Little Secret by the Sea

Say hello to this rustic little beach town on the Pacific just north of Manzanillo. It’s got a sandy shoreline full of bright umbrellas and a dozen seafood eateries under thatched palm roofs. There’s a roaring ocean, a tranquil bay, a fleet of water taxis and a 2-year-old luxury resort that looms across the bay like Xanadu with sand traps.

If you’ve never heard of it, you’re excused. Just a handful of American and Canadian beachcombers have been quietly coming here since the 1970s, and the town has remained an unsung getaway, a place to do nothing.

Now get ready to say goodbye to that Barra de Navidad. As yachties find their way to the growing marina and golfers discover the 27-hole course next to the 199-room hotel, things are bound to change. As other resorts rise and expand along the 120-mile medley of largely raw beaches and cliffs north of Manzanillo and south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico’s so-called Costa Alegre is bound to draw ever more tourist traffic.

Now, while the laziness endures, is a good time to be here. But let’s be clear: This is neither a cathedral of natural wonders nor a repository of colonial architecture. The principal church, though impeccably tidy, is all of four decades old and looks like a well-ventilated triple Quonset hut. With its bumpy streets, sandy patches and improvised carpentry, Barra would be hell for a wheelchair traveler. And with its extreme upscale and decidedly budget lodging choices, it has no place, except perhaps the Hotel Cabo Blanco, for that ubiquitous creature, the middle-market American traveler.

Barra is, however, a fine place to do a little reading, maybe take a dip in the ocean, then settle back under one of those bright umbrellas that rent for $2 a day. The waves on nearby beaches work for some surfers (though the rough water can be risky for swimmers), and the afternoon wind works for windsurfers. I didn’t see Cabo San Lucas in 1974, before the chain hotels and the time shares and the vacation homes sprouted, but I bet it looked like this.

The local dinner specialty is camarones a la diabla: shrimp soaked in a spicy chile sauce. The best American breakfasts, priced at about $3, are on the palapa-shaded terrace of the Hotel Delfin.

After dark, maybe you share a dollar beer with the ragtag Americans at the open-air Piper Lover bar (if things seem too quiet, the proprietor may hand out sparklers) or stroll on the deserted white-sand beach. Then it’s off to bed at the spanking clean Hotel Delfin, about $25 nightly for a double. Or maybe a ritzier stay at the Hotel Cabo Blanco--which, at about $75 a night, ranks as the priciest lodging on the Barra side of the bay. The Cabo Blanco, owned by the same family that owns the Grand Bay Hotel, includes 83 rooms, two pools and two tennis courts spread on grassy grounds, along with a landing for private boats.

Getting here is simple enough. In early May I boarded a three-hour nonstop flight from LAX to Manzanillo, caught a 30-minute taxi ride to Barra (standard fare is $20; I saw no signs of bus service), then passed four days and nights investigating the sleepy streets and near-empty beaches. I spent two nights in luxury at the Grand Bay and two nights at the Hotel Delfin, where a single room costs as much as breakfast for one at the Grand Bay. The temperature was about 80 degrees, and the town’s population (about 10,000) was just settling into the warm, humid summer months when fewer tourists come.

A few businesses, including such American favorites as the Cafe Ambar (known for its crepes) and the Crazy Cactus (which arranges local home rentals and organizes wetlands tours), were closed for the off-season. A visit between October and April is a livelier affair, and may require more advance booking. Over Christmas and Easter, veterans say, the press of tourists can be downright daunting.

I started upscale at the Grand Bay Hotel, where the marble halls seem to stretch for miles and the service was unfailingly attentive--as it should be when only 28 of 199 rooms are occupied. First came the free welcome fruit drink, and then a quick education in the layout of the 1,200-acre resort. A hotel spokeswoman notes that the hotel’s owners, the Leano family, also operate the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, one of the largest colleges in Mexico, as a profit-making venture.

Walking the grounds is like coming upon the lonely remnants of a once-great civilization--except that nothing’s ruined. It’s all kept immaculate by beach rakers, pool guys and palm trimmers. (The hotel is managed by the Grand Bay group of hotels, which also includes The Boulders in Arizona and The Peaks Resort & Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.)

The golf course is widely praised as one of Mexico’s best. The rooms are full of sherbet colors, so spacious that they verge on suite-hood, with a table on the terrace and a view of the dead-still marina. Breakfast for one runs about $20, which is also the starting price of main courses in the hotel’s priciest restaurant, Antonio’s.

The drawback, naturally, is the price. For the $225 that one night’s lodging costs (the off-season discount rate), an unfussy couple could easily eat, drink and sleep in downtown Barra for four days. (Oddly, the most annoying of my Grand Bay expenses was the smallest: $3 for each local call to access my calling card number. Three dollars for that is about $2.50 too much.) But if you can afford it, the Grand Bay is certainly comfortable.

