Puerto Vallarta: New Crew, New View.

January 28

Our second stay at the Paradise Village Marina brought more perspective to the PV experience. Like any cruising couple, we each harbor different expectations for travel by boat. Give Charlie a berth in nice calm marina water and he’s a happy clam, fiddling around aboard for days. I like to get more of a sense of the places we tie up. In other words I want to visit and explore. It’s also much more important to me to run around and get tired every day. In spite of the embarrassing name and touristy package, Paradise Village makes a cushy place for new arrivals to Mexico, and so we returned there to meet our next crew, Karen and Paul. Yes, the very same Paul who valiantly joined us for the leg from Seattle to San Francisco.

The first time we stayed at this marina I enjoyed the pools and beach, but felt sort of isolated from town. We had little opportunity, actually none, for going out, except to reprovision. With friends, Ian and Diane and then Paul and Karen, to explore, I got out on the local busses to see a bit of the city. Its big attraction is the remodeled malecon. For almost its entire length cars are routed off the beachfront. This makes strolling, shopping, eating, and playing on the beach quieter, cleaner and much more pleasant.  In fact, the surprising lack of car traffic on many of the streets increases the city’s attraction. Like Seattle, PV comes steeply downhill to the sea. Most of the busses run N-S a block or two up the hill and the rest is residential and nice for walking.

Taking the water taxi from Paradise Village to PV would have been fun but my first foray by bus began in Nuevo Vallarta marina. We set off with the ambition of walking the malecon, traipsing up the Rio Cuale in the middle of town, and climbing up to Liz Taylor’s old house. From the malecon we had fun watching kids boogie boarding in the surf. Even early  in the morning, the beachfront restaurants were going strong. Luckily the island in the river is shady and cool. 

When we finished dodging all the schmag sellers we headed up hill to find the famed pink bridge between Richard’s and Liz’s houses. It is a shame that the place is now mostly torn up, and its future as a B & B is in arrested development, due to a lawsuit. The charming little bridge, faded as it was reminded us of romantic dreams in a simpler time.

Speaking of charming, it’s a feature of the restaurants along the malecon to have shaded balcony dining on the second floor, a great place to do people watching and catch breezes on the hot days. On Sundays, especially, there are also performers of various sorts, from mimes and posers to Indian pole spinners. On the beach sand sculptures have reached the level of fine art.

PV is a very recent city and much of its population is involved with the tourist trade. The shores of Bandaras Bay have attracted furious building. There’s little zoning to corral the giant hotels designed to the whim of architects inspired by cultures famed for massive monuments. These hotels jut up wherever land can be bought. It makes an odd semi urban seaside landscape stretching on for most of 45 beachfront miles.