A Taste of Vallarta, Jalisco, and Nayarit
Mar 7th, 2009, 09:54 AM
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A Taste of Vallarta, Jalisco, and Nayarit
Warning: this report will be food-intensive!
Our itinerary: Puerto Vallarta, surrounding beach towns, hill towns, and Tepic, the capital of Nayarit state. Our guide: my American cousin MJ, who has lived in Mexico for twenty years, mostly in Tepic, who speaks fluent Spanish and knows everywhere. Thank you, MJ, it wouldn't have been 1/10th the trip without you. My companion: the lovely Mrs. Fnarf.
Flying from Seattle to Mexico is always odd; it was cold, dark and raining when we left, but who wants to haul winter clothes around Mexico? We shivered in the freezing rain on the way to the airport, anticipating the heat. The flight on Alaska Airlines (nonstop) was uneventful.
Puerto Vallarta has a lovely, deceptively small airport. Instead of the usual jetway, we descended a flight of air stairs from the rear entrance, which I always like better. It feels glamorous. I always feel like I should be waving like a politician or beauty queen. Alas, I forgot my bouquet and my white gloves, and merely crossed the tarmac like an ordinary citizen.
MJ met us at the gate, and led us out to her gigantic banana-yellow SUV, so big you have to step up into it. A silly vehicle, but one we would be grateful for a few times on some of the roads here. Some of the country roads are very rough, but the entire town of Vallarta is also paved with cobblestones, and some of the narrow El Centro streets are very lumpy and crumpled. They're also insanely narrow, and many times we found ourselves having to back out of intersections to let other cars or big trucks pass, often involving maneuvers over sidewalks and even steps to get out of the way.
Our hotel was Los Cuatro Vientes, the four winds, just above the center of town. It's one of the oldest hotels in the city, a stout motel-style block around a courtyard with cascades of beautiful vines and flowers, especially the Red-hot cattail or chenille plant, Acalypha hispida, which has zillions of nearly foot-long fuzzy red caterpillar-like blooms. It's a beautiful and romantic spot, and you can see the whole town and the Cathedral just a couple of blocks away, especially from the rooftop deck.
The temperature was hot and humid when we arrived, but our room wasn't too bad, despite no A/C. Two fans, and the thick adobe bricks did their job. The room -- a suite on the courtyard, second level (two flights up from the street, two more to El Nida (the nest), the rooftop deck -- was spartan and Mexican, not American hotel-chain style. That's the way we like it; it's perfectly comfortable, and the bare white walls and simple furniture feel like Mexico, not the Indianapolis Sheraton. The men who carried our bags up may not have been wearing caps or uniforms, and they had no brass luggage cart, but they were charming and polite and got our bags into the room just fine.
Vallarta is a tourist town, but it serves a Mexican commercial function as well -- it's a proper city now, whatever its origins as a vacation getaway. Four blocks below us, the Malecon, a pedestrian walk along the whole of the central seafront, is a parade of tacky tourist attractions, but many Mexicans stroll there as well, especially in the evenings, and just one block up from the Malecon, Calle Juarez, is a busy commercial street with many stores geared to the locals, not the tourists, like the ever-present 3 Hermanos shoe store (not to be confused with the neighboring B Hermanos shoe store), Velas Parisino fabric store, and others. Around the plaza in front of the Cathedral are banks and more stores, and this plaza serves a Mexican function; there's a bandstand, and we saw brass bands there, and crowds of Mexican dancing.
When you go south from the plaza towards the river, you enter the tourist zone, first along the Rio Cuale, then down the center of the island in the middle of the river, and then on the other side the "Zona Romantica", an embarrassing tourist-board name for the colonia (or neighborhood) Emiliano Zapata, which used to be worker housing but is now largely restaurants, shops, and hotels catering to an almost exclusively American (and Canadian) crowd. The seafront of the Romantic Zone is also where Vallarta's old town beaches are, and the water's edge is lined with tall hotels with sandy restaurants out front.
Right before we crossed the river into the Zona, I spotted my first objective: a tequino vendor, selling his tart fermented corn drink out of an eskimo cooler. For the first time out of a thousand, I relied on cousin MJ to convey my request, and he prepared a cup in front of me -- he rapidly poured the stuff back and forth to mix and froth it, and served it over ice. Corn-yellow in color, it had a sharp, almost grapefruit-juice flavor, but with lots of corn taste. In the hills you can get an alcoholic version, but this was just tart and delicious and very refreshing. I was already sweltering in the heat.
We crossed into the Zona over the swinging pedestrian bridge, which is a little disconcerting. If your rhythm is wrong, and it will be, you'll set up a pretty extreme swaying of the boards set on their single cable, and you'll make extensive use of the chain-link sides to keep upright. I thought it was great fun, though the ladies were less appreciative.
Our first mission in town was an unusual one, especially for Americans: Mrs. Fnarf is a diehard Liverpool FC fan, and they were playing in a critical Champions League match against Real Madrid the next day, so we had to locate a bar that would show the match, without knowing even what channel it was on (Mexican channels are not the same as ours). Now, everyone confidently told us that Mexico was soccer-mad and hundreds of games would be televised at all hours, but if you have a favorite team, you know that those other games don't matter -- it's got to be LIVERPOOL. Most of the matches broadcast here are Chivas or Cruz Azul or America from the Mexican League -- entertaining, I'm sure, but not what Mrs. Fnarf is after.
We stopped or looked in a number of places -- Canadian sports bars showing ice hockey and curling, a hopeful-sounding but disappointing Brit pub showing some kind of soap opera on a microscopic TV and blasting rather annoying death metal at top volume -- but couldn't find anyone who KNEW the match would be on the next day. And we were getting hungry and hot and tired. My craving for street tacos was not to the taste of my company, and we ended up in Playa Los Arcos, a large hotel with a restaurant and a bar on the beach.
I will readily grant that Playa Los Arcos is a pleasant spot to sit and relax. But the food? Well, my axiom in Mexico is "the more you pay, the worse you get". Los Arcos has an all-inclusive option, which allows you to eat out of the frankly disgusting-looking steam-table trays that sat incubating around the perimeter all day, but they also have a regular menu. The food was expensive and not very good. I had a boring raft of arrachera (marinated and grilled steak). The drinks were OK. The whole setup is designed for unadventurous American tourists who want to be in a warmer version of their own country. I'm probably insulting a lot of perfectly nice people who love this place, but it's not for me. Comfy, though.
And they had a TV showing Champions League soccer! It was the hated Manchester United scum, but still, if they've got Man U today they probably have Liverpool tomorrow. And they did; the waiters all knew the match and were anticipating it eagerly -- albeit for the wrong team, Real Madrid, but they were very gracious. [The next day, when we came to watch, the waiters all solemnly shook our hands before and after and wished us luck and congratulations; Liverpool won, on a late goal from Yossi Benayoun].
My team, Tottenham Hotspur, were also playing some important matches during our stay, including the final of the League Cup and a desperate match in the UEFA Cup, but despite everyone's promises, no one in Vallarta seemed to carry those games on their broadcast schedule, and I had to suffer through the (tragic, as always) results via internet cafe.
I promise that's the last I'll talk about futbal here. A promise I'm sure to break, but I mean well.
The next morning, as we head over to watch the match, we seek out breakfast, but being still disoriented, we end up in a horrible little Mexican fast food chain looking at plates of lousy chilaquiles, strips of yesterday's stale tortillas cooked in red enchilada sauce. Better than nothing -- but nowhere near as good as the tacos in the stand across the street. Alas, Mrs. Fnarf and Cousin MJ need to sit down while they eat. I snuck a Taco Al Pastor from Pepe's, in El Centro on Juarez, anyways. Two breakfasts? Three breakfasts? Why not? It's Mexico.
That night, we strolled up the Malecon at sunset. Vallarta is famous for their sunsets, with the red orb sinking into the sea at the far end of the opening of the bay -- the second-largest bay in the Americas, I'm told, after Hudson Bay in Canada. The whole time we were there the late afternoons were uncharacteristically low and overcast, which made the sunsets even more dramatic. Really beautiful, and the crowds and street vendors and pleasant air of leisure made for a wonderful picture.