It’s also convenient to the less rarefied world of downtown Barra, which waits just across a narrow bit of the bay. The five-minute water taxi ride costs 35 to 60 cents, depending on the hour, and leaves you on a finger of sand amid umbrellas, straw-hatted fruit merchants and half a dozen vendors of tourist doodads who stroll along a promenade that city officials built in 1991.

On my first venture into town, I quickly ducked into El Manglito, a waterfront, thatched-roof restaurant with walls covered in bright, cartoonish frescoes. A plateful of breaded shrimp cost a little under $7. I ate and watched gulls strafe the returning fishing boats, then eavesdropped as a pair of guitarists sat at the curb working out a duet for that night’s strolling performance.

One afternoon I haggled over the price of local folk art, some large twigs carved to resemble oversize colored pencils.

One morning I strolled past the stalls of the Thursday market, an untouristy scene of cooking implements, fabrics, toys and pirated CDs.

One evening I took a water taxi over to Colimilla, a modest bay-side neighboring village with about 300 residents (some in suburban homes, some in huts made of woven sticks) and half a dozen restaurants. On the hill above stood a thatched-roof church: A sculpture of Christ hung against a background of dried fronds. Our Lady of Guadalupe was adorned with Christmas lights. A big brass bell hung from an iron crossbar, and a crudely hammered 8-foot cross outside was lettered in red: MISION COLIMILLA.

Another evening I found myself in a local bar, declining a shot of tequila on the house while a pair of American chicken farmers cavorted on the dance floor with a trio of very tall, very skinny, very giggly young women from New York, models or something. I sat at the bar near a guy on a motorcycle tour, a couple from New Mexico, a couple from Lake Tahoe, a production assistant from Paramount and a gaggle of tattooed young Mexican guys who seemed to be sizing up the Americans and whispering in the ears of those who might have illicit ambitions. The motorcyclist, aloof from the dancing and whispering, caught me scribbling notes.

“You get all that?” he asked, grinning widely. “Four drug dealers, three hookers and two guys who work with chickens.”

Surely--well, probably--he was exaggerating for effect. But even a slow town can get a little speedy occasionally. Go to bed before 11, as the vast majority of Mexicans, Americans and Canadians in Barra do, and you miss these things.

Anyway, through dogged research efforts like these I gradually absorbed a little local history, which I will condense here into six dates:

1540: On Christmas Day, a Spanish ship drops anchor in the bay and a viceroy comes ashore, thereby prompting the name Barra (sand bar) de Navidad (Christmas).

1971: Hurricane Lily smashes up the town, but the Catholic faithful whisper of a miracle when they see the inside of the church. The Christ figure’s arms have neatly fallen from the cross to his sides, so that he stands at attention, uncrucified.

1974: The completion of Highway 200 connects the coastal area to the rest of the country for the first time. Economic activity leaps ahead.

1979: The movie “10” features the luxurious Las Hadas resort in Manzanillo (oh yes, and Bo Derek), prompting a tourism boom for the city and awakening many travelers to the surrounding region.

1995: A 7.6 earthquake assaults the area, leveling one Manzanillo hotel and killing 38 guests and workers. In Barra, the quake closes the Hotel Tropical, a tall building on the main drag that was once the city’s leading lodging. Four years later, the forlorn white building is still fenced off and nobody’s sure when it will reopen.

1997: The movie version of “McHale’s Navy,” shot just north of Barra near Tenacatita Beach, leaves behind some interesting sets--one of which is now a restaurant--yet provides no boost whatsoever to local tourism.

By Day 3 in Barra I was running low on beach reading, so I did what every English speaker in town seems to do eventually: I shambled over to Beer Bob’s at 61 Calle Manzanillo and set to pawing through the paperbacks.

Beer Bob’s is not a business, but it is a touch point for many American visitors. The man behind it (literally; there’s a bedroom and garden beyond the storefront book rooms) is Robert Bahan, 72, a retired California civil servant who arrived here in 1983 and soon after started a book exchange as a social hub for English speakers. (He used to hand out free beer from a cooler, hence the nickname, but he knocked that off.)

Fifteen years later, the inventory has grown from 50 volumes to about 6,000. Some expats who live down in Manzanillo come up every few months to drop off 50 books and pick up 50 new ones. Harlequin romances take up more space than any other genre. But the inventory is varied.

“There’s a lot of turnover,” the affable Bahan told me one afternoon. “There have already been 25 books come in today, and that’s in an hour on a slow day.”

I came in with a Roddy Doyle (he wrote the novel that became the film “The Commitments”) and left him in a pile with Toni Morrison, Pete Dexter, Stephen Crane and whoever wrote “Let’s Go Mexico 1993.” I tried to lure Bahan into some chat about Doyle or Pete Dexter, failed, and walked away with Graham Greene.

