Plung­ing into Baja

Lead­ing the charge south of the bor­der, South­land buy­ers are snatch­ing up bargain-priced retire­ment or sec­ond homes on the beach.

By Ann Brenoff, Times Staff Writer
Octo­ber 22, 2006

THE trick to buy­ing a home in Mex­ico, say those who have done it, is to not leave your brain at the bor­der. The days of writ­ing up deals on bar nap­kins and seal­ing them with a hand­shake and a shot of tequila are over — or should be, experts say.That said, you can buy an ocean­front home in Baja for about one-third of what it would cost 30 min­utes north of the bor­der. And that alone was prob­a­bly enough moti­va­tion for the 1.5 mil­lion Amer­i­cans who own homes in Mex­ico today, accord­ing to esti­mates from the Mex­ico Assn. of Real Estate Pro­fes­sion­als. The num­ber is expected to jump to 12 mil­lion within 20 years as more baby boomers retire south of the border.

An AARP study last year ranked Mex­ico fourth among places in the world Amer­i­cans are retir­ing to. As health­care improves in our neigh­bor to the south, expect more Amer­i­cans to get com­fort­able with the idea, said Mitch Creek­more, coau­thor with Tom Kelly of “Cash­ing In on a Sec­ond Home in Mexico.”

Fuel­ing the trend is the fact that financ­ing is becom­ing more avail­able and the process of buy­ing in Mex­ico more stream­lined, trans­par­ent and professional.

“Just use com­mon sense,” said Mauri­cio Mon­roy, a tax expert with the firm of Deloitte in Tijuana, speak­ing at a Sep­tem­ber con­fer­ence at UCLA on buy­ing in Baja. “Apply the same cau­tions you would have about con­duct­ing busi­ness in the United States.

“The worst thing a pur­chaser can do, author Kelly said, is to remain igno­rant of Mex­i­can law.

Buy­ing a home isn’t a sim­ple process, and the rules of the Mex­i­can real estate game are rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent from those in the U.S. To start with, lit­tle is reg­u­lated, few involved in the process are licensed, and to some extent, a few mar­gar­i­tas may be nec­es­sary to achieve the proper level of blind faith.

So before you jump into the Gulf of Cal­i­for­nia, here’s the short course on buy­ing in Mexico:

THE HISTORY. The Mex­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion says for­eign­ers can’t own prop­erty within 100 kilo­me­ters (62 miles) of the bor­der and 50 kilo­me­ters (31 miles) of the coast­line. For­eign­ers have always been able to directly own land in the inte­rior, with a few lim­i­ta­tions on spe­cific agri­cul­tural tracts. But for sec­ond homes or retire­ment, Amer­i­cans want the beach. Since the early ‘70s, non-Mexicans have been able to pur­chase coastal and bor­der prop­er­ties through a Mex­i­can bank trust known as a fideicomiso.

HORROR STORIES. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, land and homes in Mex­ico were so cheap that even if all the Ts weren’t crossed, Amer­i­cans — giddy at the prospect of how far their dol­lars would go — bought them. Many were in held in eji­dos, com­mu­nal land agree­ments that date back to the time of Aztec rule in Mex­ico. Under the ejido sys­tem, the land is owned by the gov­ern­ment and sup­ported by a national bank.

Since the con­sti­tu­tional reforms of the early ‘90s, ejido land now can be con­verted into pri­vate prop­erty and sold to third par­ties, includ­ing foreigners.But the effect of events such as the evic­tion of U.S. cit­i­zens from the Punta Banda penin­sula south of Ense­nada in 2000 lingers. In that case, the mostly retired home­own­ers had built their houses on ejido land, and when Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the ejido group was not the land’s right­ful owner, some of the Amer­i­cans were forced to aban­don homes worth hun­dreds of thou­sands of dollars.

THE FIDEICOMISO. The clos­est legal mech­a­nism to a fide­icomiso in the U.S. is a fam­ily trust. The bank — the “trustee” — holds the legal title to the prop­erty. The trust “ben­e­fi­ciary” (the for­eign buyer) holds all rights and priv­i­leges of own­er­ship. The ben­e­fi­ciary has the right to occupy or rent the prop­erty, and can trans­fer the title to any legally qual­i­fied per­son. Ben­e­fi­cia­ries can mod­ify the prop­erty in accor­dance with local zon­ing reg­u­la­tions and receive the full appre­ci­a­tion on the prop­erty when it is sold.