We ended up at the north end of El Centro, by La Rosita hotel, and ate in a fantastic little taqueria under the hotel -- I wish I could tell you its name. Great Al Pastor, arrachera steak, carne asada, lengue (beef tongue) and cabezas (beef cheek meat, the richest kind) -- all for ridiculously small sums. Our entire meal for three was less than a single entree at one of the fancy joints in town -- and this town is FULL of fancy joints if you want them.
Next up: Bucerias
Our itinerary: Puerto Vallarta, surrounding beach towns, hill towns, and Tepic, the capital of Nayarit state. Our guide: my American cousin MJ, who has lived in Mexico for twenty years, mostly in Tepic, who speaks fluent Spanish and knows everywhere. Thank you, MJ, it wouldn't have been 1/10th the trip without you. My companion: the lovely Mrs. Fnarf.
Flying from Seattle to Mexico is always odd; it was cold, dark and raining when we left, but who wants to haul winter clothes around Mexico? We shivered in the freezing rain on the way to the airport, anticipating the heat. The flight on Alaska Airlines (nonstop) was uneventful.
Puerto Vallarta has a lovely, deceptively small airport. Instead of the usual jetway, we descended a flight of air stairs from the rear entrance, which I always like better. It feels glamorous. I always feel like I should be waving like a politician or beauty queen. Alas, I forgot my bouquet and my white gloves, and merely crossed the tarmac like an ordinary citizen.
MJ met us at the gate, and led us out to her gigantic banana-yellow SUV, so big you have to step up into it. A silly vehicle, but one we would be grateful for a few times on some of the roads here. Some of the country roads are very rough, but the entire town of Vallarta is also paved with cobblestones, and some of the narrow El Centro streets are very lumpy and crumpled. They're also insanely narrow, and many times we found ourselves having to back out of intersections to let other cars or big trucks pass, often involving maneuvers over sidewalks and even steps to get out of the way.
Our hotel was Los Cuatro Vientes, the four winds, just above the center of town. It's one of the oldest hotels in the city, a stout motel-style block around a courtyard with cascades of beautiful vines and flowers, especially the Red-hot cattail or chenille plant, Acalypha hispida, which has zillions of nearly foot-long fuzzy red caterpillar-like blooms. It's a beautiful and romantic spot, and you can see the whole town and the Cathedral just a couple of blocks away, especially from the rooftop deck.
The temperature was hot and humid when we arrived, but our room wasn't too bad, despite no A/C. Two fans, and the thick adobe bricks did their job. The room -- a suite on the courtyard, second level (two flights up from the street, two more to El Nida (the nest), the rooftop deck -- was spartan and Mexican, not American hotel-chain style. That's the way we like it; it's perfectly comfortable, and the bare white walls and simple furniture feel like Mexico, not the Indianapolis Sheraton. The men who carried our bags up may not have been wearing caps or uniforms, and they had no brass luggage cart, but they were charming and polite and got our bags into the room just fine.
Vallarta is a tourist town, but it serves a Mexican commercial function as well -- it's a proper city now, whatever its origins as a vacation getaway. Four blocks below us, the Malecon, a pedestrian walk along the whole of the central seafront, is a parade of tacky tourist attractions, but many Mexicans stroll there as well, especially in the evenings, and just one block up from the Malecon, Calle Juarez, is a busy commercial street with many stores geared to the locals, not the tourists, like the ever-present 3 Hermanos shoe store (not to be confused with the neighboring B Hermanos shoe store), Velas Parisino fabric store, and others. Around the plaza in front of the Cathedral are banks and more stores, and this plaza serves a Mexican function; there's a bandstand, and we saw brass bands there, and crowds of Mexican dancing.
When you go south from the plaza towards the river, you enter the tourist zone, first along the Rio Cuale, then down the center of the island in the middle of the river, and then on the other side the "Zona Romantica", an embarrassing tourist-board name for the colonia (or neighborhood) Emiliano Zapata, which used to be worker housing but is now largely restaurants, shops, and hotels catering to an almost exclusively American (and Canadian) crowd. The seafront of the Romantic Zone is also where Vallarta's old town beaches are, and the water's edge is lined with tall hotels with sandy restaurants out front.
Right before we crossed the river into the Zona, I spotted my first objective: a tequino vendor, selling his tart fermented corn drink out of an eskimo cooler. For the first time out of a thousand, I relied on cousin MJ to convey my request, and he prepared a cup in front of me -- he rapidly poured the stuff back and forth to mix and froth it, and served it over ice. Corn-yellow in color, it had a sharp, almost grapefruit-juice flavor, but with lots of corn taste. In the hills you can get an alcoholic version, but this was just tart and delicious and very refreshing. I was already sweltering in the heat.
We crossed into the Zona over the swinging pedestrian bridge, which is a little disconcerting. If your rhythm is wrong, and it will be, you'll set up a pretty extreme swaying of the boards set on their single cable, and you'll make extensive use of the chain-link sides to keep upright. I thought it was great fun, though the ladies were less appreciative.
Our first mission in town was an unusual one, especially for Americans: Mrs. Fnarf is a diehard Liverpool FC fan, and they were playing in a critical Champions League match against Real Madrid the next day, so we had to locate a bar that would show the match, without knowing even what channel it was on (Mexican channels are not the same as ours). Now, everyone confidently told us that Mexico was soccer-mad and hundreds of games would be televised at all hours, but if you have a favorite team, you know that those other games don't matter -- it's got to be LIVERPOOL. Most of the matches broadcast here are Chivas or Cruz Azul or America from the Mexican League -- entertaining, I'm sure, but not what Mrs. Fnarf is after.
We stopped or looked in a number of places -- Canadian sports bars showing ice hockey and curling, a hopeful-sounding but disappointing Brit pub showing some kind of soap opera on a microscopic TV and blasting rather annoying death metal at top volume -- but couldn't find anyone who KNEW the match would be on the next day. And we were getting hungry and hot and tired. My craving for street tacos was not to the taste of my company, and we ended up in Playa Los Arcos, a large hotel with a restaurant and a bar on the beach.
I will readily grant that Playa Los Arcos is a pleasant spot to sit and relax. But the food? Well, my axiom in Mexico is "the more you pay, the worse you get". Los Arcos has an all-inclusive option, which allows you to eat out of the frankly disgusting-looking steam-table trays that sat incubating around the perimeter all day, but they also have a regular menu. The food was expensive and not very good. I had a boring raft of arrachera (marinated and grilled steak). The drinks were OK. The whole setup is designed for unadventurous American tourists who want to be in a warmer version of their own country. I'm probably insulting a lot of perfectly nice people who love this place, but it's not for me. Comfy, though.
And they had a TV showing Champions League soccer! It was the hated Manchester United scum, but still, if they've got Man U today they probably have Liverpool tomorrow. And they did; the waiters all knew the match and were anticipating it eagerly -- albeit for the wrong team, Real Madrid, but they were very gracious. [The next day, when we came to watch, the waiters all solemnly shook our hands before and after and wished us luck and congratulations; Liverpool won, on a late goal from Yossi Benayoun].
My team, Tottenham Hotspur, were also playing some important matches during our stay, including the final of the League Cup and a desperate match in the UEFA Cup, but despite everyone's promises, no one in Vallarta seemed to carry those games on their broadcast schedule, and I had to suffer through the (tragic, as always) results via internet cafe.
I promise that's the last I'll talk about futbal here. A promise I'm sure to break, but I mean well.
The next morning, as we head over to watch the match, we seek out breakfast, but being still disoriented, we end up in a horrible little Mexican fast food chain looking at plates of lousy chilaquiles, strips of yesterday's stale tortillas cooked in red enchilada sauce. Better than nothing -- but nowhere near as good as the tacos in the stand across the street. Alas, Mrs. Fnarf and Cousin MJ need to sit down while they eat. I snuck a Taco Al Pastor from Pepe's, in El Centro on Juarez, anyways. Two breakfasts? Three breakfasts? Why not? It's Mexico.
