PUERTO VALLARTA’S Pleasures--Past and Present

It is dawn and a rooster crows and a donkey is braying and the bells of Our Lady of Guadalupe are tolling like thunder.

Puerto Vallarta is awakening.

With the sun rising over the Sierra Madre and the ocean tossing up whitecaps, a gentle breeze disturbs the curtains at my window. With only 14 rooms, Hotel Los Cuatro Vientos rises on a hillside a quarter of a mile behind the waterfront.

Its restaurant, Chez Elena, specializes in fish and chicken and Indonesian dishes; last night the menu listed lobster as well as fish and tamales wrapped in banana leaves and an Indonesian brochette with peanut sauce.

It has become a cliche to say that Puerto Vallarta is spoiled. I disagree, but if indeed it is true, then one can blame the travel writers and the movie that was filmed here in the ‘60s starring Richard Burton. Puerto Vallarta took on a new image.

Tourists began arriving by the planeload; new hotels appeared along the beaches and electric lines were strung through town. The word spread and finally Europeans joined the Americans who were jetting to Puerto Vallarta in increasing numbers.

Spoiled? Well, if this means friendly people and surprisingly little crime, then perhaps it is so. Of course, I’m prejudiced because Puerto Vallarta is my favorite Mexican village.

This isn’t to say that Puerto Vallarta is as safe as it was once. Occasionally there is a burglary, but none of the violence associated with our cities. Personally, I feel far safer on the streets of Puerto Vallarta at midnight than I do in Los Angeles at high noon.

As for tourists who mourn the old days, few, I suspect, would enjoy hotels without screens or hot water. What they want is Puerto Vallarta with plumbing.

Spoiled? I would prefer that there were fewer cars and fewer tour buses. But what surprises me is how this Pacific resort maintains so much of its original charm. When Burton arrived, Puerto Vallarta was practically unknown. Only one taxi sputtered through town.

That and a horse cab. There were no traffic lights. Besides this, the road leading out of town was unpaved. So whenever the vintage cab rattled through Vallarta it kicked up great clouds of dust.

On my first visit to Puerto Vallarta I was lucky to get a room at the Oceano. It was booked full with film makers. Now there is a lineup of first-rate hotels, including the Fiesta Americana, the Holiday Inn, the Sheraton and the excellent Camino Real, which gets high marks for its restaurant, La Perla, its impeccable service and one of Puerto Vallarta’s finest beaches.

I got hooked on Puerto Vallarta on that first visit 23 years ago, and I swear that someday I’m going to hole up here and try that novel I never got around to writing. It would reflect on the town when there was no TV and not a single telephone. Whenever someone tried to call home they used a radiophone. Only there was always static. No one could hear a word. They’d yell and scream but it did no good. So they’d hang up and order another beer.

In those days only one road passed through town, a bone-rattling stretch of ruts and rocks and immense potholes. From Tepico it took almost 14 hours to reach Puerto Vallarta, and then only during the dry season. In the wet season, mid-June till mid-October, it was a river. Only an Olympic gold medalist would attempt it.

The early visitors hung out in the bar at the Oceano. Either there or the Punta Negra, which was a cantina in the heart of town. The Punta Negra was a favorite watering hole of Burton and a whole flock of mariachis. Like Quinn’s old bar in Tahiti, it was a notorious joint that smelled of disinfectant and stale beer. Patrons got drunk on Mexican beer and cheap rum. They played cards and whistled at girls passing on the street. To this day no one can figure why the owner tore it down.

It was like dismantling the Eiffel Tower. Or Windsor Castle. It made no sense. The Punta Negra, which means Black Point, was simply the heart and soul of old Puerto Vallarta.

It was because I was searching for a bit of this old atmosphere that I took a room at Hotel Los Cuatro Vientos with its whitewashed walls and flowering vines that cascade off a red-tile roof. The flowers are called flame of love and they provide shade for an ancient calandria, a carriage that stands in the courtyard of this small hotel on its cobbled street, uphill from the waterfront and the Oceano.

The hotel is operated by an American, Gloria Whiting, and her Mexican partner, Lola Bravo, and there is the guitar of Alberto Henandez who plays Mexican melodies while guests dine in the courtyard.

What with the music and the church bells and the crowing of the roosters (yes, even at night), light sleepers had best wear earplugs. Still, if one can overlook a little noise, Los Cuatro Vientos is a gem, a spotless little home with the flavor of old Mexico and rates of $25 a night. Instead of air conditioning, breezes blow in from the sea and instead of a lobby there is the courtyard with its scattering of leather chairs and a shower of flowers. “We sell a Mexican experience,” says Whiting, who once sold real estate in Los Angeles.

Granted, Puerto Vallarta has grown but its beaches are still inviting. The mountains are lush and the streets are still cobbled, which is tough on tires but splendid if one happens to be searching for atmosphere.

A Noisy Visitor

It was on a dusty side street on an earlier visit that I stopped in a cantina for a beer, and a rooster fluttered boldly through the door and perched on a stool. It crowed imperiously. The owner made a mad swipe at it with a bar towel and the bird ran squawking to the street, feathers flying, and disappeared into a shop down the block.

Chickens and pigs still tie up traffic in Puerto Vallarta.

This cantina I was telling you about that was invaded by the rooster is just up the block from La Hacienda, a restaurant with a brick courtyard where guests dine in a garden-like setting; a fountain spills musically and the clock tower next door tolls every 10 minutes or so. It is totally out of tune with the hour. The other evening at 9 o’clock it clanged 22 times without rhyme or reason. No one cared. Not with a full moon shining through the branches of an ancient flame tree.