“You know,” said Beer Bob just before I left, “I don’t pay much attention to books. It’s just something that’s grown like Topsy.”

One of Beer Bob’s recent laments is that most of the shopkeepers he met when he arrived in town have sold out to make way for more tourist-friendly businesses, like restaurants and curio shops. Before long, he sighs, Barra will be Puerto Vallarta South.

And indeed, this summer the Grand Bay is gaining a little more competition at the high end of the market. The Tamarindo, 16 luxury bungalows and an 18-hole golf course fringed by ocean and jungle (rates begin at $230 to $350 nightly, depending on the season) is adding 13 rooms, completion expected in June. I didn’t see the rooms, but heard many admiring words from players at the golf course, about a 30-minute drive north of Barra. It’s been open since 1996, drawing curious players from as far south as Manzanillo, as far north as the luxury villas of Costa Careyes, about an hour up the coast. Greens fees run $55 for hotel guests, $110 for non-guests.

The Tamarindo resort, managed by an international firm with several hotels in tropical locales worldwide, includes a restaurant, tennis courts, a pool and mountain biking. Guests also have privileges at The Careyes--a sibling resort that sits about 45 minutes’ drive north and includes not only horse stables but polo grounds.

Most visitors to Barra end up making a day trip north to Tenacatita Beach, a jaunt of more than an hour to a long, wide shoreline full of open-air restaurants, low-slung hammocks and children chasing soccer balls. Snorkelers head for the half-submerged rocks at one end. Nearby, launches carry visitors on jungle cruises up the Boca de Iguana River.

Among the palapas at Tenacatita, 35 cents will persuade a machete-wielding man to whack the top off a coconut for you and hand it over with a straw so you can drink the milk. (The taxi ride to and from Barra is pricier: $40 to hire a car and driver for half a day.)

About 10 miles from Tenacatita lie two self-contained resorts. The louder one--raucous by day with children around the pool, raucous by night with grown-ups exploiting the open bar--is an all-inclusive resort called Blue Bay Village Los Angeles Locos. Popular with Mexican families in spring and summer (the crowd there was virtually all Spanish-speaking during my visit), and with Canadians in winter, the 205-room resort charges all-inclusive rates that begin at about $72 per person per day. It offers amenities from tennis to horseback rides.

Meanwhile, just up the hill at Punta Serena, a 21-room holistic retreat owned by the same company, the watchwords are peace and quiet, and most guests are American or Canadian. Paying all-inclusive prices about one-third higher than those at Blue Bay, these guests stay in whitewashed villas with spectacular sea views and choose from among healthy diversions, from the pool to the outdoor massage table to the tai chi session to the sweat-lodge-and-mud-smearing ceremony.

Sadly, I had arrived on the wrong day for sweating and smearing. We headed back to Barra de Navidad. Another fish dinner. Another cerveza al fresco. And plenty of nothing, for now.

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GUIDEBOOK

Beach-Side in Barra

Getting there: Aero California flies nonstop daily between LAX and Manzanillo, with restricted round-trip fares beginning at $290, including taxes. (Under a code-share pact, American Airlines sells seats on the same flight.) Mexicana and Aeromexico offer connecting service at the same price. From November through April, America West offers connecting flights through Phoenix.

Where to stay: Grand Bay Hotel Isla Navidad (tel. 011- 52-335-550-50, fax 011-52-335- 560-71) has 199 rooms, a golf course, marina and various other amenities on 1,200 acres. Standard doubles begin at $225 in summer, $275 in winter. Guests pay greens fees of $100 for 27 holes; non-guests pay $120.

Hotel Delfin, Morelos 23, tel. 011-52-335-550-68, fax 011-52- 335-560-20, is very clean--a great value if you can do without an elevator (it’s four stories) or air-conditioning (it’s breezy, especially in the afternoon). Two blocks from the main beach and water taxis. Also, a fine terrace for breakfast (about $3). Double rooms $26 to $32.

Hotel Cabo Blanco, Bahia de la Navidad, tel. 011-52-335- 551-70, fax 011-52-335-564-94, is a neo-hacienda spread out on grassy grounds, with pool, tennis, playground, pingpong. Double rooms begin at $74. (Guests get reduced greens fees at the Grand Bay golf course.)

Where to eat: Many businesses in Barra de Navidad, including the restaurants below, do without street addresses or telephone numbers. Sea Master Cafe, on the beachfront, offers bright colors everywhere; all entrees under $7. At Restaurant Paty, a basic Mexican eatery with sidewalk tables at Jalisco and Veracruz streets, most dishes run $3 to $4. El Manglito, on Veracruz near the water taxi stand, offers views of the Grand Bay hotel across the water and has a rustic bar; entrees under $8.

For more information: Mexican Government Tourism Office, 2401 W. 6th St., 5th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90057; tel. (213) 351-2069, fax (213) 351-2074, Internet https://www .mexico-travel.com.