Puerto Vallarta (February 2022)
This winter has been a bit miserable in Seattle, with multiple atmospheric rivers, snow, and colder than normal temperatures in the region. Fortunately for us, we had booked a short trip to Puerto Vallarta late last year, and we were both ready for some sun and relaxation.
We first visited Puerto Vallarta back in 2009, when there was a Swine Flu epidemic in Mexico. Back then, I used points to book our flight before the epidemic was serious, and when we realized how bad it was, I tried to cancel the flight to recoup the points, but I wasn’t able to, so we both ended up going anyway. We ended up having an amazing time there, primarily due to the effects the Swine Flu had on the tourism industry in Puerto Vallarta. There were almost no international tourists, so the beaches were fairly empty. Restaurants were hurting for business, so everywhere we went to eat, they’d give us all free margaritas. Walking downtown was amazing because there were almost no tourists, so it was very pleasant and peaceful.
On our subsequent visits, it’s been less…calm, but still, we’ve always had fun, and really we’re here to enjoy the warm weather and temporarily forget about the stresses of work and life. For this trip, we booked a 1 bedroom Airbnb located in the Zona Romantica, which is essentially the heart of Puerto Vallarta. The area is lined with cobblestone streets and some areas still maintain the authentic Mexican architecture, but many of them are being demolished and being replaced with multi-story contemporary condo units, which includes the building our Airbnb is in. Everywhere you walk, you’ll find a cafe or restaurant, or a bar where you can enjoy an afternoon drink, so you’ll never be hungry.
It’s definitely more hectic and louder than being north in the Hotel Zone, or even further north in Nuevo Vallarta, but we love the life that we can feel when we stay in this part of the city. Also, it’s where the gays party, so we don’t feel out of place. Although, I realized that since we don’t really party all night, we sort of fall in the minority, but that’s fine with us. Also, the week we went was during Bearadise Beach, and neither of us fit in bear category, so yeah…
Anyway, back to our trip. We arrived in the evening, and after a little confusion getting an Uber from the airport, we arrived at our Airbnb, checked in and dropped off our stuff, and immediately proceeded to find food. We had no plan other than to leave the building and walk, and we stopped at the first place that caught our eye, El Santo Taco. Their menu primarily consisted of street tacos, which for a light dinner seemed perfect. Of course, Nick started his evening by ordering a margarita, and I ordered their hibiscus agua fresca. We also had some guacamole, and both of us had three delicious street tacos. They also take their chips and salsa seriously, because they offered us three different types of salsa:
The decor inside the restaurant was also cool, with a large mural in the back. Nick noticed that they basically enclosed a space between to large buildings, which added to the airy esthetic of the place. We went back to the Airbnb to watch some Olympics and then to bed to rest for our first full day.
Day 1: Mirador el Cerro de la Cruz & Tintoque
The next morning, we started off with some coffee and pastries, and then walked to the Malecon, the boardwalk by the beach. It tends to get crowded during the day, but it’s still worth going to once if you’re visiting Puerto Vallarta. There are many pieces of sculpture art along the walk, and sometimes some sand artists creating some amazing pieces of work:
We actually walked this direction to go to Mirador el Cerro de la Cruz, which is a hike up the hills from the beach. We’ve never been there before, but we read that it offers amazing views of the city, but we were also warned that it involves a lot of stairs, so we made sure to wear comfortable shoes.
There are no real signs to the viewpoint; we sort of knew that we had to walk up one of the streets, and so we started our ascent of hills and stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs:
We actually got lost at one point, but a local resident kindly pointed us towards the correct street, and soon we were back on course. When you get near the top, there’s a funicular that will take you up and down the last part of the climb, but unfortunately for us, no one was operating it today.
After the final push to get up the last few steps, we were rewarded with amazing views of the city.
We spent some time up here exploring the various parts of the tower. Everywhere we went, there was always a great view of the Bay of Banderas. Totally worth the effort of the short, but fairly steep climb to get here.
