teskatravels: Vegging-out in Puerto Vallarta

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My hotel is one of three neighboring hostelries under the Los Arcos name. The Arcos involved are a series of rock islands way down the beach to the south. They are one of the (few) trademarks of Puerto Vallarta. The others are the cathedral spire, which has a kind of crown on top, and the many, many little domes that everyone who can puts on top of their buildings.

There was a booster named Guilermo Wulff, who got John Huston to come to make Night of the Iguana. He was also an architect, who polulaized a kind of cuola as Puerto Vallarta’s signatue. The typical Varteno dome is covered with pastel stucco and topped with a lantern, which is functional in some cases. The dome is actually over a room, and the cupola gives light. Sometimes, the domes are just stuck on top, apparently without purpose other than decoration. But everybody has them, including quite humble buildings with little pastel yarmulkes.

The Los Arcos itself is right on the beach, called for obscure reasons Los Muertos (there are many theories, including pirates and dead fishermen)/ It is the grandest of the three. It echoes its name with arches over all the windows.

Its lobby is really in the patio, which gives onto a series of swimming pools leading to the beach, with restaurant to one side. There is a big pool fior everybody, a small pool for seniors (adults only – quiet please) a footbath for those just in from the beach, and a hot Jacuzzi. My hotel gives me privileges, which I have not yet exercised.

The middle hotel is across the street – suites. Mine is called a boutique hotel, which David tells me means less than fity roomsa and the aim to personalize service. It is charming. Everything is tile and stone. Only four stories high (with an elevator!). The rooms are arranged around the large rectangular patio, which is open all the way up. There is a huge tree growing out of the ground right up to the rooftop, where it shades bathers at the rooftop pool. I really like this feature. It is always monastery-quiet up there, and the view of sunset is terrific.

The staff of Casa Dona Susanna is very nice. One of the counter guys even greeted me out on the street one day. The furniture is all that very heavy, stained, carved wood. Tile floors. Beatiful inlaid basin. And they ALMOST have the plumbing together. I have had only one bathroom disaster so far. The shower is strong and hot. So capacious, in fact, that the drain has a bit of troule handling its output. Unaware of this in my first use, I luxuriated while the water happily cascaded out the door (bathroom is up one step, to accommodate pipes, I think), across the bedroom under the bed and out the big, heavy, carved wooden door into the balcony/entrance hall, and over the side into the air, to water the roots of the big tree below. Soon there were staff knocking and phones ringing, and everyone was very nice, and I learned to shove the bath mat against the bathroom door and not to stand on the shower drain and to turn the water off every now and then during a long shower.

There is not much I want to do in PV except eat. There is, of course, plenty to do (fishing, whale-watching, snorkeling and diving, volley-ball [!], shopping ad infinitum, body-surfing, and the dreaded “canopy tour”. David told me about the latter, which he has done. It involves getting up high in the treetops somehow, and then getting into a harness and precipitating oneself across the fathomless abyss (several abysses, actually, one after the other), from tree to tree. (Under the canopy, you see.) This costs a fair amont of money. Money I will gladly save. (I am too heavy to qualify anyway, thank God). I am with David Foster Wallace, who wondered why anyone would pay anything, not to mention a large sum, to purchase an experience one is just glad to survive.

One genuinely fun thing to do is to get in the car and drive around. On Saturday, David drove me out to his and Tere’s land in the mountains south of town.

The winding road took us along the coast until we got to the funky little fishing village of Boca de Tomatlán. (This is not, as one would expect, the mouth of the Tomatlán, but of some other river. After long and persistent inquiries, D. has concluded that no one knows, nor cares, nor thinks it the least bit odd.) This is the place where some friends of mine learned of a small hotel for sale. Cheap. The reason it is cheap is that the sun never hits it (except in the summertime, when it is the last thing you want in the dreadful, humid heat), and it is accessible only over a narrow, railingless little bridge, which I dubbed the Bridge at San Luis Rey:

I don’t think I will be promoting the acquisition of the property. It is a sweet little fishing village, though. The local restauranteur CATCHES his own fish in the early morning, then prepares it himself to serve to his customers.

Up in El Tuito, the village near D. & T.’s place, someone has had the bright idea of painting all the buildings the same color ~ like in Santa Fe. So most of the stucco is a two-tone of mustard below and white above.

Tuito color code

There are some contrarians, however, who raise an iridescent-plum or cobalt-blue finger in the direction of the organizer, who believes that here scheme will somehow make the town more prosperous. There is a nice big plaza surrounded by those typical long rows of one-storey buildings, which are a couple of rooms deep and then open on big patios in the rear. This is the real thing, found from Tucson south.

Plaza in El Tuito

The countryside up in this high valley is oddly reminiscent of SW Wisconsin (around LaCrosse). The mountains stand in about the same relief to the valley, and there is plenty of water. That is one of the area’s main assets. Unlike most of Mexico, PV and is hinterlands have no shortage of water, nor is there ever likely to be one. The mountains stop enough Pacific weather during the rainy season (June to September) to recharge all the ground water with plenty to spare. PV runs on wells that are always full.

As a result, the mountains are very lush. People call it a jungle, although it is not a rainforest. Lots of oaks and weird pine trees with exotic needles. When NAFTA drove the farmers out of business, those bigger ranchers who could scrambled for alternatives. Now there isn’t very much beef and no corn, but there are some orange-groves and bananas. One guy went into business raising fighting cocks, which is one of the strangest things I have ever seen: 200 little A-frame tepees with a rooster tethered to each one (so they can’t fight before it’s time).

Then there was the big ranch that diversified in a big way. No more cattle or horses, except for a few for show or to serve in their restaurant. They grow much of what they serve. I ate home-grown lamb. They also grow their own chickens, and prickly-pear cactus for nopales, which garnishes their plates, and agave to make their own tequila, and something else called raicilla, which you can only get there.

It seems to be a kind of Everclear or straight 190-proof moonshine. I bought a couple of bottles to bring home. Guide Michelin should know about this place.

It struck me that this might be a fine place to grow wine, although it might be too humid in the summer.

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