That night, we strolled up the Malecon at sunset. Vallarta is famous for their sunsets, with the red orb sinking into the sea at the far end of the opening of the bay -- the second-largest bay in the Americas, I'm told, after Hudson Bay in Canada. The whole time we were there the late afternoons were uncharacteristically low and overcast, which made the sunsets even more dramatic. Really beautiful, and the crowds and street vendors and pleasant air of leisure made for a wonderful picture.
We ended up at the north end of El Centro, by La Rosita hotel, and ate in a fantastic little taqueria under the hotel -- I wish I could tell you its name. Great Al Pastor, arrachera steak, carne asada, lengue (beef tongue) and cabezas (beef cheek meat, the richest kind) -- all for ridiculously small sums. Our entire meal for three was less than a single entree at one of the fancy joints in town -- and this town is FULL of fancy joints if you want them.
Next up: Bucerias
Mar 7th, 2009, 12:19 PM
#2
What a wonderful trip report. I love Los Cuatro Vientos. And the rooftop bar is fabulous. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it up. You really captured the spirit of Vallarta.
But... only single place I'd disagree is in your accessment of Hotel Playa Los Arcos, not that you offended me just I think your judgement is a bit off. It's a very Mexican hotel, and I would not recommend it for people who want to feel like they are in the US. It's not fair to judge the hotel only by eating at their (icky) AI restaurant one time... not to mention there's about 100 restaurants in that neighborhood, all better (lol). It's a great hotel with a unique location on Los Muertos. I hate to see them lose potential business because of such a bad comment on a travel forum from someone who didn't even stay there.
kindly, suze
But... only single place I'd disagree is in your accessment of Hotel Playa Los Arcos, not that you offended me just I think your judgement is a bit off. It's a very Mexican hotel, and I would not recommend it for people who want to feel like they are in the US. It's not fair to judge the hotel only by eating at their (icky) AI restaurant one time... not to mention there's about 100 restaurants in that neighborhood, all better (lol). It's a great hotel with a unique location on Los Muertos. I hate to see them lose potential business because of such a bad comment on a travel forum from someone who didn't even stay there.
kindly, suze
Mar 7th, 2009, 01:48 PM
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Fair enough. We had a pleasant time there. But the food was pretty mediocre. And the entire Zona Romantica, to me, seemed to be nothing but elderly cruise ship Americans shuffling slowly from one bad overpriced restaurant to another. But you'll see in the rest of my report.
Mar 7th, 2009, 02:15 PM
#4
<the entire Zona Romantica, to me, seemed to be nothing but elderly cruise ship Americans shuffling slowly from one bad overpriced restaurant to another>
Well I stay on the south-side and have been going to PV for years, about 20 trips to date. Most cruise ship passengers don't even know that part of town exists, so you lose credibility with me on that comment. Secondly, how do you know the restaurants were "bad overpriced" if you didn't even eat at them? There are some excellent restaurants along Olas Altas, B. Badillo, Madero, around in that part of town.
If that's what you saw, the problem is yours. Sorry but I'm out of here on this post.
Well I stay on the south-side and have been going to PV for years, about 20 trips to date. Most cruise ship passengers don't even know that part of town exists, so you lose credibility with me on that comment. Secondly, how do you know the restaurants were "bad overpriced" if you didn't even eat at them? There are some excellent restaurants along Olas Altas, B. Badillo, Madero, around in that part of town.
If that's what you saw, the problem is yours. Sorry but I'm out of here on this post.
Mar 7th, 2009, 03:07 PM
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Yikes, I'm sorry I stepped on your toes. Please don't take offense. It's just not my style, that's all. High-priced Italian, German, Argentinian, and American food -- that's not why I go to Mexico. To be honest, I've never had a really good meal in Mexico when I wasn't sitting in a plastic chair. That's what I like. Please don't chew my head off for it.
There is another type of person who frequents the area. An unintentially hilarious post on another forum, from a rather sheltered American woman who was shocked and horrified to see gay men holding hands and "rubbing it in our faces" as she put it, inspired the joke of the week amongst my little group. They "ruined my vacation", she said, with their indiscriminate hand-holding and sitting around together and other horrifying things like that.
Puerto Vallarta is indeed Mexico's premium gay resort area, especially in the area south of the Los Playa Arcos beach, along Playa De Los Muertos, and while no one rubbed my face in anything, they certainly did bring much-needed life and action to the area. Young people in love improve any situation, in my view.
So all week, it was me saying "I think those guys are ruining my vacation" and "is that guy ruining my vacation? I can't tell" and "he might not be ruining my vacation, but his friend's swimtrunks might be" and "I thought that guy was ruining my vacation, but I think he's with that woman" and my wife saying "he could ruin my vacation any time with abs like that".
We have some friends back home who are ruining my vacation who would love this place. We were much too cowardly to go in the drag bar on V. Carranza, but we were appreciative of the additional element of style and fun that our gay brothers and sisters bring to the place.
There is another type of person who frequents the area. An unintentially hilarious post on another forum, from a rather sheltered American woman who was shocked and horrified to see gay men holding hands and "rubbing it in our faces" as she put it, inspired the joke of the week amongst my little group. They "ruined my vacation", she said, with their indiscriminate hand-holding and sitting around together and other horrifying things like that.
Puerto Vallarta is indeed Mexico's premium gay resort area, especially in the area south of the Los Playa Arcos beach, along Playa De Los Muertos, and while no one rubbed my face in anything, they certainly did bring much-needed life and action to the area. Young people in love improve any situation, in my view.
So all week, it was me saying "I think those guys are ruining my vacation" and "is that guy ruining my vacation? I can't tell" and "he might not be ruining my vacation, but his friend's swimtrunks might be" and "I thought that guy was ruining my vacation, but I think he's with that woman" and my wife saying "he could ruin my vacation any time with abs like that".
We have some friends back home who are ruining my vacation who would love this place. We were much too cowardly to go in the drag bar on V. Carranza, but we were appreciative of the additional element of style and fun that our gay brothers and sisters bring to the place.
Mar 7th, 2009, 03:29 PM
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Bucerias:
It was a terrific advantage to have a Spanish-speaking driver. Staying in the heart of Vallarta would have been OK, but according to the experts it's not the best beach, and it is considerably Americanized. But places that aren't Americanized are more difficult for pale gringos like us. So Cousin MJ took us to Bucerias.
First, we had to have a proper breakfast. This, for me, meant birria, goat stew, a traditional regional breakfast food here. We'd been by the recommended stand, Birria Robles, in the Zona Romantica on Constitucion between Carranza and Cardenas, the previous evening, but they're shut then. We were rather disturbed to notice a pretty bad stench in the mostly deserted area, but the next morning there was no stench, only a fantastic aroma of goat stew. You could get it in a bowl or in tacos; I chose tacos, of course, and they were INCREDIBLE, the best thing I've eaten in ages. Mexicans are such wonderful people; without being asked they thrust bowls of lime, onion and cilantro, and various salsas at you. The more the merrier. Incredibly flavorful and delicious meat.
After my tacos, it was time for the ladies' breakfast. Cafe De Olla, recommended, was lined up down the block, so we went to Fredy's Tucan. This is sort of what I mean by the restaurants in the area; it wasn't BAD, exactly, it was just sort of touristy and bland. I had another breakfast, some proper chilaquiles this time, and Mrs. Fnarf and MJ had American breakfasts -- not for me. The papaya liquado (a papaya blended with milk into a frothy smoothie) was good, though. The clientele was 100% American, and we were the youngest there by 20 years.
Then off to Bucerias.
From the guidebooks I was expecting something a little less developed, but Bucerias is a bustling town, not a fishing village. The name has something to do with diving for oysters, but most of the pearls produced today come out of wallets, not oysters. But it is a very Mexican place; it's a tourist place for mostly Mexican tourists.