It was around noon when we arrived at the summit, and we were ready for lunch, especially after burning those calories to get to the top. Nick wanted to try a local, non-touristy place, so we walked back down the stairs and headed to Loncheria Don Jorge. There’s basically one long counter surrounding the interior cooking area. We walked up to a couple of empty seats, sat down and looked at the menu that’s on the wall. I wasn’t super hungry, so I ordered more street tacos, and Nick ordered the Enchiladas Suizas, and we both ordered their pineapple-mint agua fresca. Even they were serious about their salsas, as we were presented with three varieties like we had at El Santo Taco:
I’m pretty sure we spent something like $8 USD for this lunch, which is so cheap compared to how much it would be back in the states. Oh, one tip I have is that you should always carry pesos on you. While many of the larger restaurants and stores accept credit cards, places like this, as well as the food carts or other smaller establishments will only accept cash, so it’s good to have pesos ready for payment.
After our wonderful lunch, we headed back to the Airbnb to spend some time at the rooftop pool. It’s about 16 stories up, with an infinity edge pool, hot tub, day beds and hammocks, and a bar. And it wasn’t busy whenever we went there, which has not always been the case on previous visits elsewhere.
For dinner, we booked a table at Tintoque. We’d never been there, so we thought we’d try it out, and it was great. We opted for their 9 course tasting menu, and they were very accommodating when I asked for non-alcoholic cocktail options. I guess the best description of the food is modern Mexican with some aspects of Asian cuisine thrown in there. I can’t remember the menu, but everything was delicious:
After dinner, we headed back to the Airbnb and watched more Olympics before going to bed. The next day, we had to wake up early…
Day 2: Las Caletas
For this day, we had booked an excursion to Las Caletas, which is private beach that can only be accessed by boat. The last time we were in Puerto Vallarta, we had visited Las Caletas at night for the Rhythms of the Night experience, and I noticed the various hammocks and day beds in the area, but you’re not given any time to use them at night, so we decided to book the daytime version of it. However, that meant that we had to be at the ferry terminal by 7:30 to check-in (the boat leaves at 8:00am), and our place is about a 30 minute drive, so we had to wake up at 6:45, which is super early for us.
We thought the boat ride would take 90 minutes, but we had to make a stop at Nuevo Vallarta to pick up more passengers, so it ended up being about 2 hours each direction. This meant that for an 8:00am departure, we showed up at Las Caletas at around 10. We were then told that the ferry would leave Las Caletas at 2:15, and that lunch would be served at 1:30, so really, we only had about 3.5 hours of free time to enjoy our time there. I think if we decide to do this again, we might want to taxi to Nuevo Vallarta just to shorten the time on the boat.
With that said, we had a lovely time at Las Caletas. There are many activities included in the price of the ticket, such as a cooking class, clay sculpting, various beach equipment to take out, and free drinks. There are also many additional paid activities, like scuba diving, massages, and the one that we decided to buy, paddle boarding with a sea lion.
After our two hour boat ride, we arrived at the dock for Las Caletas, and it was a lot larger than I thought. There were multiple beaches, including one for adults only with its own bar. All of the beaches had hammocks on them, the big beach with activities on it had many day beds, and islands further out in the water with hammocks on there as well. The only issue we had was that the sun didn’t really make it to the adult beach, so we enjoyed most of our time in the larger beach. But we also got lucky because there appeared to be only one boat for the entire island, so it wasn’t crowded at all, and we could easily find a hammock or a day bed at any time. We overheard that some cruise ships have excursions on the beach, but not the day we were there, so that was great timing for us.
After exploring the area for a short bit, we headed to the far end of Las Caletas for our paddle boarding experience. The last time I’ve paddle boarded was about five years ago in Bora Bora, where the water is basically a protected cove—i.e., no waves. Here, you’re in the ocean, with many boats driving by, so waves are inevitable. For this experience though, we were specifically told not to stand on the paddle boards because the sea lion wouldn’t be able to reach our cheek to kiss us. So we and another person individually kneeled on our paddle board and paddled out to meet the sea lion. Nick found kneeling on the paddle board painful, and since he has no balance to begin with, he had a hard time controlling where he was going. The poor camera people in the kayaks had to chase him down to take photos, and they did the best they could.
