| travelogue |
oPacificvertures
Sarah Barrell finds both peace and paparazzi around Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast
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t’s hot in the marina this afternoon. The usual breeze off the ocean has dropped, and ladies in neatly pressed business suits dash between air-conditioned
cars and a ferociously air-conditioned branch of Starbucks, risking creases with every humid step. Inside the cool white walls of Tintoque, a crisp-shirted barman is readying trays of candied ginger — garnish for Puerto Vallarta’s cocktail of the moment, the signature tamarind margarita. Haven’t reserved a table for tonight? Tough. The marina’s most happening dining spot is booked out weeks in advance. Tintoque’s chef, Joel Ornelas, conjures modern Mexican dishes that are considered the dizzy heights of the city’s otherwise low-key culinary scene. Still, his contemporary coastal creations have lately been upstaged, literally, by a dining experience 148ft up in the sky. On select dates last winter, 22 game guests of hotel
Casa Velas were craned into the air for the Dinner in the Sky. Jump seats and champagne make for uneasy companions, but this airborne table was the season’s hot ticket. Views of the marina, Banderas Bay and the Sierra Madre mountains formed the backdrop to three-course menus by top chefs, including Mikel Alonso and Bruno Oteiza (disciples of New Basque cuisine master, Juan Arzak, and owners of Biko in Mexico City). It’s an unlikely platform, perhaps, for marriage proposals, but plenty of suitors were moved to pop the question up there. Then again, there’s always been something in the air in Puerto Vallarta, a beach town placed on the map in the 1960s as the romantic seting for one of the greatest illicit love stories of all time: Burton and Taylor. Shooting for John Huston’s The Night of the Iguana
brought the adulterous couple to this then Pacific backwater. Today, litle of Puerto Vallerta’s wild jungle vibe remains, but Burton and Taylor’s home does, lately revamped into Casa Kimberley, a nine-room boutique hotel complete with the pink heart-shaped bathtub commissioned by Taylor, as well as the blue-tiled
52 ABTA Magazine | June 2017
swimming pool that was once a landmark of design extravagance. Today, smart haciendas are as plentiful in the resort town as fish tacos. Casa Kimberley’s owner, Janice Chaterton, is also at the helm of the exquisitely romantic Hacienda San Angel (another former Burton property, this one for his fourth wife, Susan Hunt). And you only have to head 10 minutes north to be spoilt for choice in Punta Mita on the exclusive Banderas Bay peninsula, where later day celebrities pay lip service to hiding out, with a Kardashian honeymoon here and a Gwyneth Paltrow villa there. But I’m not here for paparazzi and infinity pools.
It’s the Pacific coast’s simpler barefoot charms I’m chasing. These are found in the small towns that line the Riviera Nayarit, stretching 200 miles to the north of Puerta Vallarta. The sleepiest of these has to be San Pancho. If not quite the blink-and-miss-it fishing village it once was, it’s nonetheless easy to miss; bus services from Puerto Vallarta are sporadic, and while signposted, scantly, as San Francisco, the town is almost universally known as San Pancho (‘Pancho’ is short for ‘Francisco’ in Latin American Spanish). It’s even got a golden gate bridge (with a span of 10ſt), and a demographic of drop-out American surfers, but that’s where the comparisons to its US namesake stop. The streets of this San Francisco are cobbled and
strewn with flame tree blossoms, flanked by litle taco and ceviche stands, the later selling today’s catch, diced, served raw and doused in fresh lime. The town’s restaurants have an equally local vibe, from the mescal specialist beach bar to my hotel, Cielo Rojo, which serves up what I think might be the tastiest organic breakfasts I’ve ever eaten, in a prety orange-painted, adobe-walled garden. This is a place where people come to drop out and do something different. San Pancho’s community centre is a triumph of social entrepreneurship; founded by an American, set in an abandoned dairy processing plant, it’s now run by locals who, having benefited from the centre’s graduate programme scheme, teach local
IMAGE: GETTY
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