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 Vallarta Living | May 2005 
Leaving Your Comfort Zone
 Tom Uhlenbrock - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
| | Waterfront stroll: Public art decorates the newly remodeled Malecon seaside boardwalk - where the young and the restless go to see and be seen. (Photo: Tom Uhlenbrock/Knight Ridder) |
The tour bus was empty when it picked me up at the Hotel Los Arcos in Puerto Vallarta's Old Town.
We rumbled through the skinny streets laid out long ago for donkey carts, past the whitewashed, red-roofed buildings with bougainvillea dripping from wrought-iron balconies, and headed north to the Hotel Zone in the newer end of town.
An hour later, each seat filled with tourists from the fancy resorts and cruise ship terminals, the bus pulled up and unloaded at our first destination: the Hotel Los Arcos in Old Town.
Gambino, the guide, explained that his job is to pry visitors from their poolside perches at the all-inclusive hotels, where the temptation is to hang out and sip a never-ending flow of piña coladas.
"Tourists come and eat at the resorts, and party that night at Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Cafe, and think they've been to Mexico," he said. "The international bars have international prices, and the only Mexicans you see are the waiters."
The "Old Mexico" of Puerto Vallarta deserves a closer look, either on foot, in a rental car or aboard a tour bus.
Musts on the sightseeing route are the remodeled Malecon seaside boardwalk, with lots of unusual public art and where the young and restless go to see and be seen; Our Lady of Guadelupe Church, with its crownlike spire; and the lushly overgrown Cuale River Island, where stylish restaurants and boutiques line the boulder-strewn stream.
The city was settled in 1851 by the Sanchez family near the mouth of the Cuale, where the Sierra Madres drop down to an arc of sandy beach lining Banderas Bay. The sleepy fishing village was awakened in 1954 when Mexicana Airlines realized the town's tourist potential and began offering flights to Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan. The area rose to star status in 1963 when movie director John Huston went looking for a tropical location to film a Tennessee Williams play and found the rugged cliffside beach south of the city.
"The Night of the Iguana" introduced the rest of the world to this secluded stretch of Pacific coast, and Puerto Vallarta's population bloomed from about 2,000 inhabitants to nearly 260,000 over the next several decades.
Some three million tourists show up each year, and tour guides such as Gambino and Jorge Luna try to get them away from the ritzy hotels and cruise ships to experience the Mexican culture thriving in Old Town.
And if you tire of the scenery and culture, there's always Hooters, Domino's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. "Nobody gets homesick in my hometown," Gambino said.
The open-air lobby of Los Arcos looked out onto a large swimming pool sandwiched between high-rise wings of the hotel, with the ocean just beyond. On the sand, umbrellas shaded chaise lounges where locals and visitors alike read, napped, baked, drank, played cards or strapped themselves into harnesses for parasail flights over the glistening bay.
Vendors roamed the promenade separating the beachfront hotels from the sand, selling colorful shawls, silver jewelry, straw hats and ironwood carvings of leaping dolphins and soaring sailfish. Hotel security guards were posted nearby, making sure the sales pitch never got too pushy.
All of Puerto Vallarta's 40 beaches are open to the public, even those fronting swanky resorts such as Crown Paradise, Krystal and Fiesta Americana in the northern Hotel Zone. Buy a pi–a colada and you'll be treated like a guest.
At Los Muertos Pier down the beach, a friendly salesman tried to interest me in a deep-sea fishing trip for $200. "The captain brings an ice chest with drinks for you," he said. "If he has six fishermen, he brings six ice chests."
My room at Los Arcos had all-white decor with a walk-in tiled shower and a flower-draped balcony above the beach. I saw no iguanas, but a tiny sliver of a gecko patrolled the ceiling, bellowing out a surprisingly loud chirp at night.
The hotel was within walking distance of the flea markets, although Gambino advised that the real values were in the quality shops and galleries that lined the streets of Old Town.
"Go to the shops for presents for yourself, and to the flea market for presents for your friends," he said. "The stores guarantee on your receipt that you are buying sterling silver. If you're not happy, you can go back. You can't do that with the flea markets and the vendors on the beach."
There's a wide range of hotels in Puerto Vallarta, with rates from $20 to $300 a night. Prices at Los Arcos vary by the season, with winter rates for all-inclusive rooms ranging from $55 to $117 a night for two people.
So far, Gambino hadn't shown me anything I hadn't seen wandering around Old Town on my own. I got my 20 bucks' worth as we left the city limits and headed south on a paved highway.
First, the bus meandered through the winding streets of Conchas Chinas, a residential area where the gated hillside villas had million-dollar sea views and prices starting at half that.
A few miles later, we rounded a curve and below stretched the town of Mismaloya on a gorgeous half-moon of sand beneath the tropical forest. Once the secluded setting for Huston's movie, the cove now holds what some consider the area's finest hotel, La Jolla de Mismaloya.
Our bus paused for a photo stop and, right on cue, a young man with an iguana draped over his shoulder appeared to pose for a few pesos. You could visit the still-standing movie sets and John Huston's Seafood Restaurant, but we rolled on by.
The bus chugged away from the sea into the jungle interior and we stopped for lunch under the thatched roof of Las Cascadas. The restaurant was next door to Chico's Paradise, a hangout of the stars that film in the area.
While I dined on 6-inch grilled shrimp stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon, a mariachi band played for a table of tourists, singing "Roll Out the Barrel." I was busy clapping along when the restaurant's pet, a large green parrot named Linda, landed on the arm of the empty chair next to me and flew off with a half-eaten lobster tail from my dining partner's plate.
Polka music and parrot thievery in paradise. Now that was worth the 20 bucks. |
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