It’s No Puerto Vallarta

My wife and I are not all-inclusive resort types, but we’re not exactly adventure travelers, either. When we talked about vacationing in Mexico, we hoped to find an uncrowded village where accommodations and food were first rate. I had seen both extremes in Mexico: the plush, high-end resorts with big hotels and little local flavor, or remote pueblas with no tourist amenities.

In Sayulita, we found our happy medium, a little fishing town that mixes village life with comfortable accommodations, even a first-class restaurant.

What’s more, it’s located a mere 22 miles north of Puerto Vallarta, where hordes of tourists go to sop up margaritas and American-style Mexican food and stay in one of the large, nondescript hotels overlooking the Bay of Banderas. Sayulita’s enduring image for me, on the other hand, is of groups of fishermen pushing their open boats, called pangas, through the surf at low tide until they are in water deep enough to lower their outboard motors.

We found out about Sayulita from a small mention in a national magazine that described bungalows for rent in a village on the Pacific Coast. We had visions of the jungle paradise we had found the year before in Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Forest.

Though I’d traveled extensively by car throughout Mexico in the 1980s, I was still a bit taken aback when my wife, Susan, and I first set foot in the dusty puebla last March. Sayulita looked run down and rough around the edges. What’s more, the bungalows where we’d reserved lodging turned out to be spare, concrete blocks surrounded by houses on what seemed a crowded beach. We wondered aloud whether we should stay the entire four days we’d planned to.

What a difference a day makes.

After upgrading our accommodations to a very private, charming house built into the cliffs just outside of town, and meeting some people with whom we became fast friends after only a few days, we were sad to leave Sayulita to continue our itinerary within Mexico. In fact, we ended up cutting that portion of our trip short by two days so we could return to Sayulita.

For fishermen--or seafood lovers--the waters off Sayulita offer a bounty of sailfish, mahi-mahi, red snapper, smash mackerel, oyster, lobster and shrimp. Local boys also snorkel for octopus just off the beach. If you want to charter a panga for fishing, it’ll cost about $62, though like most transactions in Mexico, the price is negotiable.

Sayulita’s beach attracts other types of sporting enthusiasts as well: surfers, both American and locals, and kayakers in blue and yellow and red shells who fight for position with the surfers to ride the waves.

“The water is about 60 degrees right now in San Diego,” one gray-bearded fellow told me as he paddled his board through the 75-degree ocean. “You don’t even want to get in there this time of year.” An impromptu polling of surfers, most of whom were on the far side of 50, revealed hometowns from California to as far north as Seattle, Wash. (Sayulita is about a two-hour drive south of San Blas, another popular surfing spot in the state of Nayarit).

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The kayaks were brought here by the Rubios, a family who operates a kayak concession on the beach in front of Papa’s Palapas, the three-unit bungalow on the beach where we had originally planned to stay. Guadalupe Rubio, 73, has been coming to Sayulita from her home in Pismo Beach, Calif., since 1964.

“Back then [Sayulita] had no water, no electricity,” said Rubio, whom everyone calls by her nickname, Lu. Rubio acts as abuela, or grandmother, to a handful of Mexican boys who help out with the kayaks. “It was just a little jungle village.”

Her 45-year-old son, Mario, spent 25 years working as a roughneck for Standard Oil in California before chucking it all last year and staking his claim as the kayak king of Sayulita. Mario’s brother Mark stays in Pismo Beach, booking reservations for Papa’s Palapas and private vacation homes rented out by their Mexican owners from Guadalajara and Mexico City. On a slow day, Mario will jump on one of the kayaks to help drum up business. On other days, he’s organizing kayak trips to the nearby Marietas Islands, where visitors can view the marine and bird life, including frigates and blue-footed boobies. When the whales are migrating during calving season, from December to March, Mario sets up whale-watching trips. He also puts together nature walks for people curious about the flora and fauna in the jungle.

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A fair number of Americans have discovered Sayulita, some of them retired teachers who have bought houses on the hill overlooking the bay, and the local real estate market is said to be taking off. Some fret that all the attention might change the place, where prices already skewed upward by the dollar-influenced spillover of its nearby big-sister resort town.

“I’d like to keep [Sayulita] the way it is,” Lu said. “I’m afraid of it becoming another Puerto Vallarta.”

Others are not as concerned. Rick Courtney moved here from the San Diego area about three years ago and now sells real estate in town. He says the Americans and Mexicans get along well and doubts that big hotels are in Sayulita’s future.

“People come here for the way it is,” Courtney said. “It’s still a village, still a puebla.”

The occasional group of loud tourists wanders north from Puerto Vallarta, and they stand out. One day, as we sat at a local beach-side restaurant called El Costeno, a group of them wandered in, took over two tables, exclaimed how cheap the beer was and wondered why they couldn’t get a margarita.