Turning south along the coast, it is only a few miles to a new outdoor restaurant-bar, the Chee Chee, that overlooks the peaceful cove of Boca de Tomatlan and a river that flows from the hills near another restaurant-bar, Chico’s Paradise.

A Setting for Tarzan

Terraced down a hillside, the Chee Chee is framed in a jungle-like setting that brings to mind a scene from an old Tarzan flick. A swimming pool is built into immense boulders beneath the restaurant and there is a platform where guests dive into the bay before lunch (the snapper is fresh, the lobster excellent). With Bloody Mary brunches costing only five bucks, the Chee Chee is a steal.

At the Chee Chee there is the smell of salt air and the sound of waves washing against rocks in this boulder-strewn cove. A sign down the highway tells of “cold beer and complimentary sunsets.” Meanwhile, others dine and sunbathe upriver in the jungle-like canyon at Chico’s Paradise.

The Chee Chee is operated by an hombre named Big Al and this strikes everyone as amusing because Big Al is only five feet tall. Al Cardenas is from Merida and he got to Puerto Vallarta by way of Los Angeles where he worked for Pan Am. One weekend he flew down to Puerto Vallarta, was enchanted by what he saw and decided to stay.

Although Big Al was short on pesos, he discovered something money couldn’t buy. Contentment. So he borrowed a desk and a chair and set himself up in the tour business. As it grew, Cardenas got the nickname Big Al. You want to visit Yelapa? See Big Al. Guadalajara? See Big Al. His sidekick, Fast Freddy De Llano, knows every last mile of Puerto Vallarta, all the way beyond Mismaloya Beach.

Arrive and Stay

Like Al Cardenas, others arrive on vacation and tear up their return tickets. Jan Lavender, a blonde with green eyes who grew up on a ranch in Arizona and worked as a correspondent for Time magazine, refused to go home after discovering the charms of Puerto Vallarta.

With Gary Thompson, an ex-Vietnam combat photographer, Lavender operates a splendid art studio at the corner of Corona and Morelos avenues that deals in oils, watercolors and sculptures by contemporary Mexican artists. On display the other day was a canvas by Manuel Lepe with an $18,000 price tag.

The studio is called Galeria Uno. The gringos have opened a second gallery in the Plaza Malecon not far from Carlos O’Brian’s restaurant and the Casablanca, which is plastered with pictures of Bogie and serves fresh fish and shrimp, with a good view of the street action.

On the other side of the river, waiters and waitresses at La Cabana de Pancho Villa come on like extras in an old John Wayne Western, complete with gun belts. Pancho Villa’s is across the street from the City Dump, a disco that’s aptly named.

Pancho’s opens its doors at 9 p.m. and doesn’t stop serving cerveza and tacos and carne asada until 5 o’clock in the morning. Looking more like a Texas tavern than a Mexican restaurant, the wild and woolly Pancho’s gets high marks for its grilled chicken, Mexican cheese fondue, quesadillas and chicken enchiladas. (It’s also inexpensive.)

From Pancho’s it’s only a short stroll to Hotel Molina de Agua, which is a scattering of spotless cottages in a park-like setting next to the Cuale River. At the Molina de Agua, guests relax in wicker rockers and sunbathe by the swimming pool. With rates starting at $22, it’s one of Puerto Vallarta’s small hotel bargains.

Balconies, Pool

Another is the family-style Hotel Posada Rio Cuale whose wrought-iron balconies face a profusion of plants and a swimming pool that serves as a fountain after dark. Fans spin overhead in a restaurant that is a favorite among locals and tourists alike. With air-conditioned rooms priced at $18 double in the high season and $12 in the low season, Posada Rio Cuale is another of Puerto Vallarta’s little hotel bargains.

On the other hand, the big hotels--the Camino Real, the Holiday Inn, the Fiesta Americana, the Krystal Posada Vallarta, the Garza Blanca and the Sheraton--are every bit as sophisticated as those in Palm Beach and Beverly Hills.

The growth amazes locals who grew up in Puerto Vallarta. Cristina Torres, who works with Big Al and Fast Freddy, recalls when one could ride in the only taxi for 35 cents an hour, and it cost barely 5 pesos to feed a family for an entire week. There were no strangers and the pleasures were simple.

Cristina Torres smiles wistfully. “We were poor but happy,” she remembers.

Well, certain pleasures remain. No one has extinguished the sunsets or . . . snuffed out the stars.

References:

--Hotel Camino Real, Playa de las Estacas, P.O. Box 95, 48300 Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Holiday Inn, Avenue de las Garzas, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Fiesta Americana, Los Tules, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Hotel Los Cuatro Vientos & Chez Elena Restaurant, Matamoros 520, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Hotel Molina de Agua, P.O. Box 45, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Hotel Posada Rio Cuale, P.O. Box 146, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Buganvilias Sheraton, Carretera Aeropuerto 999, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Hotel Garza Blanca, P.O. Box 58, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Krystal Posada Vallarta, P.O. Box 94, Avenue Las Garzas, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Big Al’s Tours, c/o Hotel Krystal Posada Vallarta, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico. Telephone (322) 2-01-02 or 2-09-20.

--Jan Lavender’s Galeria Uno, Morelos 561, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.

--Chee Chee Restaurant Bar & Club, P.O. Box 378, Boca de Tomatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico.