resort area that, though just 20 minutes away, is not only separate from Puerto Vallarta, it’s not even in the same state.
But back to old town, where you’re sure to encounter some obviously poor people. Many are old women peddling trinkets or tiny packs of Chiclets for pesos because they don’t have old age pensions. You’ll also see mothers, babies in tow, selling flowers and cookies on the streets. You’ll even be approached by young children who appear to be alone, already learning the wiles of good salesmanship. That’s life in Mexico.
As we roam, we tread carefully on the cobblestone streets and up and down the oddly-sized stair risers. There are hills at every turn and, with the city sitting at the bottom of the Sierra Madres mountains, many homes are built into the hillsides, often with 100 or more steps up to the main doors.
Restaurants are busy and you can tell the really good ones because the locals are there too. We tip everyone because people rely on tips but it’s been a good year for tourism in Vallarta, attributed in part to the unpredictable North American weather and the nearly perfect temperatures that exist in Vallarta during high season.
The weather alone is reason enough to visit. We left home with our thermometer reading -41. Though we returned home to plus temperatures, it’s hard not to wish we were back in beautiful Vallarta soaking up the sun and chatting away the hours with like-minded people.
It’s hard to forget what it’s like to watch the nightly sunset and the feeling that overtakes you in that split second when the sun disappears below the horizon and the crowd on the malecon lets out a cheer in perfect unison.
We’re not done in Vallarta yet.
Perhaps we never will be.
—end—
What do you think? Does Puerto Vallarta look like a place you’d want to visit? Tell me in the Comments.