It’s been over three years since we’ve been back to Puerto Vallarta, the place that was our home for nearly thirty years. But in late February we made the journey to attend a wedding and reunite with old friends.
We broke the trip up by landing first in Cancun spending a few days, allowing us to avoid Mexico City immigration, (especially after what happened on our last visit), and provide a bit of a reprieve from the inevitable jet-lag that seems to bother us even more these days.
We are not fans of Cancun. It’s just too big, too flat, too modern and so lacking in Mexican culture – it’s a planned resort destination. But we do love its beaches and turquoise waters. We stayed at a small hotel at the western end of the panhandle, close to the airport, and enjoyed a few days soaking up the sun. Just across the road lies the Nichupté mangrove where we discovered a wonderful restaurant that served typical Mexican cuisine and ended up having most of our meals there and finally getting a taste of the food we’d missed so much such as tacos, enchiladas, burritos, chilaquiles and huevos rancheros.
But Vallarta was our final stop and after a few days we were ready to move on to our favorite place in Mexico. We were there for the wedding of Morgan and Manny and our son Jeffrey was flying in from Vancouver to join us while our daughter Alison and her boyfriend Max were a day behind us from Lisbon. We’ve known Morgan since she was born, her mother being one of Florence’s dearest friends and Morgan and Alison are best friends. We’d all met Manny during our last visit to Mexico, a great guy and the two make a wonderful couple.
We stayed a few days in downtown Vallarta at Paramar, a small hotel on the beach, close to a few of our favorite taco restaurants. We both had craving for tacos al pastor, a few of the best–Pepe’s and Carboncito’s–were right around the corner from the hotel, while Barracuda was in front of us on the beach. The rest of the time we spent walking the streets of Vallarta, streets we’d walked so many times in the past, both for pleasure and work. This was one part of Vallarta that was still very much the same, still has the charm that attracted us to it so many years ago.
From there we traveled southwards to stay the night with our good friends Cathy and Roberto at their home in Nogalito, which is just off the #200 highway in the foothills and tropical jungle of the Sierra Madre.
The next morning we continued south to Boca de Tomatlan to meet up with our panga ride to Casa Maraika where the first of the wedding festivities were to take place. Boca has become a major supply and transportation hub for all the small hotels and villages that are along this coastline, not accessible by road. Everything has to be taken by boat, making it a very busy place. We enjoyed watching the supplies of all types, from cases of water and beer, food basics and construction supplies, to people coming and going from the many water taxis, somehow managing to do it all without any of the boats hitting or piling up on top of each other. Organized chaos.
There are few docks on this beach, but the marineros are experts in timing the waves so they can beach themselves, allow us to get to shore, (usually without getting wet), and then relaunch themselves off again. The easy part of this procedure is the arrival, the difficult part is when leaving as people are often tipsy from too many margaritas or raicilla (the local moonshine).
Casa Maraika is a small hotel with casitas nestled into the jungle, along with a restaurant that is a favorite day-place for boaters. It was once owned (well not owned, but by concession as you can’t own land on this coastline) by Morgan’s mother Sylvie, when Morgan and Alison were quite young, and it is where we spent many weekends during their childhood. Back then it was called Shangrila, and it was liking living on a tropical island. The main structure was like a tree house, surrounded by the jungle but nestled up close to the beach on a rock bluff. The kitchen and living areas were on the ground floor while the upper floor was just an open area under a palapa roof and netting, where we all used to sleep on scattered mattresses. The bathroom was an outhouse not far from the house. It was definitely very rustic living but we loved it, as did the kids.
So it was wonderful to return to this place that was so special to Morgan and us at one time in our lives. Everyone was dressed in white and margaritas were poured freely and heaps of guacamole and plates of Mexican food were served, cooked in the wood-burning oven. After lunch we swam and played football on the beach. Flo and I left early, allowing the younger ones to continue, and we made our way back to Boca and then drove northwards, through Vallarta and on to the north side of Banderas Bay, to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.
It was in La Cruz that the wedding festivities would continue over the weekend. Friday night there was a reception at a large home in the amazing development of Real del Mar, just to the west of La Cruz, while the wedding ceremony/dinner/party to place on the beach next to La Cruz to the east in El Tizate. It was an amazing wedding and it was wonderful to see Morgan and Manny so happy.
Manny’s family is from the San Diego area and of Mexican descent. They look very Mexican, although many don’t speak much Spanish. Morgan’s friends and family are from Vallarta, on the other hand, so are Mexican but don’t look it, as most are children of foreigners; from either Europe, Canada or the USA. So the Mexicans looked American while the Americans looked Mexican!
The partying continued to the early hours where it then moved back to Real del Mar. The next day we joined members of the immediate family who were recuperating from the night before and say our goodbyes as people packed and headed off to the airport, catching their return flights.
After the wedding we moved out to Punta de Mita to stay with our friends Lisa & Miguel. They’d just purchased a penthouse unit in Punta Vista I, where we once had a condominium. So it was great to go back to the same building where we spent five fun years. We had an ATV and jets ski in the garage and would launch from the beach and go waterskiing nearly every day we were out there. It was where we ended up spending our weekends after Shangrila – we moved to the other side of the bay.
That night Joanie and Jason joined us for dinner with Jason bring along a trio of musicians to serenade us – we were back in Mexico!
The next day we met up with Jonathon & Francesca inside the gates of Punta Mita, (where we had a condo after we sold Punta Vista), to celebrate his birthday at Sufito and then took a boat out to take in all the real estate development from an on-water perspective. Incredible how it is building out.
From the boat we could see Punta del Burro, where we had a couple of casitas on the beach back in the 90s. We sold them in ’93 for $25,000 and $35,000. We were told that someone had bought them both, tore them down and built a large home, which recently sold for $4.25 million. We were a little early on that one!
After Mita we made our way back to Vallarta, staying a couple of nights in Marina Vallarta, where our main home once was. We stayed in a condominium of friends Jack & Yvonne and enjoyed a couple of lunch and dinners with old friends at Porto Bello and Ocho Tostadas.
And then it was time to begin heading back to Europe. We stopped over again in Cancun and made our way to Isla Mujeres where we stayed once again with old friends. Monica & Pancho built a six-unit condo building on the beach some years ago. They kept a couple of units for themselves and then selectively sold to good friends that enjoy the island but don’t spend much time there, so often they have the place to themselves.
They took us out on a tour around the island on their Boston Whaler, to see how much the island has developed since we were last there. For Florence there were big changes as she first arrived there in the early 80s and had spent three months on the island.
And then it was time to head back. A whirlwind tour in which we got a lot done. But we were ready to go home and looked forward to not going anywhere for quite a while.