We spend time individually taking photos with the sea lion, and then together, although controlling the two paddle boards together was difficult. It was fun, and we got some decent photos from it:
When we were done with our sea lion experience, one of the photographers asked if we could walk over to a nearby waterfall for some photos. When we arrived, she asked if we were a couple, and we said yes, and she became excited for our upcoming photo shoot. She took many photos of us individually in poses, and then together in various poses. It was like we had our own personal photographer. Nick joked that she took more photos than we had at our wedding. It was great though, because we hardly take photos together, so now we have some recent photos of us being cute together:
Remember my comment earlier about paddle boarding and waves? Well, after leaving the sea lion experience, I decided that I wanted to paddle board properly. Nick wanted to kayak instead, so we headed to the main beach and borrowed the appropriate equipment. I was pushed out into the water by the attendant, and then kneeled on the paddle board, and while it was rocky, it wasn’t anything too bad. So then I confidently stood up on the board, and wow it was unsteady. The wake from the boats made it really hard to keep my balance, and I wasn’t able to actually paddle efficiently because every time I put the paddle in the water, I felt like I was going to fall in. After about a minute of futile balancing, I gave up and went back down on my knees. Nick came over in his kayak to gloat about how great it is to be able to lie down on his super steady kayak, and then paddled away…
I had enough ocean time at this point, so we spent the time until lunch relaxing on the beach. Lunch was a buffet, which I was concerned about since no one was wearing masks and talking throughout the buffet line. I didn’t want us to test positive for Covid, which would prevent us from returning to the US. Nick wasn’t as concerned and grabbed a plate of food. I took a very small plate, with the plan to eat more once we returned back to the city.
Before we headed to the boat, we got some photos with a couple of birds, and then took the two hour boat ride home. Despite the long time of waiting and commuting, we had a fun time at Las Caletas, as evidenced by these photos:
When we returned home, we had enough time to catch the sunset from the rooftop deck:
For dinner, we went to Los Toneles for an amazing meal:
As per the previous evenings, we watched more Olympics before calling it a night.
Day 3: Bucerias
Our plan for this day was to go to Bucerias, a city about 45 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. On Wednesdays, there’s a farmers and crafts market there, and we love our markets. We got an Uber, and for the destination, Nick put in Chedraui in Bucerias, which is a grocery store. The Uber driver understandably looked at the destination and asked Nick if we really meant that, and Nick had to explain that the farmer’s market is held there, which cleared up the situation.
We arrived at the Chedraui, and sure enough, the farmer’s market was located to the side of the store in the parking lot. Neither of us could find much information about the market, such as a list of possible vendors. All we knew was that there would be artisan craft stalls and food. The Uber driver dropped us off at the entrance, so we proceeded into the market and were surprised by the number of vendors there:
There were many textile and jewelry vendors, and I would have purchased some rugs or other decor if we owned a place in Puerto Vallarta. But our limited luggage capacity prevented us from being able to bring anything home with us to Seattle. However, we did find an awesome shirt vendor, whose graphic t-shirts incorporated Mexican (Aztec, perhaps?) designs, so we each got a shirt there.
Since we already had breakfast, we weren’t really hungry for lunch yet, but there were many cooked food stalls offering various Mexican cuisine, and also a BBQ stall. We opted for some juice, mainly because at this point, we felt like we hadn’t had much in terms of vegetables since the start of our trip. Not because we’re avoiding them, but because there aren’t very many green veggie options on the menu, besides guacamole. So to make us feel better, we each got a green juice for a total of $6 for 2 bottles. In the US, each bottle would have been something like $8 each.
We made one last circle of the market to make sure we didn’t miss anything that we might want to buy, and then headed down the cobblestone street to the beach. Walking around the city, we definitely could tell that there was a much more relaxed vibe here than in Puerto Vallarta. There weren’t as many cars driving through the streets, and not as many people crowding the sidewalks. We had also read that there was a high number of ex-pats who call Bucerias home, and based on the conversations we overheard while walking around, I’d say that’s pretty accurate.
