Discovering New Adventures in Puerto Vallarta
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Puerto Vallarta is one of the most visited tourist destinations in Mexico and without a doubt, one of my favorites. If your travel plans this year include a Mexican beach, choose Puerto Vallarta, as I am sure you’ll love it. Today I share with all of you the two new experiences from my last trip to this wonderful beach where we went surfing and visited Sayulita.
Surfing
The personalities of my three children are completely different, so venturing into new experiences generates distinctive reactions within my family. When we proposed them to take surfing lessons for the first time, two of them were quickly excited by the plan, however, one of them needed much more convincing but at the end he gladly agreed to go.
The day of the lessons we waked up at six in the morning and after an hour drive from Puerto Vallarta, we arrived at WildMex Surf & Adventure in Punta Mita, where we met our very friendly instructors. After a brief explanation, they guided us to the beach where the adventure began by walking eight minutes through the jungle. The children began to get very excited when we started listening to the roar of the waves in the distance and discovered for the first time the wonderful beach of "La Lancha".
The class started with the boards on the sand where they learned and practiced the whole theory of surfing.
When the teacher thought they were ready, they went into the sea and the real fun began. After many attempts, all of them finally managed to stand on the board and ride the waves. The best part was to capture those huge smiles of satisfaction with my camera.
At the end of the adventure my son told me: "Mom, I cannot believe I didn’t want to come, I'd have missed all this fun!"
That comment made me reflect on the importance of finding the balance between "forcing" our children to live new experiences and respecting their decisions at the same time. After having a conversation with them about this, we came to the conclusion that before saying no to something new, we have to give that experience one or two chances to then be able to have a informed opinion about it.
All this conversation happened while sitting outside an ice cream shop in Sayulita, a "Pueblo Mágico” or Magical Town 15 minutes away from La Lancha beach.
Sayulita
Speaking of Sayulita, I have to accept that although it is a very picturesque town, I found it too touristy and saturated with shops.
In most of these wonderful Mexican towns that I have had the opportunity to visit, I find handicrafts and souvenirs that I love to buy, not only because I’m taking home real works of art, but also for the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping a local community. However, here at Sayulita, due to this saturation of stores, I did not see as many local businesses as I would have liked and their prices were definitely oriented to an American tourist market.
I'd read a lot of wonderful things about the beach at Sayulita, however, I did not find it to be the ideal option to spend the day since it was completely full; there wasn’t a single space to put a towel on the sand. So, we decided to just have an ice cream and walk around its streets. It may be that I visited Sayulitain the busiest weekend of the year, maybe I should go back during a less touristy season to be able to really get a vibe of the town in a more organic and local way.
As this post is all about giving things second chances, I think I'll give Sayulita another try and visit it during a less strenuous season. I'll keep you posted if my opinion changes.
For now, here are some colorful street corners I found through my camera lens.