Trusts have an ini­tial term of 50 years and are renew­able at any time for a $1,000 fee for addi­tional 50-year periods.

Banks charge a pre­de­ter­mined fee to estab­lish a fide­icomiso, plus a per­cent­age of the property’s value, to cover the costs of pre­lim­i­nary stud­ies and the draft­ing of the trust agree­ment. The bank also charges an annual fee to main­tain the trust, about $500 per year.

THE DEAL. Real estate trans­ac­tions involve sev­eral play­ers, includ­ing the buyer’s lawyer, a notary pub­lic who func­tions as a neu­tral agent to both buyer and seller, a real estate agent or bro­ker, and a bank.

Grin­gos turn tide cross­ing bor­der
Boomer retirees invad­ing Mexico

Mike Davis
Sun­day, Octo­ber 15, 2006

The vis­i­tor cross­ing from Tijuana to San Diego these days is imme­di­ately slapped in the face by a huge bill­board scream­ing, “Stop the Bor­der Inva­sion!” Spon­sored by an rabidly anti-immigrant vig­i­lante group, the Min­ute­men, the same tru­cu­lent slo­gan report­edly insults the pub­lic at other bor­der cross­ings in Ari­zona and Texas.

The Min­ute­men, once car­i­ca­tured in the press as gun-toting clowns, are now haughty celebri­ties of grass­roots con­ser­vatism, dom­i­nat­ing AM hate radio as well as the even more hys­ter­i­cal ether of the right-wing blo­gos­phere. In the heart­land as well as in bor­der states, Repub­li­can can­di­dates vie des­per­ately for their endorse­ment. With the elec­torate alien­ated by the dual cat­a­stro­phes of Bagh­dad and New Orleans, the Brown Peril has sud­denly become the Repub­li­can deus ex machina for retain­ing con­trol of Con­gress in next month’s elections.

A fal­ter­ing GOP hege­mony, too long sus­tained by the scraps of 9/11 and the imag­i­nary weaponry of Sad­dam Hus­sein, now has a new urgency in its appeal to the sub­urbs. Not since Kofi Annan con­spired to send his black heli­copters to ter­ror­ize Wyoming has such a clear-and-present dan­ger threat­ened the repub­lic as the sin­is­ter armies of would-be bus­boys and gar­den­ers gath­ered at the Rio Grande.

To lis­ten to some of these dem­a­gogues, one would assume that the twin tow­ers had been blown up by fol­low­ers of the Vir­gin of Guadalupe or that Span­ish had recently been decreed the offi­cial lan­guage of Con­necti­cut. Hav­ing failed to cleanse the world of evil by inva­sions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Repub­li­cans, sup­ported by some Democ­rats, now pro­pose that we invade our­selves: send­ing the Marines and Green Berets, along with the National Guard, into the hos­tile deserts of Cal­i­for­nia and New Mex­ico where national sov­er­eignty is sup­pos­edly under siege.

As in the past, nativism today is big­otry as sur­real car­i­ca­ture, real­ity stood on its head. The ulti­mate irony, how­ever, is that there really is some­thing that might be called a “bor­der inva­sion,” but the Minutemen’s bill­boards are on the wrong side of the freeway.

What few peo­ple — at least, out­side of Mex­ico — have both­ered to notice is that while all the nan­nies, cooks and maids have been head­ing north to tend the lux­ury lifestyles of irate Repub­li­cans, the gringo hordes have been rush­ing south to enjoy glo­ri­ous bud­get retire­ments and afford­able sec­ond homes under the Mex­i­can sun.

Yes, in for­mer Cal­i­for­nia Gov. Pete Wilson’s immor­tal words, “They just keep com­ing.” Over the past decade, the State Depart­ment esti­mates that the num­ber of Amer­i­cans liv­ing in Mex­ico has soared from 200,000 to 1 mil­lion (or one-quarter of all U.S. expa­tri­ates). Remit­tances from the United States to Mex­ico have risen dra­mat­i­cally, from $9 bil­lion to $14.5 bil­lion in just two years. Although ini­tially inter­preted as rep­re­sent­ing a huge increase in ille­gal work­ers (who send parts of their salaries across the bor­der to fam­ily), it turns out to be mainly money sent by Amer­i­cans to them­selves to finance Mex­i­can homes and retirements.

