Lazy hazy days in Mexico

Mark Callanan — Pho­tos of Mexico

Hop a bus or a taxi to explore small towns and the wide, white sandy beaches north of Puerto Vallarta

BY LINDSEY NORRIS, FREELANCENOVEMBER 21, 2008
Canada.com

The pel­i­can sleep­ing on the dock ignores the man with a fish­ing rod and a tempt­ing tackle box full of bait. It is equally imper­vi­ous to the roar of speed­boats and the hum from the crowded beach.

When I get too close with my cam­era, the bird lazily opens one orange eye, stares at me and seems to say, “Slow down. Relax.” Then it closes its eye. I creep closer and get my shot.

In Puerto Val­larta, even the birds are relaxed.

At 10 a.m., I’ve been told to relax four times. The first was my fiance Mike, who told me not to fret when we missed the first taxi. The sec­ond was the ticket sales­man, who accepted $22 each for the roundtrip tick­ets and said, “Slow down, senorita. You have plenty of time.”

The third was the 14-year-old wait­ing to tie the taxi to the pier. “It’s only 15 min­utes late,” he says. “Relax.”

The fourth, of course, was the bird.

We’re wait­ing on the Malecón for the water taxi that will take us to Yelapa, a tiny town on the south side of Ban­deras Bay.

There are no cars in Yelapa; peo­ple get around by foot or by horse. For day-trippers, it can only be reached via a 45-minute boat ride. It received elec­tric­ity about four years ago, and gives new mean­ing to the word “relaxed.”

It’s one of four towns I plan to visit dur­ing this trip, my sec­ond to Puerto Val­larta. I love the city for its laid-back atmos­phere, the friend­li­ness of the locals and the many things to see and do, but this time, I want to see what the smaller towns in Mex­ico have to offer.

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