We asked in a few beachside restaurants which were too expensive before finding a lovely one with plastic chairs, red ones this time. I got my first real swim here. It's a very different sort of beach than on the Caribbean side; there's real waves that break (and will drive you into the sand if you're not paying attention). Not the sort of place you can just float on an air mattress for hours, and the water's colder. But it sure beats a hot bath in rainy Seattle! I spent hours in the water. Meanwhile, an endless variety of delicious comestibles came to our table -- shrimp tacos being the standout here.
I wish we'd had more time to poke around the town of Bucerias; there are some interesting looking streets here. One of the most bizarre sights is the gigantic "fat Marilyn Monroe" statue, in her full skirt-blowing-up glory, visible along the highway.
Along that highway, which we got to know well, is a considerable building boom. With the collapse of real estate in the States, one wonders how many of those new or partly-built condos are going to sell, but it doesn't really matter to me. The new glitzy areas, the Marina and Nuevo Vallarta, and even further along in the newly named "Riviera Nayarit", don't appeal. But there sure are a lot of them! I heard that the Vallarta area has a million people in it, including part-timers; there were only 1,500 when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton stormed into town to film "The Night of the Iguana".
It was a terrific advantage to have a Spanish-speaking driver. Staying in the heart of Vallarta would have been OK, but according to the experts it's not the best beach, and it is considerably Americanized. But places that aren't Americanized are more difficult for pale gringos like us. So Cousin MJ took us to Bucerias.
First, we had to have a proper breakfast. This, for me, meant birria, goat stew, a traditional regional breakfast food here. We'd been by the recommended stand, Birria Robles, in the Zona Romantica on Constitucion between Carranza and Cardenas, the previous evening, but they're shut then. We were rather disturbed to notice a pretty bad stench in the mostly deserted area, but the next morning there was no stench, only a fantastic aroma of goat stew. You could get it in a bowl or in tacos; I chose tacos, of course, and they were INCREDIBLE, the best thing I've eaten in ages. Mexicans are such wonderful people; without being asked they thrust bowls of lime, onion and cilantro, and various salsas at you. The more the merrier. Incredibly flavorful and delicious meat.
After my tacos, it was time for the ladies' breakfast. Cafe De Olla, recommended, was lined up down the block, so we went to Fredy's Tucan. This is sort of what I mean by the restaurants in the area; it wasn't BAD, exactly, it was just sort of touristy and bland. I had another breakfast, some proper chilaquiles this time, and Mrs. Fnarf and MJ had American breakfasts -- not for me. The papaya liquado (a papaya blended with milk into a frothy smoothie) was good, though. The clientele was 100% American, and we were the youngest there by 20 years.
Then off to Bucerias.
From the guidebooks I was expecting something a little less developed, but Bucerias is a bustling town, not a fishing village. The name has something to do with diving for oysters, but most of the pearls produced today come out of wallets, not oysters. But it is a very Mexican place; it's a tourist place for mostly Mexican tourists.
We asked in a few beachside restaurants which were too expensive before finding a lovely one with plastic chairs, red ones this time. I got my first real swim here. It's a very different sort of beach than on the Caribbean side; there's real waves that break (and will drive you into the sand if you're not paying attention). Not the sort of place you can just float on an air mattress for hours, and the water's colder. But it sure beats a hot bath in rainy Seattle! I spent hours in the water. Meanwhile, an endless variety of delicious comestibles came to our table -- shrimp tacos being the standout here.
I wish we'd had more time to poke around the town of Bucerias; there are some interesting looking streets here. One of the most bizarre sights is the gigantic "fat Marilyn Monroe" statue, in her full skirt-blowing-up glory, visible along the highway.
Along that highway, which we got to know well, is a considerable building boom. With the collapse of real estate in the States, one wonders how many of those new or partly-built condos are going to sell, but it doesn't really matter to me. The new glitzy areas, the Marina and Nuevo Vallarta, and even further along in the newly named "Riviera Nayarit", don't appeal. But there sure are a lot of them! I heard that the Vallarta area has a million people in it, including part-timers; there were only 1,500 when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton stormed into town to film "The Night of the Iguana".
Mar 7th, 2009, 03:45 PM
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Rough week? Not with the anti-Mexico fearmongers, I hope. On that topic, Suze and I are in total agreement.
Suze, I resolutely will not take offense at anything you say, and I agree that my experience is limited. I only know what I like. If everyone liked the same thing life would be very dull.
And the most horrible part of the cobblestoned area of Vallarta is pretty wonderful, I agree.
Suze, I resolutely will not take offense at anything you say, and I agree that my experience is limited. I only know what I like. If everyone liked the same thing life would be very dull.
And the most horrible part of the cobblestoned area of Vallarta is pretty wonderful, I agree.
Mar 7th, 2009, 05:18 PM
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Shopping in Vallarta
In a twist from the usual arrangement, I am the indefatigable shopper in our family, while Mrs. Fnarf hates it, especially with me. I want to paw through everything, while she wants to get the things she needs and gets out. She's not very impressed with my version of "I need this!" either, especially when it's usually some kind of idiotic hat or misshapen Taiwanese trinket. I take merciless advantage of this, of course, knowing full well that all I have to do is stop in front of the big display of "Female Body Inspector" or "I'm Not A Gynecologist, But I'll Take a Look" T-shirts, and she starts to groan and pull at my sleeve.
Vallarta has a wider volume and variety of tourist tat in the stalls than anyplace I've ever seen; it puts Playa del Carmen to shame. To be fair, a lot of it is fairly nice, particularly the textiles, and the cute little bags made of folded-up potato-chip bags, but there's an incredible amount of rubbish.
My favorite is the "Cuban" cigars, obviously fake, in glass tubes. Cuban cigar sales are very tightly controlled by the Cuban government (you cannot buy them anywhere else) and if it's not coming from a licensed shop, it's a fake. If it's under glass, it's fake; they don't sell them that way.
A lot of the junk in the tourist stalls is from China, not Mexico, however Mexican it may look.
One area of real interest is the Huichol art. The Huichols (and the related Cora) are the indigenous people who live in the hills of Nayarit and Jalisco, and they make representative art out of either finely glued yarn or tiny beads mounted in wax, in elaborate and electrically bright psychedelic patterns. Much of the inspiration for this art is from their religious beliefs and ceremonies, including visions under the influence of peyote. You won't find any peyote in Vallarta, and Huichols are EXTREMELY not interested in stupid American hippies who come down to get high, or used to, back when Carlos Casteneda's books were in fashion, in the 70s. He made everything up, by the way; it's doubtful he ever met a real shaman in his life.
There are also many amazing works related to the Mexican Day of the Dead, which I won't go into here. I'm an amateur photographer, so I bought a little diorama of a family of skeletons having their picture taken by a skeleton-photographer in her studio.
But my favorite Mexican shopping isn't for tourists at all. On Constitucion, just at the corner of the bridge on the Zona Romantica side, is a charming Mexican department store, with a wide range of ordinary clothing and other goods for Mexicans. It's lovely -- but next door is something even better. It's a REAL Mexican department store, with somewhat more downscale goods crammed in. Men's and women's clothing downstairs, and upstairs, beautiful fabric and dresses for girls' quinceaneras, their elaborate coming-out parties, and communion dresses, and all manner of beautifully worked stuff.
I bought an amazing cowboy shirt, made in Mexico, brown, with snap buttons and yellow embroidered spurs on the shoulder, for 230 pesos -- about sixteen bucks. The woman who helped me was a marvelous sight -- total take-charge, opening the complicated packaging, evaluating my pudgy figure with a practiced eye, getting the size exactly right despite my protestations. We had a little trouble over the word for "hanger", which I don't know, but in the end it was pretty easy.
I also really, really enjoyed the previously mentioned shoe stores in El Centro. Tres Hermanos has the most amazing set of display cases in front and around the corner -- something like a dozen fully-enclosed glass cases, which can be viewed on all four sides, each mirrored inside -- it's like a flourescent-lit hall of mirrors, with thousands of pairs of ladies' shoes. Mexican women wear high heels practically all the time, and tons of rings and bangles and dangly earrings, tight jeans with lots of sequins and embroidery on the back pockets, and tight overflowing tops -- boobs aren't a big deal here, but you're never allowed to show any leg. Hey, I'm not complaining!