Although some of them are nat­u­ral­ized U.S. cit­i­zens return­ing to towns and vil­lages of their birth after life­times of toil on the other side, the director-general of Fonatur, the offi­cial agency for tourism devel­op­ment in Mex­ico, recently char­ac­ter­ized the typ­i­cal investors in that country’s real estate as Amer­i­can “Baby Boomers who have paid off in good part their ini­tial mort­gage and are com­ing into inher­i­tance money.”

The extra­or­di­nary rise in U.S. sun­belt prop­erty val­ues gives grin­gos immense eco­nomic lever­age. Shrewd Baby Boomers are not sim­ply feath­er­ing nests for even­tual retire­ment, but also increas­ingly spec­u­lat­ing in Mex­i­can resort prop­erty, send­ing up prop­erty val­ues to the detri­ment of locals whose chil­dren are con­se­quently dri­ven into slums or forced to emi­grate north, increas­ing the “inva­sion” charges. As in Gal­way, Cor­sica, or, for that mat­ter, Mon­taña, the global second-home boom is mak­ing life in beau­ti­ful, nat­ural set­tings unaf­ford­able for their tra­di­tional residents.

Some expa­tri­ates are exper­i­ment­ing with exotic places such as the Riv­iera Maya or Tulum in the state of Quin­tana Roo on the Gulf of Mex­ico, but more pre­fer such well-established havens as San Miguel de Allende in cen­tral Mex­ico and the coastal resort town of Puerto Val­larta. Here the norteam­er­i­canos make them­selves at home in more ways than one.

An English-language news­pa­per in Puerto Val­larta, for instance, recently applauded the immi­nent arrival of a shop­ping mall that will include Hoot­ers, Burger King, Sub­way, Chili’s and Star­bucks. Only Dunkin’ Donuts (con salsa?), the paper com­plained, was still missing.

The gringo pres­ence is largest (and brings the most sig­nif­i­cant geopo­lit­i­cal con­se­quences) in Baja Cal­i­for­nia. Indeed, Baja real estate Web sites ooze almost as much hyper­bole as those devoted to stalk­ing the phan­tom men­ace of ille­gal immi­grants — in a far more upbeat tone when it comes to the ques­tion of immi­grant invasions.

In essence, Alta (Upper) Cal­i­for­nia is begin­ning to over­flow into Baja, an epochal process that, if unchecked, will pro­duce intol­er­a­ble social mar­gin­al­iza­tion and eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion in Mexico’s last true fron­tier region. All the con­tra­dic­tions of post-industrial Cal­i­for­nia — run­away land infla­tion in the coastal zone, sprawl­ing sub­ur­ban devel­op­ment in inte­rior val­leys and deserts, free­way con­ges­tion and lack of mass tran­sit, and the astro­nom­i­cal growth of motor­ized recre­ation — dic­tate the inva­sion of the gor­geous penin­sula to the south. To use a term from a bad but not irrel­e­vant past, Baja is Anglo California’s lebensraum.

Indeed, the first two stages of infor­mal annex­a­tion have already occurred. Under the ban­ner of NAFTA, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia has exported hun­dreds of its sweat­shops and toxic indus­tries to the maquiladora zones of Tijuana and Mex­i­cali. The Pacific Mar­itime Asso­ci­a­tion, rep­re­sent­ing the West Coast’s major ship­ping com­pa­nies, has joined forces with Korean and Japan­ese cor­po­ra­tions to explore the con­struc­tion of a vast new con­tainer port at Punta Colonel, 150 miles south of Tijuana, which would under­cut the power of long­shore union­ism in San Pedro and San Francisco.

Sec­ondly, tens of thou­sands of gringo retirees and win­ter res­i­dents are clus­tered at both ends of the penin­sula. Along the north­west coast from Tijuana to Ense­nada, an adver­tise­ment for a real estate con­fer­ence at UCLA boasts, “there are presently over 57 real estate devel­op­ments … with over 11,000 homes/condos with an inven­tory value of over $3 bil­lion … all of them geared for the U.S. market.”

