Puerto Vallarta (PV) is a special place in Mexico, a harbor of huge proportions that cradles rich restaurants, beautiful beaches, great golf, cold cerveza on que, and limitless adventure — all available without breaking the bank. Having been to PV a few times I now feel qualified to offer the following recipe for five-star beaches and adventure.
Flights to PV will set you back $275-$450, depending upon your place of origin, and represent the bulk of the trip’s expense. In terms of the hotel, skip the all-inclusive resorts and book a room at the Hotel Rosita for $35 per night. The hotel is secure, the rooms are clean, the beds nice enough and the location is central to the action on Vallarta’s boardwalk. What more do you need?
From the Rosita’s central location you have two options for day trips — north to Punta de Mita (for surfers), or south to Yelapa. Either way, you are looking at an hour of travel by bus and/or boat, so getting an early start is key. PV offers hiking and canopy tours downtown for those who don’t want to trek for an hour, but for those seeking pristine beaches and an original adventure for just a few hundred pesos, getting out of PV-proper is step one.
The day of your adventure, get going at 7:00 a.m., even if you have to fight the tequila cobwebs.
Get on a (free) bus downtown that is headed South. Tell the driver (or get the low-down from the Rosita’s front desk) you want to go to Boca de Tomatlan and he will help you with the correct bus transfer, of which there is only one. You’ll be on the bus for about 30 minutes, or longer.
At Boca you come to the end of the road, literally. Waiting for you in Boca are a handful of water taxis in a small harbor. Negotiate a reasonable price ($10-$20) for a round-trip taxi ride to Yelapa.
10 minutes later, with guaranteed smiles on your faces from the water taxi ride, you’ll arrive in a paradise called Yelapa. And virtually alone. Aside from a few huts offering cerveza’s, beach food and kayak rentals, it’s just you, the crabs and a few tourists who paid up the #$@ to be there. But Yelapa is just a pit stop.
After a late breakfast rent some kayaks and head even further south, to the beaches near Chimo. Don’t forget to bring cerveza’s with you, as there is literally nothing and no one after you leave Yelapa.
During a recent trip with friends from our island, the guys spent hours on these beaches laughing and playing smashball, and bodysurfing, while the wives relaxed in the soft sand and warm sun. At that moment, our vacation life and that of our adventurous, travelling friends had become completely intertwined and euphoric. We had found ‘the place’, that place that Talking Heads used to sing about! It was ours! And when the time came, no one wanted to leave!
We eventually paddled back to Yelapa sunburned and slaphappy, just in time for our water taxi back to Boca, but not before laying full claim to what has become affectionately known as del negro crab beach.
By the time we got back to PV it was dark and dinnertime, dinner being something the restaurants in downtown PV do quite well. So well, in fact, that dinner in Vallarta is a whole other blog topic.
Get yourself to del negro crab beach. It will cost you less than a lame canopy tour in PV, and deliver far more enjoyment.
–30–