After a short walk, we made it to the beach, and it was actually quite empty where we were:
It was nice to just walk on such an long stretch of sand with the sound of the ocean next to us. After enjoying a short beach walk, we headed a block inland to reach the area with many art galleries. Just walking down the street, you can see the amazing murals and cute art displays:
We walked through the flea market there, but quickly hustled through as we were getting hounded by the many vendors wanting us to check out their goods. Nick wanted to check out a metalwork artist nearby, Carlos Ibarra, so we headed there. He had some cool pieces on display and we were seriously tempted to buy one, but realized that we didn’t really have space at home, but maybe we’ll reconsider the next time we visit.
Across the street, we got lunch at El Brujo Playa, mainly because it was there and we were hungry. And since they were on the beach, we could enjoy our lunch on the sand—Nick was extremely happy to do so with drink in hand:
We walked up through the center of the city, where we passed the cute town plaza:
And finally before heading back to Puerto Vallarta, we got some refreshing gelato:
We actually spent more time there than we thought we would, and we definitely were happy to have visited Bucerias. I don’t know if we’d go out of our way to visit again in the future, but we can see the appeal that it has for those who want to live in the Puerto Vallarta area without the hassle of PV traffic.
We rested on the rooftop deck before heading out to dinner at one of our favorite places, Barcelona Tapas. But before that, we wanted to do a quick tour of the weekly art walk that happens on Wednesday nights for part of the year. Many of the art galleries downtown stay open late. Some of them have some live music and drinks, and you’re welcome to walk in and take a look at all of the amazing art, and talk to the gallery owners and other art enthusiasts.
After checking out a few galleries, we needed to head over for our dinner reservation. Barcelona Tapas is located up a hill, and it occupies the top two floors of a building, so the views from the restaurant are amazing. We got lucky and timed it so that when we were seated, we could get a great view of the sunset over the water and the city:
We were also able to see some fireworks, which we believe are from the nightly pirate ship dinner show that happens every night in the bay. The wonderful sights were a great way to enjoy the delicious tapas that the restaurant serves.
We didn’t have anything else really planned for the rest of the trip. Thursday morning, we went to Litten Brød, a danish bakery in Puerto Vallarta. They have a cute space, with a modern decor, offering delicious coffees and danish pastries. We got a couple of mochas and their maple snail, and enjoyed it on their back patio:
We then walked to the eastern part of Isla Cuale, where there’s a cultural center and plaza. When we visited, we noticed a group of people sitting and painting, so I guess this is a regular activity that happens here:
Around the island, there’s a cute walking path with some sculpture art and murals on round buildings. Nick tried to befriend one of the many cats that call this place home. And of course, there are stairs, because there are stairs everywhere in this city. There’s also a statue of actor and director, John Huston, who made some famous films in Puerto Vallarta:
Since this was our last full day in Puerto Vallarta, we wanted to relax, so we spent our time on the rooftop deck until dinner. This time, we were headed to the Versalles area, which recently has become the foodie area of the city. We’ve never been there before, so we thought we’d check it out, so Nick got a reservation at Barrio Bistro. I think Nick said that it was one of the first restaurants to open in Versalles, and started the foodie destination transformation in the area. When we arrived, we definitely saw many other restaurants, so we’ll have to check those out in the future.
Barrio Bistro offers a creative take on modern Mexican cuisine, and the dining area is outside in a cute patio with amazing artwork all around. Unfortunately, I only took this one photo before we were seated:
For dinner, I ordered the Oaxacan shrimp, which contained grasshoppers. I asked the waiter if they were served whole, or crushed into the sauce, and he said they were served whole. He also said that they could put them on the side, or remove them, but I was feeling adventurous and told him to prepare it as usual. When it arrived, yeah, you can definitely see them in there:
I’ve never eaten bugs before, so I decided to try one on its own. It was expectedly crunchy, but I was surprised that it also had a tart flavor to it. It wasn’t awful, and I continued to eat them with my shrimp, but at some point, my head was like, you’re eating bugs, and I got grossed out by it, so stopped the grasshopper consumption. But I’m happy to say that I’ve tried it once and now I know…
And that was it for our last day in Puerto Vallarta. We were sad to have to say goodbye, but we’ll definitely be back again either later in the year or early next year when we’re sick of the cold weather in Seattle.