“…Delight, for Life Giver adorns us. All the flower bracelets, your flowers, are dancing. Our songs are strewn in this jewel house, this golden house. The Flower Tree grow and shakes, already it scatters. The quetzal breathes honey, the golden quéchol breathes honey. Ohuaya ohuaya. “
from THE FLOWER TREE a poem by Hungry Coyote: an ancient Mexican poet

Traveling to Mexico is like attending a fiesta where you can choose from any number of antojitos—a word for appetizers that translates to “what you fancy.”

It didn’t take me long to accept the offer of a one week all-expense-paid holiday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. In recent years I have visited Cancun and Ixtapa-Zihuatenejo, and enjoyed both places for their coastal attractions, climates and tourist-friendly resorts. I have mixed feelings about the resort experience but I want to tell the world about the colourful conglomeration of earthly and marine riches that is Mexico.

The word “fierce” comes to mind when I try to describe this place of; striking-looking people, varied landscapes, intense heat and vibrant cities. If you look to the past, the history of Mexico contains periods of great political and social ferocity starting with the conquest of the Aztecs by Spain. After three hundred years as a Spanish colony, Mexico became independent in 1821. There followed troubles when Texas- then a part of Mexico- broke away and the U.S invaded. A monarchy failed and a dictatorship followed. But economic growth wasn’t achieved until after the Revolution of 1910.  It still remains a poor country where most of the population lives with very little money to cover the essentials of living.  I think this fact is worth knowing before you visit and start to compare the outward appearances of houses and businesses with our relatively prosperous trappings.

Thankfully, Mexico’s tourism industry is thriving due to the popularity of its countless and varied tourist attractions especially the endless number and variety of its beaches.

My first experience of the country’s seaside was on the Yucatán Peninsula around Cancún, and those shorelines are the ones I compare all others too. The Puerto Vallarta ocean experience is different. The currents in the Pacific Ocean cause the water become roiled— full of dark sand that doesn’t photograph as well as the azure blue of the Caribbean sea and the outline of fine white sand around the tip of Mexico.

The Riu Vallarta and Riu Jallisco are sister hotels located to the north in Nuevo Vallarta, a still-developing area of new and upscale facilities, located in the state of Nayarit, within the country’s colonial centre. We stayed at the slightly newer Riu Vallarta which wasn’t as well-landscaped or as spacious as its prettier sister with her patterned metal roofs and old-world colonial embellishments; but our home away from home was just as well-maintained and staffed. I enjoyed watching the staff who really hustled to keep the huge buffet restaurant and bars operating all day long. I’m going to remember these people for a long time; there was Jose, Carlos, Jaquelin, Fermin, Jesus, Luis, Ricardo, Rafael, Efrain, Theresa, Juan-Miguel and many others. The hustle and bustle is necessary as the resort is crowded, and I often felt the need to try and get away. Unfortunately, the hotel area is isolated from any other areas of interest.

One morning my companion and I took a very long walk north towards Bucerias, along the beach, the sun beating down on our backs. There were deserted stretches of shoreline— due to the fact that it had become siesta time. Along our way we were witnesses to the fate of many creatures that had been cast up onto the sand, among them, baby-faced young blowfish, eels, a marlin—or at least— his head, and a few species of crab. Later in the afternoon back in our “home-surf”, as it were, we romped in the remarkably warm ocean while great heaving waves repeatedly knocked us over.

The beach itself also pulsated with activity; some of which involved commerce. The beach vendors were at work. There is something romantic about these sombrero and white-clad figures on the beach who trudge back and forth from one end of the hotel stretch to the other. Each hauls a different selection of one particular item; there’s jewelry— said to be from Taxco, colourful, smocked rayon dresses, and cheap sunglasses, hats and bathing suits. From Santos I bought a pair of tubular silver earrings for a gift; and from Valentine a dolphin pendant that will help me recall the moment my boyfriend and I watched a group of the creatures swimming in synchronicity beside our tour boat, during our second excursion, a cruise to the diving site: Las Marietas.

Our first excursion, away from the crowded beach scene, was a trek by small bus to San Blas; a sleepy little town that was, at one time, a thriving seaport and is the location of a small 18th-century Spanish fort. The town is close to a  mangrove forest through which you can travel via boat. With our bilingual tour guide; Eduardo—who looked like a squat New Jersey mobster but who talked like a biology professor—we took a tour down an estuary whose banks and depths was astir with plant and animal life. Winged and amphibious fauna were easy to spot along the way; gorgeous water fowl, painted turtles and crocodiles all share the rich brownish water.

As we followed the snaky river I thought of films like Apocalypse Now and Predator and I thought too of the bayous of Louisiana --even though I’ve never been there. At the end of our river trip we visited a stinky crocodile nursery where some female crocs lunged for us through the fences of their pens. (I have half a dozen close-up pictures of snaggle-toothed snouts, wide-open for the camera.)