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 Travel & Outdoors | February 2008 
Try a Seaside Escape South of the Border
 Kris Hundley - St. Petersburg Times
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| | Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in front of the famous Love Bridge. Their former mansions are linked together over Calle Zaragoza in the Gringo Gulch section of Puerto Vallarta. | | |
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Once you shake the time-share salesmen, who cling like ticks from the minute you clear customs, Puerto Vallarta proves to be a surprisingly laid-back place for a family vacation.
This resort town on Mexico's Pacific Coast is wedged between the Bay of Banderas and the craggy Sierra Madres. Walk four blocks inland from the Malecon, the broad city sidewalk that follows the shoreline, and you'll find yourself hiking up cobblestone streets at a San Francisco-like angle. Stop at any point for a breath and a view of the sea or of a hideaway straight out of Architectural Digest.
Puerto Vallarta was a speck of a fishing village until the 1960s when it was used by director John Huston as the setting for Night of the Iguana. The film's star, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor, each married to others, scandalized the world with their love affair during filming. The town leveraged the notoriety to hawk time-share resorts to starstruck gringos.
Today the hotel where the movie was shot is hidden behind a chain-link fence guarded by a snarling German shepherd. Taylor is said to still visit ''Casa Kimberley,'' a three-story villa Burton bought her overlooking the bay. The thrill of touring her former home, most recently a B&B, is muted a bit when your kids have just one question: ``Who is Elizabeth Taylor?''
Like any resort town, Puerto Vallarta offers a wide range of accommodations, from the frankly flea-bag to the exorbitantly out-of-my-price-range. A spacious condo that sleeps six at a four-star resort runs about $250 a night in season. You can keep costs down by picking up breakfast and lunch foods at the local Sam's Club or Gigante, the Mexican deep-discounter. Or you can blow out the stops for a gourmet dinner at a chichi restaurant with $25 entrees.
If you're tired of sitting under a tiki hut with a drink in your hand, Puerto Vallarta has everything, from golf to parasailing to deep-sea fishing to flying along zip-lines through the jungle canopy. Arranging such tours, however, is another matter.
Our ''personal concierge'' promised several times to get us great discounts on a dive trip, but since we never were willing to sit for his sales pitch, the discounts never materialized. A direct call to the dive shop was the solution. Hardier souls might get a cheaper trip; then again, they would have to endure a spiel from a smooth-talking guy who can talk for an hour and never quite get to the point.
It is simple to get around Puerto Vallarta by cab, though the $17 fare from the airport is a bit of a burn when you consider the return ride is only $5. The best deal traveling around town is to grab a bus: 50 cents for a tooth-rattling ride over cobblestone streets while the driver grinds through the gears and tries to swap paint with buses in adjacent lanes. We even had onboard entertainment on a couple of late-evening runs: guitarists climbed onboard, pounded out acceptable versions of Besame Mucho and left after collecting loose change.
Other low-cost entertainment can be had by strolling the Malecon. Though we visited Puerto Vallarta at spring break, when plenty of college students were trying to drink themselves into oblivion and Senor Frog's was there to help, the city is also a magnet for Mexican families on holiday.
Everybody parades the Malecon, clambering all over fantastical sculptures that dot the walkway (how else to describe two pillow-headed creatures climbing a ladder to the sky or an elongated throne with octopus arms or a bench with ears?). Enterprising artists create massive sand sculptures of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Christ on the Cross (complete with candles for nighttime viewing; tips are appreciated).
A more formal shrine to the Lady is at the cathedral in the center of town, with its gold-inlaid altar and distinctive crown-shaped bell tower.
One night the Malecon's main event was a performance by four Indian voladores, or flyers, who climbed a 90-foot pole, deftly wrapped ropes around the pole as well as their legs, then proceeded to swirl, upside down, to the ground, all to the music of a fifth Indian, who was playing a pipe and dancing on the top of the pole (big tips appreciated).
A little farther down, at the town's central plaza, a crowd gathered around a big outdoor movie screen. On the bill: a Mexican sci-fi film from the 1950s in which aliens handily defeated a masked Lucha Libre champ, then were inexplicably transformed into Greek gods. It was worth the price of admission.
The best part of any trip is always the unexpected. For us it came when we rented a car and headed out of town. Going north on Carreta Federal 200, we pulled off the road at a gin-clear beach at Destiladeras. A thatched roof restaurant served beer and fish tacos on the sand.
Around the point we came to the hippie surfing village of Sayulita, worth a visit if for no other reason than to marvel at the U.S.-priced real estate in an end-of-the-earth location.
The second day we headed south, following the coast until the road started winding into the mountains. About 45 minutes outside the city we came to the Botanical Gardens of Vallarta. Only two years old, the nonprofit gardens are a promising work in progress with more than 3,000 species of plants on 24 acres.
We arrived early, with only a helpful mutt to lead us through the paths that wound through jungle, across streams and along a river where enormous boulders created hidden swimming holes. The crowds and the mosquitoes and the time-share salesmen had not yet arrived. It was heaven.
ON THE WEB
If you're ready to head south, check out these sites for travel ideas.
• www.visitpuertovallarta.com bills itself as the city's official site and offers extensive information on all there is to see and do, plus a calendar of events.
• www.vallartabotanicalgardensac.org features lush photos and descriptions of the developing botanical gardens.
• www.casakimberley.com takes you inside the former home of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The house is now a B&B. |
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