There are lots of high-end jewelry and art shops on every corner, especially in the Zona R., but those don't interest me as much as the ordinary stores.
Also notable are Mexican farmacias and groceries. Nothing gives you a better look into a foreign culture than in scanning the kinds of fruit and breakfast cereal and dishwashing soap and cheeses that they sell. I could spend hours in a big Mexican grocery -- and I did, at the big Mega, because there's never enough checkers, and in Mexico "10 items or less" apparently means "ten overflowing carts or less". Patience is a virtue here. So is paying attention to your change.
In a twist from the usual arrangement, I am the indefatigable shopper in our family, while Mrs. Fnarf hates it, especially with me. I want to paw through everything, while she wants to get the things she needs and gets out. She's not very impressed with my version of "I need this!" either, especially when it's usually some kind of idiotic hat or misshapen Taiwanese trinket. I take merciless advantage of this, of course, knowing full well that all I have to do is stop in front of the big display of "Female Body Inspector" or "I'm Not A Gynecologist, But I'll Take a Look" T-shirts, and she starts to groan and pull at my sleeve.
Vallarta has a wider volume and variety of tourist tat in the stalls than anyplace I've ever seen; it puts Playa del Carmen to shame. To be fair, a lot of it is fairly nice, particularly the textiles, and the cute little bags made of folded-up potato-chip bags, but there's an incredible amount of rubbish.
My favorite is the "Cuban" cigars, obviously fake, in glass tubes. Cuban cigar sales are very tightly controlled by the Cuban government (you cannot buy them anywhere else) and if it's not coming from a licensed shop, it's a fake. If it's under glass, it's fake; they don't sell them that way.
A lot of the junk in the tourist stalls is from China, not Mexico, however Mexican it may look.
One area of real interest is the Huichol art. The Huichols (and the related Cora) are the indigenous people who live in the hills of Nayarit and Jalisco, and they make representative art out of either finely glued yarn or tiny beads mounted in wax, in elaborate and electrically bright psychedelic patterns. Much of the inspiration for this art is from their religious beliefs and ceremonies, including visions under the influence of peyote. You won't find any peyote in Vallarta, and Huichols are EXTREMELY not interested in stupid American hippies who come down to get high, or used to, back when Carlos Casteneda's books were in fashion, in the 70s. He made everything up, by the way; it's doubtful he ever met a real shaman in his life.
There are also many amazing works related to the Mexican Day of the Dead, which I won't go into here. I'm an amateur photographer, so I bought a little diorama of a family of skeletons having their picture taken by a skeleton-photographer in her studio.
But my favorite Mexican shopping isn't for tourists at all. On Constitucion, just at the corner of the bridge on the Zona Romantica side, is a charming Mexican department store, with a wide range of ordinary clothing and other goods for Mexicans. It's lovely -- but next door is something even better. It's a REAL Mexican department store, with somewhat more downscale goods crammed in. Men's and women's clothing downstairs, and upstairs, beautiful fabric and dresses for girls' quinceaneras, their elaborate coming-out parties, and communion dresses, and all manner of beautifully worked stuff.
I bought an amazing cowboy shirt, made in Mexico, brown, with snap buttons and yellow embroidered spurs on the shoulder, for 230 pesos -- about sixteen bucks. The woman who helped me was a marvelous sight -- total take-charge, opening the complicated packaging, evaluating my pudgy figure with a practiced eye, getting the size exactly right despite my protestations. We had a little trouble over the word for "hanger", which I don't know, but in the end it was pretty easy.
I also really, really enjoyed the previously mentioned shoe stores in El Centro. Tres Hermanos has the most amazing set of display cases in front and around the corner -- something like a dozen fully-enclosed glass cases, which can be viewed on all four sides, each mirrored inside -- it's like a flourescent-lit hall of mirrors, with thousands of pairs of ladies' shoes. Mexican women wear high heels practically all the time, and tons of rings and bangles and dangly earrings, tight jeans with lots of sequins and embroidery on the back pockets, and tight overflowing tops -- boobs aren't a big deal here, but you're never allowed to show any leg. Hey, I'm not complaining!
There are lots of high-end jewelry and art shops on every corner, especially in the Zona R., but those don't interest me as much as the ordinary stores.
Also notable are Mexican farmacias and groceries. Nothing gives you a better look into a foreign culture than in scanning the kinds of fruit and breakfast cereal and dishwashing soap and cheeses that they sell. I could spend hours in a big Mexican grocery -- and I did, at the big Mega, because there's never enough checkers, and in Mexico "10 items or less" apparently means "ten overflowing carts or less". Patience is a virtue here. So is paying attention to your change.
Mar 8th, 2009, 08:40 AM
#10
YES, this to me IS as bad as reading the Is It Safe in Mexico? thread, because there is so much misinformation being conveyed as fact.
The southside is NOT (or at least not yet) only full of cruiseship elderly. I've met interesting people of all ages from all around the world over my trips there. But you need to be staying there, not just pass thru one time. How many people did you actually have a chance to have a converstaion with? Tourist or local?
The breakfasts at Fredy's El Tucan are not bland. Try to go there Sunday mornings plenty of Mexican families will be side-by-side with the tourists. Fredy's been running an excellent business for years and word is out, is why it is popular. Would people really line up on the streets every day for bland? I have eaten there at least 50+ times, you ate there, what, once?
As far as <<High-priced Italian, German, Argentinian, and American food -- that's not why I go to Mexico>>. There's boatloads of excellent moderately priced local food restaurants scattered inland around PV, yes even plenty with plastic chairs. You just need to know where to look. With a small amount of research here and at Trip Advisor you could have had a long list of those kind of places.
You didn't "step on my toes" - I have no vested interest in every person loving Puerto Vallarta and as you saw it's too crowded anyway lately. It's hard for me to see a newbie tossing around a bunch of incorrect perceptions from one quick visit & that other people might read and believe that thath is all there in the old town of Vallarta. Which would be a shame.
lastly and i'm really out of here again (lol) PLEASE quit calling it the "Zona" or the "Zona R"... that sounds ridiculous!
p.s. i'm not mad this is all said with love my friends, suze
The southside is NOT (or at least not yet) only full of cruiseship elderly. I've met interesting people of all ages from all around the world over my trips there. But you need to be staying there, not just pass thru one time. How many people did you actually have a chance to have a converstaion with? Tourist or local?
The breakfasts at Fredy's El Tucan are not bland. Try to go there Sunday mornings plenty of Mexican families will be side-by-side with the tourists. Fredy's been running an excellent business for years and word is out, is why it is popular. Would people really line up on the streets every day for bland? I have eaten there at least 50+ times, you ate there, what, once?
As far as <<High-priced Italian, German, Argentinian, and American food -- that's not why I go to Mexico>>. There's boatloads of excellent moderately priced local food restaurants scattered inland around PV, yes even plenty with plastic chairs. You just need to know where to look. With a small amount of research here and at Trip Advisor you could have had a long list of those kind of places.
You didn't "step on my toes" - I have no vested interest in every person loving Puerto Vallarta and as you saw it's too crowded anyway lately. It's hard for me to see a newbie tossing around a bunch of incorrect perceptions from one quick visit & that other people might read and believe that thath is all there in the old town of Vallarta. Which would be a shame.
lastly and i'm really out of here again (lol) PLEASE quit calling it the "Zona" or the "Zona R"... that sounds ridiculous!
p.s. i'm not mad this is all said with love my friends, suze
Mar 8th, 2009, 09:23 AM
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Pity your friend was from out of town, because there are many small wonderful restaurants that aren't directed to the foreign tourist. La Ronda, El Colera and EL Brujo to name just three.
If you'd gone to Asaderos you could have watched the soccer games from their Canadian Satellite system of, more often, on the local cable system.
