To finish our trip together, Tom and I headed to Puerto Vallarta to explore the various beaches on offer. It’s very close to the US, and this influence was obvious in the fast food outlets and American estate agents. However, the feel of the town was still decidedly Mexican, with hundreds of families coming for their summer holidays at the shore. We arrived after the night bus (exhausted after very little sleep) and wandered onto the malecón to enjoy a view of the bay. The section by town is very built-up with parasailing and seafood restaurants galore, but we spent most of our five days here exploring the untouched beaches further down the coast. Saying that, our hostel was very close to the shore so we could have a dip whenever we wanted and it was gorgeous.
We had a few dinners at this amazing seafood restaurant on the sand, which allowed us to watch the sun setting across the ocean. Needless to say, food was excellent and we enjoyed fish, octopus and prawns cooked in various styles. We also met my UCL Spanish teacher here (he happened to be here on holiday at the same time), and so we had a very surreal evening with Diego & his wife Cecilia, discussing our trip in their gorgeous country. Aside from copious amounts of seafood (a highlight being prawn skewers on the beach), we also had some excellent quesadillas in Puerto Vallarta. They are hardly complicated (grilled cheese tortilla) but they were as close as we got to comfort food. There was a storm one night so we panicked and ran into a restaurant we’d read was good. However, after sitting down and receiving the menu it became clear that its prices were aimed at middle-aged Americans and not recent graduates. Our solution was to politely just order starters and then pop round the corner to the taco place.
We were proud of ourselves for mastering the town’s bus network, which allowed us to visit more remote beaches. Our first adventure was to the (again) Tracy Island looking beach of Quimixto. This involved taking the bus along the coast to Boca and then asking a small fishing boat (with a big engine strapped to it) to take us to that particular beach. We had decided to buy a parasol, which ended up being the best tenner we ever spent, thanks to the gift of portable shade that we now carried with us wherever we went. We had this beach to ourselves and spent the afternoon enjoying our homemade mojitos, reading and swimming in the calm water.
Another day we hiked from Boca to the tiny beach of Colomitas, putting up with the sweaty climb thanks to the promise of an unspoilt beach at our destination. However, we arrived to blasting reggaeton and hoards of people (who had obviously all made the trek to this ‘silent’ beach too). Struggling to find a place to sit, we carried along the higgledy-piggledy path to a lovely cove with hardly anyone on it. It was very calm and we enjoyed some cloud cover for once! The next day we caught the bus to Mismaloya and enjoyed a snorkelling trip to Los Arcos (two islands in the middle of the sea covered in coral and thus plenty of colourful fish). We pottered about in the sea and then headed back for a barbecue where we met some very opinionated Texans.
Before leaving we spent the day lying on the main beach beside the malecón, swimming between all the boats and feeling very relaxed. We finished off with tacos on the beach (an appropriate end to our time in Mexico!) before catching our bus to Mexico City where we’d hop on our flights. It’s been a dream but my wonderful travel partner Tom is heading home and I’m off to Guatemala with Beth for some sister shenanigans.
holahola2019 