posted by colin on Mar 23
It may be hard to turn your back on Banderas Bay, the liquid half-moon that flows into the horizon off the beaches of Puerto Vallarta. But PV, as this alluring Mexican resort on the Pacific coast is commonly known, has much more to offer than beaches and water sports. Unlike the master-planned resort towns of Cancun and Ixtapa, PV is Romantica. Whitewashed houses seem to tumble down the green hillsides along the Rio Cuale, and sinuous street are packed with incredible restaurants and galleries. Downtown is still a traditional city where families stroll the malecon (seaside promenade) and dance in the plaza on Sunday night. Shake the sand from your toes and join our journey into the heart of Puerto Vallarta-and beyond.
ARTFUL BROWSING
Amazing art captures the eye wherever you look in Puerto Vallarta, starting with the parade of sculptures along the malecon. Recent additions include the bulging-bellied Rock Eater and swirling Vallarta Dancers, whose artists are represented by galleries here in town. To avoid crowds, study the sculptures in the early morning, the set off to roam through our favorite haunts.
GALLERIA DANTE 269 Basilio Badillo
You don’t need to know much about fine art to be entranced by the works in this enormous gallery’s rambling rooms and courtyards. In the garden, look for sculptures by Alejandro Colunga, who created the sky-high abstract creatures at the Rotonda del Mar on the malecon. Prices range from $200 for a small painting up into the thousands.
GALERIE DES ARTISTES 248 Leona Vicario
You could browse for hours on gallery-packed Leona Vicario, starting at this airy space with Esau Andrade’s whimsical paintings and magical watercolors by Evelyne Boren. Continue on toward the water for more arts and crafts in upscale shops and galleries.
LEONA 226 JEWELRY 226 Leona Vicario
The gorgeous wearable art sold in this chic gallery would make anybody look great. The owners design stunning silver pendants and earrings, and comb through workshops in Taxco, San Miguel de Allende and PV for of-the-moment pieces. Prices start as low as $10, but quickly escalate.
A SHORT HOP TO THE MOUNTAINS
Our small plane glides over Banderas Bay then heads inland, leaving the tiled roofs and high-rise hotels of Puerto Vallarta far behind. After 15 minutes of flying over forests, waterfalls and milk green rivers, the pilot sets down by a brick shelter outside San Sebastian del Oeste, a 17th-century silver and gold-mining town high in the Sierra Madre. The tour’s dozen passengers gather around guide Martin Aver while he runs through the town’s history, from the Aztecs and the Spanish Conquest, up to the mining boom of the 1800s when the population peaked at around 30,000. Today, only about 600 people live in the area.
San Sebastian, a UNESCO World Heritage site, seems trapped in the 1920s (It didn’t even have a generator until 1985.) Visitors were once rare but now tour companies are bringing groups in by van and by plane. Still, Aver says as we board the back of his pickup truck, it’s not like Disneyland here. People aren’t sitting around waiting for the tourists to come.”
But the Sanchez family is happy to welcome guests to their coffee plantation, where beans ripen on century-old trees. While Aver tells us about coffee growing, Rosa Sanchez bags cinnamon scented beans. Then, it’s a short bumpy ride on dirt roads past adobe houses and tiny shops to the center of town, which seems like something straight out of Romancing the Stone. After a tall shot of raicilla (the local moonshine) at the cantina, Aver leads us to the home of Dona Conchia, who opens her doors to lucky tour groups. Showing us around, she steers her wheelchair past cabinets crammed with china, crystal, mining documents and albums of photos that go back six generations.
For lunch at Lupita’s family members lay out fresh corn tortillas, beans, machaca (shredded beef), quesadillas and hibiscus tea. After lunch, we have an hour to wander the town’s steep rocky streets, where brilliant bougainvillea tumbles over adobe walls. Finally, the plane makes a quick taxi before soaring away from this slice of Mexico’s past, bound for Puerto Vallarta.
Maribeth Mellin