BTW here's a list of preferred Taco Stands, which includes Birria Robles: http://vallartainfo.com/streetfood.html
I'll have to dispute your 'not showing any leg' statement, some of the young girls in town never heard that one LOL
Pity you didn't go to the Municipal Market on the South Side, rather than Mega, you just have to walk away from the beach, that's where all the tourists hang out, inland they are much rarer.
If you'd gone to Asaderos you could have watched the soccer games from their Canadian Satellite system of, more often, on the local cable system.
BTW here's a list of preferred Taco Stands, which includes Birria Robles: http://vallartainfo.com/streetfood.html
I'll have to dispute your 'not showing any leg' statement, some of the young girls in town never heard that one LOL
Pity you didn't go to the Municipal Market on the South Side, rather than Mega, you just have to walk away from the beach, that's where all the tourists hang out, inland they are much rarer.
Mar 8th, 2009, 11:27 AM
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"Zona" and "Zona R" are just shortcuts for the even more ridiculous "Zona Romantica", which is merely tourist board frosting. The correct name of the neighborhood is Colonia Emiliano Zapata. When writing any of these long names over and over, one gets tired.
My impressions are my own. If you don't agree, that's great. But please don't tell me that I'm wrong; I just don't agree with you, that's all.
The "no leg" thing applies more to the outlying areas, which are much more conservative and old-fashioned and shy than in the heart of the tourist areas.
As for soccer games, that's exactly what I meant -- people were always good-naturedly saying "oh, you can see soccer games at such-and-such" -- but we didn't want to see soccer games, we wanted to see ONE PARTICULAR soccer game. Asaderos wasn't showing it, we asked there.
My impressions are my own. If you don't agree, that's great. But please don't tell me that I'm wrong; I just don't agree with you, that's all.
The "no leg" thing applies more to the outlying areas, which are much more conservative and old-fashioned and shy than in the heart of the tourist areas.
As for soccer games, that's exactly what I meant -- people were always good-naturedly saying "oh, you can see soccer games at such-and-such" -- but we didn't want to see soccer games, we wanted to see ONE PARTICULAR soccer game. Asaderos wasn't showing it, we asked there.
Mar 8th, 2009, 11:51 AM
#14
Yes they are your "impressions" and your experience was very "limited"... at least you admit that.
It's not about yours lining up "precisely" with my own feelings, it's that you are stating things as if they are a fact, when they are not.
It's not about yours lining up "precisely" with my own feelings, it's that you are stating things as if they are a fact, when they are not.
Mar 8th, 2009, 12:11 PM
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Mexican Nights
One of our nightly rituals was to repair to the rooftop bar of our hotel, El Nido, and have nightcap while watching the thoroughly ridiculous "pirate ship", which cruises along the shore every night with some kind of completely mental dinner-and-show that from shore sounds like the screaming of a bunch of cartoon Mexican villains, and is capped off by a cannon battle with the shore and a brief fireworks display over the water. I can't imagine a better place to watch it from than Los Cuatros Vientos's roof with a margarita in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Being a dork, I even brought a tripod on the trip, and captured a few photos. El Nido has as grand a view of the town and bay and hillside behind as you could possibly want, with the beautifully lit cathedral just a couple of blocks away, the houses strung up the hills and carpeted across the seafront below, with the towers of Nuevo Vallarta in the distance.
And best of all, after some unseasonably (according to our guide) hot and muggy days, especially when the overcast set in, Los Cuatros Vientos lived up to its name, with perfectly gentle breezes blowing away the heat. Most nights it was just barely sweater weather up there -- perfect. I came back up after they were closed several nights just for the beauty of it.
The only thing marring this picture is what I was afraid of -- disco noise. Cars, trucks, roosters, dogs, families sitting outside, church bells, mariachis, drunks -- I can handle all of these with ease. What I can't stand is that constant (or worse, not quite constant, with missing beats in random places) thoomb, thoomb, thoomb of dance clubs. And yes, we could hear it, on the roof and in our room, from one of those places on the Malecon where they charge you $35 to get in and then let you have all the booze you can or can't handle and bomb you all night long with loud music. I don't know what club it was -- it wasn't Hard Rock or Senor Frog's. I think it was the one with a giant two-story statue of a mermaid inside, but I can't be certain.
Unlike some places, they don't seem to go all night every night. There are places in Playa del Carmen that boom and shake dust out of the palapas until four or five in the morning; here, I only heard it until three one night, and they were done (or greatly muted) by midnight or so most others. I imagine it's a lot worse during Spring Break -- but then everything is a lot worse during Spring Break. I honestly don't see how the Mexicans can stand it, and not just here.
But we weren't here then, thankfully. There's a few other places we walked past that were stupidly noisy, like an Argentinian place on Badillo that was featuring a TERRIBLE and LOUD American-style rock band that was ruining several nearby more attractive restaurants as well. I love all kinds of Mexican music -- not just strolling mariachis but son jarocho, banda, ranchera, Norteno, anything really, as long as there's that defining Mexican sound, the sweet yearning male tenor, singing along. But I don't like American rock much, and I hate hearing it colonizing Mexican streets for the amusement of people who really need to listen to some damn accordion music for a change!
Even though mariachi music, which originated in the Guadalajara area but has spread everywhere, especially where there are tourists with pesos, thanks to an organized campaign to make it Mexico's national music in the films of the 1930s through 1950s, isn't always the most authentically of the people as one could hope for, when it's done well, especially with a large band, it can be magnificent.
Every Thursday a large band plays on the restaurant patio of Los Cuatros Vientos from (I think) 8 to 10 PM. Four horns, four guitars of various sizes from the giant gitarron to the tiny and beautiful soprano vihuela (similar to a ukulele), and four violins and violas, plus some robust singing -- not only are they a great band, but they're an impressive spectacle as well. And they're GOOD; even the inevitable old chestnuts "La Bamba" (not a mariachi song but almost always heard) and "Guantanamera" (a Cuban song, but likewise) ring out gloriously. Seriously, they were a highlight of the trip; the band swung hard in a way that the little ensembles of five or six can't reach.
The other live entertainment that I'm kicking myself we didn't run down the hill to see, even though we were absolutely shattered by climbing the hill to the hotel, was the Sunday night dancing on the Plaza. We could hear the music, and we could hear the stamping of what sounded like several hundred feet, but we didn't see the dancers. We had seen some of them earlier, doing a rather more stately salsa to the groovy bandstand musicians, but apparently the nighttime spectacular is something to see. Now THAT'S a nighttime sound I don't mind hearing!
One of our nightly rituals was to repair to the rooftop bar of our hotel, El Nido, and have nightcap while watching the thoroughly ridiculous "pirate ship", which cruises along the shore every night with some kind of completely mental dinner-and-show that from shore sounds like the screaming of a bunch of cartoon Mexican villains, and is capped off by a cannon battle with the shore and a brief fireworks display over the water. I can't imagine a better place to watch it from than Los Cuatros Vientos's roof with a margarita in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Being a dork, I even brought a tripod on the trip, and captured a few photos. El Nido has as grand a view of the town and bay and hillside behind as you could possibly want, with the beautifully lit cathedral just a couple of blocks away, the houses strung up the hills and carpeted across the seafront below, with the towers of Nuevo Vallarta in the distance.
And best of all, after some unseasonably (according to our guide) hot and muggy days, especially when the overcast set in, Los Cuatros Vientos lived up to its name, with perfectly gentle breezes blowing away the heat. Most nights it was just barely sweater weather up there -- perfect. I came back up after they were closed several nights just for the beauty of it.
The only thing marring this picture is what I was afraid of -- disco noise. Cars, trucks, roosters, dogs, families sitting outside, church bells, mariachis, drunks -- I can handle all of these with ease. What I can't stand is that constant (or worse, not quite constant, with missing beats in random places) thoomb, thoomb, thoomb of dance clubs. And yes, we could hear it, on the roof and in our room, from one of those places on the Malecon where they charge you $35 to get in and then let you have all the booze you can or can't handle and bomb you all night long with loud music. I don't know what club it was -- it wasn't Hard Rock or Senor Frog's. I think it was the one with a giant two-story statue of a mermaid inside, but I can't be certain.