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Meanwhile, Susan and I nursed a few afternoon beers, munched on crunchy tortilla chips and fresh guacamole, and watched the antics in the breakers of a local surfer named Chuy, who walked backward on his long-board, then stood on his head for an encore.

That did it. My wife decided that she was going to learn to surf. When Chuy finally took a break from his performance, she went up to him on the beach and booked a lesson for the next morning. We had already ridden the waves in a two-person kayak, and the only casualty was a $70 pair of sunglasses she insisted on wearing. We found kayaking to be exhilarating and nearly idiot-proof, so long as you remember to fall toward the wave.

Surfing, as my wife discovered, is a tad more dangerous. I watched from El Costeno, along with a handful of restaurant workers shelling shrimp, as Chuy launched her on a wave. She never did try to stand up, and I could almost see her knuckles turn as white as the water around her. When she and the board finally crashed on the beach, the Mexicans had a good laugh, and I had a bit of a scare. She was shaken, and after getting back on the board for one more bumpy ride, Susan’s surfing career ended.

The private home that the Rubios had rented us just outside of town is called the Rock House because the large rock formation it sits on was incorporated into its design when it was built 50 years ago. The house overlooks Playa de Las Muertas (Beach of the Dead, named for a nearby cemetery), and the rock makes up some of the walls in the living area--including the bedroom, living room and bathroom--on the first floor. The top floor is a tiled patio with a sweeping view of the Pacific, with two hammocks strung under a shaded area. The beach, situated in a small cove, is nearly private; most days only a few stragglers made the 10-minute walk from town. On Sunday, a group of boys turned the strip of sand into a soccer field.

In the jungle surrounding the Rock House are dirt roads that make nice hiking trails. Since the Rock House had a kitchen, we cooked our own dinners on a couple of occasions--steaks one night, but we could have just as easily bought fresh, inexpensive seafood straight from the fishermen’s pangas.

Other times we ate delicious “street food” from taco stands on the streets of Sayulita (we never got ill, but we made sure to drink only bottled water, which we bought in five-gallon containers and kept at our rental home). One day we splurged on lunch at the town’s upscale restaurant, Don Pedro’s: $30 for shrimp rellenos, squid, a savory, wood-grilled fish with couscous and vegetables, a hearty plate of seafood paella and a few beers. On Sunday afternoons and most nights, Don Pedro’s features live music, and there are several cantinas where Mexican musicians perform.

One Saturday at dusk, we noticed a commotion at the far end of town. We wandered over to see what it was all about. Someone had set up a huge tent and the entire town, it seemed, had handed over a few pesos to get inside. At first I thought it was a traveling circus, but as we approached the tent flaps, I heard the strains of scratchy, wobbly music and the clicking of an old projector.

It was Saturday night at the movies in Sayulita.

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GUIDEBOOK

Sayulita Sojourn

Getting there: Alaska, Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines offer nonstop service from LAX to Puerto Vallarta; fares start at about $378. Connecting service involving a change of planes is available on America West (a round-trip fare of $301 expires Wednesday) and American airlines. Sayulita is about 22 miles (about a 40-minute drive) north of Puerto Vallarta. You can rent a car or take a taxi from the airport, which should cost about $25 (negotiate the price before leaving). The Pacifico Bus Service runs from Puerto Vallarta to Sayulita seven times a day for about $1.25.

Where to stay: Papa’s Palapas lists about 30 rentals in the area, but their main property is a large bungalow on the beach divided into three separate units. It’s not fancy, but the bungalows are clean. Rates: $42 a night, with a four-night minimum, plus 15% tax. We stayed in the “Rock House,” which overlooks the beach and is about a 10-minute walk from town; high season rate is about $100 a night (prices are about 30% less in off-season). For reservations, telephone toll-free (888) 473-5300 or (805) 489-7210; fax (805) 481-7260.

A more luxurious choice is Villa Amor, 11 open-air thatched roof “villas” on a steep hillside with amazing views of the bay (but not for people who are averse to stair climbing). Rates (November-April 1): from $75 per night for a one-bedroom unit to $300 for a two-bedroom suite; tel. 011-52-327-50196.

Where to eat: El Costeno, on the beach, has cheap but satisfying seafood and Mexican dishes; we never spent more than about $12 for two, including beer. Just up the street, we found Laura’s to be the best of many open-air taco stands that set up shop around dusk. Don Pedro’s Restaurant and Bar is the fanciest place in Sayulita. The fare includes shrimp-stuffed chiles rellenos (about $5.25), thin-crust pizzas from a wood-burning oven ($6 to $11) and filet mignon ($12).

For more information: Mexican Government Tourism Office, 1801 Century Park East, Suite 1080, Century City, CA 90067; tel. (310) 203-8191, fax (310) 203-8316.