Unlike some places, they don't seem to go all night every night. There are places in Playa del Carmen that boom and shake dust out of the palapas until four or five in the morning; here, I only heard it until three one night, and they were done (or greatly muted) by midnight or so most others. I imagine it's a lot worse during Spring Break -- but then everything is a lot worse during Spring Break. I honestly don't see how the Mexicans can stand it, and not just here.
But we weren't here then, thankfully. There's a few other places we walked past that were stupidly noisy, like an Argentinian place on Badillo that was featuring a TERRIBLE and LOUD American-style rock band that was ruining several nearby more attractive restaurants as well. I love all kinds of Mexican music -- not just strolling mariachis but son jarocho, banda, ranchera, Norteno, anything really, as long as there's that defining Mexican sound, the sweet yearning male tenor, singing along. But I don't like American rock much, and I hate hearing it colonizing Mexican streets for the amusement of people who really need to listen to some damn accordion music for a change!
Even though mariachi music, which originated in the Guadalajara area but has spread everywhere, especially where there are tourists with pesos, thanks to an organized campaign to make it Mexico's national music in the films of the 1930s through 1950s, isn't always the most authentically of the people as one could hope for, when it's done well, especially with a large band, it can be magnificent.
Every Thursday a large band plays on the restaurant patio of Los Cuatros Vientos from (I think) 8 to 10 PM. Four horns, four guitars of various sizes from the giant gitarron to the tiny and beautiful soprano vihuela (similar to a ukulele), and four violins and violas, plus some robust singing -- not only are they a great band, but they're an impressive spectacle as well. And they're GOOD; even the inevitable old chestnuts "La Bamba" (not a mariachi song but almost always heard) and "Guantanamera" (a Cuban song, but likewise) ring out gloriously. Seriously, they were a highlight of the trip; the band swung hard in a way that the little ensembles of five or six can't reach.
The other live entertainment that I'm kicking myself we didn't run down the hill to see, even though we were absolutely shattered by climbing the hill to the hotel, was the Sunday night dancing on the Plaza. We could hear the music, and we could hear the stamping of what sounded like several hundred feet, but we didn't see the dancers. We had seen some of them earlier, doing a rather more stately salsa to the groovy bandstand musicians, but apparently the nighttime spectacular is something to see. Now THAT'S a nighttime sound I don't mind hearing!
Mar 8th, 2009, 12:14 PM
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Suze, why don't you sit back and read the rest of my report before telling me how goddamn wrong I am? Is that too much to ask? Your constant attacks are putting me off my game, frankly.
Mar 8th, 2009, 01:44 PM
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Some More Beaches
Playa De Los Muertos
The beaches on the Zona R... -- sorry, "south side" -- are nice enough. They're quite crowded, of course, which is fine if you like that sort of thing, and fortunately I do. Mrs. Fnarf perhaps not so much, but we both love any opportunity to do some extended people-watching, and the people-watching is pretty great on a hot, crowded beach full of pleasure-seekers, if you're sitting under an umbrella with a margarita in your hand. I find it hard to enjoy Mexican beer on the beach, since they always seem to get warm by the third sip, but a tart cocktail has ice in it, at least if it's not too large (hot climate drinking tip: many small ones is better than a few big ones).
Again, my memory fails me, and I don't know the name of the place we ended up on Playa De Los Muertos -- it was probably about 2/3 of the way towards Blue Chairs from Los Arcos, plastic chairs again, and wide folding beach chairs. Again, the food was only so-so, but you don't come to the beach restaurants for the food; you come for the pleasure of burrowing your feet in the sand while you eat it. Really, it's hard to have a care about anything in such a setting; the only real worry was whether I would burn my feet to and froing between chair and water.
My favorite beach cavorter wasn't a person at all, but a tireless Golden Retriever, who retrieved his stick at least 100,000 times, literally without a breather for four hours or more. When one sunworshipper tired of the game, another would pick it up. Short throws, long throws, you couldn't stop him. He was having a better time than anyone else there.
One of the features of Pacific beaches is the constant stream of vendors (or "benders" as my Mexicanized cousin could help calling them). Petates (woven mats), blankets, big black cases of jewelry, bobble-headed carved turtles, straw hats, shirts, towering stacks of grilled shrimps on a stick, even more towering stacks of green and yellow mango, pineapple, papaya, fried plantains, woven bracelets, temporary tattoos, coconuts, dolphins carved out of dark wood, paintings, weavings, pareos covered in sequins -- the variety seemed endless. Some of the vendors looked over sixty, some looked under six. And, you know, for a people supposed in the popular imagination to be "lazy", these poorest Mexicans were working awfully damn hard in the hot sun.
I'm not keen on most of their merchandise, but I did buy a song from a strolling guitarist, which wasn't too bad, and I went a little crazy when the nut man came by with his cart. Nuts are "frutos secos" in Spanish, which confused me a little (dried fruits? no) but his many bags of fragrant treats were perfectly obvious. I bought a bag of pistachios, one of pepitas (roasted and salted pumpkin seeds), and one of small dried green peas, which were not horseradish-hot like the larger Japanese variety, but plenty delicious and crunchy. I ended up with a TON of treats for 150 pesos, which might seem like a lot until you see the size of the bags. The peas were still warm. Mmm!
More entertainment was in contrasting the constant parade of rather paunchy older straight fellows (like yours truly) with the younger and much more toned guys who were ruining my vacation in their tiny speedos. Some of them appeared to be delivering substantial packages by special courier, if you catch my drift, and several times sharp intakes of breath could be heard coming from the direction of my wife. Unlike in Playa del Carmen, the ladies on this beach do not take their tops off, which, as always, is sometimes a pity and sometimes not. I have no complaints at the view!
On a subsequent day, Cousin MJ wanted to take us out to a more remote area, so we bundled into the car and drove to Boca de Tomatlan, a few miles south, past Mismaloya. This is a classic quaint little fishing village, barely more than a single store and a beach restaurant, tucked into a tiny, gorgeous little harbor.
It's not the greatest swimming beach, having some rocks and a lot of little boats, but even bad swimming here is pretty good swimming, and I spend close to two hours in the water. You can really see the beauty of the steep green hills rising straight up behind the tiny bay.
Some of the boats are fishing boats or charters, but most of the action is the water taxis; this is a major transfer point for boats from Vallarta, the even more remote beach of Yelapa (which has no road), and a few others. In addition to tourists headed back to Vallarta or to the few hotel rooms in Yelapa, we were charmed by the boatloads of schoolchildren, who live in remote villages and commute to Boca de Tomatlan. All Mexican schoolkids wear adorable uniforms, even when they're taking the boat to school.
Even out here, we faced a constant stream of vendors, who found no luck with us, but struck gold with the party of four very large and very happy good ol' boys from somewhere in the Deep South, who closely examined every scrap of merchandise and bought about half of what they saw.
Cousin MJ is a diehard aficionado of a dish called "sarandeado" (sarr-ann-day-ODD-oh), which apparently is a whole fish grilled over an aromatic local wood. The beach restaurant promised they could prepare it, but then brought us something else, fish steamed in a thick sauce in foil, which was hugely disappointing to MJ but seemed pretty good to me. Maybe that's because I got to eat the head, which is always the best part of any fish. Plenty of delicious pork tacos filled any gaps that might have remained.
We didn't stop in Mismaloya, site of the great Richard Burton - Ava Gardner - Deborah Kerr movie that put Vallarta on the map, but we did stop at the overlook above it. It doesn't look like the movie now! It's jam-packed with huge towers and tennis courts.
San Pancho
On another day we went north, past Bucerias, past even Sayulita, to the little town of San Francisco, called San Pancho by everybody including the people who erected the big sign out on the highway. Unfortunately, they were tearing up the main street in town, as they appeared to be doing everywhere in Nayarit, so we had to park well out and walk in to the beach.
San Pancho looks a little upscale, with lots of expensive jewelry and dresses in the shop windows. The beach area is lovely, with a round plaza full of vendors, including both Huichol Indians and European ex-pats selling their handmade jewelry.
The beach itself, unlike Vallarta, is around the corner from the bay and thus on the open Pacific. It's beautiful; as far as swimming and strolling beaches go, it's by far the loveliest we saw. Very wide, very long, with gentle rollers breaking onto the shore, just enough to attract boarders without scaring away the swimmers.
Behind the beach is a murky green freshwater lagoon, which attracts many interesting birds -- some odd ducks I couldn't identify, herons, stilts, and some others I don't know. I have a bird book for Western Mexico but I'm not very skilled at identification. Of course the usual vultures were hanging over the hills, the pelicans were cruising the waterline, and magnificent frigatebirds were riding the thermals everywhere you looked.
Here I ordered the "Baja fish tacos" which sounded good. However, after about a half hour, the waiter came out and said "we don't have any fish today, would you like shrimp tacos instead?" I said yes, of course -- and then a minute later he brought a plate of fish tacos. I was pretty confused, and scarfed down my fish before someone came and took it away from me.
At San Pancho I also was able to practice my hammock-snoozing skills, which remain sharp as always. Didn't spill a drop!
Playa De Los Muertos
The beaches on the Zona R... -- sorry, "south side" -- are nice enough. They're quite crowded, of course, which is fine if you like that sort of thing, and fortunately I do. Mrs. Fnarf perhaps not so much, but we both love any opportunity to do some extended people-watching, and the people-watching is pretty great on a hot, crowded beach full of pleasure-seekers, if you're sitting under an umbrella with a margarita in your hand. I find it hard to enjoy Mexican beer on the beach, since they always seem to get warm by the third sip, but a tart cocktail has ice in it, at least if it's not too large (hot climate drinking tip: many small ones is better than a few big ones).
Again, my memory fails me, and I don't know the name of the place we ended up on Playa De Los Muertos -- it was probably about 2/3 of the way towards Blue Chairs from Los Arcos, plastic chairs again, and wide folding beach chairs. Again, the food was only so-so, but you don't come to the beach restaurants for the food; you come for the pleasure of burrowing your feet in the sand while you eat it. Really, it's hard to have a care about anything in such a setting; the only real worry was whether I would burn my feet to and froing between chair and water.
My favorite beach cavorter wasn't a person at all, but a tireless Golden Retriever, who retrieved his stick at least 100,000 times, literally without a breather for four hours or more. When one sunworshipper tired of the game, another would pick it up. Short throws, long throws, you couldn't stop him. He was having a better time than anyone else there.
One of the features of Pacific beaches is the constant stream of vendors (or "benders" as my Mexicanized cousin could help calling them). Petates (woven mats), blankets, big black cases of jewelry, bobble-headed carved turtles, straw hats, shirts, towering stacks of grilled shrimps on a stick, even more towering stacks of green and yellow mango, pineapple, papaya, fried plantains, woven bracelets, temporary tattoos, coconuts, dolphins carved out of dark wood, paintings, weavings, pareos covered in sequins -- the variety seemed endless. Some of the vendors looked over sixty, some looked under six. And, you know, for a people supposed in the popular imagination to be "lazy", these poorest Mexicans were working awfully damn hard in the hot sun.
I'm not keen on most of their merchandise, but I did buy a song from a strolling guitarist, which wasn't too bad, and I went a little crazy when the nut man came by with his cart. Nuts are "frutos secos" in Spanish, which confused me a little (dried fruits? no) but his many bags of fragrant treats were perfectly obvious. I bought a bag of pistachios, one of pepitas (roasted and salted pumpkin seeds), and one of small dried green peas, which were not horseradish-hot like the larger Japanese variety, but plenty delicious and crunchy. I ended up with a TON of treats for 150 pesos, which might seem like a lot until you see the size of the bags. The peas were still warm. Mmm!
More entertainment was in contrasting the constant parade of rather paunchy older straight fellows (like yours truly) with the younger and much more toned guys who were ruining my vacation in their tiny speedos. Some of them appeared to be delivering substantial packages by special courier, if you catch my drift, and several times sharp intakes of breath could be heard coming from the direction of my wife. Unlike in Playa del Carmen, the ladies on this beach do not take their tops off, which, as always, is sometimes a pity and sometimes not. I have no complaints at the view!
On a subsequent day, Cousin MJ wanted to take us out to a more remote area, so we bundled into the car and drove to Boca de Tomatlan, a few miles south, past Mismaloya. This is a classic quaint little fishing village, barely more than a single store and a beach restaurant, tucked into a tiny, gorgeous little harbor.
It's not the greatest swimming beach, having some rocks and a lot of little boats, but even bad swimming here is pretty good swimming, and I spend close to two hours in the water. You can really see the beauty of the steep green hills rising straight up behind the tiny bay.
Some of the boats are fishing boats or charters, but most of the action is the water taxis; this is a major transfer point for boats from Vallarta, the even more remote beach of Yelapa (which has no road), and a few others. In addition to tourists headed back to Vallarta or to the few hotel rooms in Yelapa, we were charmed by the boatloads of schoolchildren, who live in remote villages and commute to Boca de Tomatlan. All Mexican schoolkids wear adorable uniforms, even when they're taking the boat to school.
Even out here, we faced a constant stream of vendors, who found no luck with us, but struck gold with the party of four very large and very happy good ol' boys from somewhere in the Deep South, who closely examined every scrap of merchandise and bought about half of what they saw.
Cousin MJ is a diehard aficionado of a dish called "sarandeado" (sarr-ann-day-ODD-oh), which apparently is a whole fish grilled over an aromatic local wood. The beach restaurant promised they could prepare it, but then brought us something else, fish steamed in a thick sauce in foil, which was hugely disappointing to MJ but seemed pretty good to me. Maybe that's because I got to eat the head, which is always the best part of any fish. Plenty of delicious pork tacos filled any gaps that might have remained.
We didn't stop in Mismaloya, site of the great Richard Burton - Ava Gardner - Deborah Kerr movie that put Vallarta on the map, but we did stop at the overlook above it. It doesn't look like the movie now! It's jam-packed with huge towers and tennis courts.
San Pancho
On another day we went north, past Bucerias, past even Sayulita, to the little town of San Francisco, called San Pancho by everybody including the people who erected the big sign out on the highway. Unfortunately, they were tearing up the main street in town, as they appeared to be doing everywhere in Nayarit, so we had to park well out and walk in to the beach.
San Pancho looks a little upscale, with lots of expensive jewelry and dresses in the shop windows. The beach area is lovely, with a round plaza full of vendors, including both Huichol Indians and European ex-pats selling their handmade jewelry.
The beach itself, unlike Vallarta, is around the corner from the bay and thus on the open Pacific. It's beautiful; as far as swimming and strolling beaches go, it's by far the loveliest we saw. Very wide, very long, with gentle rollers breaking onto the shore, just enough to attract boarders without scaring away the swimmers.
Behind the beach is a murky green freshwater lagoon, which attracts many interesting birds -- some odd ducks I couldn't identify, herons, stilts, and some others I don't know. I have a bird book for Western Mexico but I'm not very skilled at identification. Of course the usual vultures were hanging over the hills, the pelicans were cruising the waterline, and magnificent frigatebirds were riding the thermals everywhere you looked.
Here I ordered the "Baja fish tacos" which sounded good. However, after about a half hour, the waiter came out and said "we don't have any fish today, would you like shrimp tacos instead?" I said yes, of course -- and then a minute later he brought a plate of fish tacos. I was pretty confused, and scarfed down my fish before someone came and took it away from me.
At San Pancho I also was able to practice my hammock-snoozing skills, which remain sharp as always. Didn't spill a drop!
Mar 8th, 2009, 02:51 PM
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We didn't go to San Blas, because Mrs. Fnarf is extremely sensitive to insect bites -- sand flies and mosquitoes can raise bright welts the size of silver dollars, with blisters the size of pencil erasers in the middle. We were afraid to risk the infamous jejenes. But Tepic is coming.