Mean­while, at the trop­i­cal end of Baja, a gilded gringo enclave has emerged in the 20-mile strip between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose de Cabo. Los Cabos is part of that global arch­i­pel­ago of real estate hot spots where con­tin­u­ous double-digit increases in prop­erty val­ues suck in spec­u­la­tive cap­i­tal from all over the world. Ordi­nary grin­gos can par­tic­i­pate in this glam­orous Los Cabos real estate casino through the pur­chase and resale of time-shares in con­do­mini­ums and beach homes.

Although Cana­dian and Ari­zona spec­u­la­tors have taken large bites out of Baja’s south­ern cape, Los Cabos — at least judg­ing from the reg­is­tra­tion of pri­vate planes at the local air­port — has essen­tially become a resort sub­urb of Orange County, the home of the most vehe­ment Min­ute­men chapters.

Many wealthy South­ern Cal­i­for­ni­ans evi­dently see no con­tra­dic­tion between fum­ing over the “alien inva­sion” with one’s con­ser­v­a­tive friends at the New­port Marina one day and fly­ing down to Cabo the next for some sea-kayaking or celebrity golf.

The next step in the late-colonization of Baja is the Escalera Nau­tica, a $3 bil­lion “lad­der” of mari­nas and coastal resorts being devel­oped by Fonatur that will open pris­tine sec­tions of both Mex­i­can coasts to the yacht club set.

Mean­while, the “Tru­man Show” has arrived in the pic­turesque lit­tle city of Loreto on the Gulf side of the penin­sula. There, Fonatur has joined forces with an Ari­zona com­pany and new urban­ist archi­tects from Florida to develop the Vil­lages of Loreto Bay: 6,000 homes for expa­tri­ates in colonial-Mexico motif on the Sea of Cortez.

The $3 bil­lion Loreto project boasts that it will be the last word in green design, exploit­ing solar power and restrict­ing auto­mo­bile usage. At the same time, it will bal­loon Loreto’s pop­u­la­tion from its cur­rent 15,000 to more than 100,000 in a decade, with the social and envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences of a sort that can already be seen in the slum periph­eries of Can­cun and other mega-resorts.

One of the irre­sistible attrac­tions of Baja is that it has pre­served a pri­mor­dial wild­ness that has dis­ap­peared else­where in the West. Res­i­dents, includ­ing a very elo­quent indige­nous envi­ron­men­tal move­ment, cher­ish this incom­pa­ra­ble land­scape as they do the sur­vival of an egal­i­tar­ian ethos in the peninsula’s small towns and fish­ing villages.

Thanks to the silent inva­sion of the Baby Boomers from the north, how­ever, much of the nat­ural his­tory and fron­tier cul­ture of Baja could be swept away in the next gen­er­a­tion. One of the world’s most mag­nif­i­cent wild coast­lines could be turned into generic tourist sprawl, wait­ing for Dunkin’ Donuts to open. Locals, accord­ingly, have every rea­son to fear that today’s mega-resorts and mock-colonial sub­urbs, like Fonatur’s entire tourism-centered strat­egy of regional devel­op­ment, are merely the lat­est Tro­jan horses of Man­i­fest Destiny.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 13 (Reuters) — Three con­sor­tiums have sub­mit­ted bids to build a new Mex­i­can hydro­elec­tric dam called La Yesca, one of the largest projects launched dur­ing out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Vicente Fox’s six-year term.

The con­sor­tiums are led by Mexico’s ICA (ICA.MX: Quote, Pro­file, Research)(ICA.N: Quote, Pro­file, Research), Italy’s Impregilo (IPGI.MI: Quote, Pro­file, Research), and China’s Sino­hy­dro Corp., the Mexico’s Fed­eral Elec­tric­ity Com­mis­sion, or CFE, said on Friday.

The bids range from Impregilo’s $805 mil­lion to Sinohydro’s $1.25 bil­lion estimate.The dam, one of the largest among dozens of hydro­elec­tric projects in Mex­ico, will be built where the west­ern coastal states of Nayarit and Jalisco meet and have a gen­er­at­ing capac­ity of 750 megawatts.

The com­mis­sion is due to rule on which bid it will accept on Octo­ber 27. Build­ing is expected to cre­ate 10,000 jobs and is due to be com­pleted in 2011Situated on the San­ti­ago river, the dam will have a basin of 12 mil­lion cubic meters (424 mil­lion cubic feet).That is about 20 per­cent big­ger than the El Cajon dam which is close to com­ple­tion on the same river sys­tem, some 40 miles (65 km) upstream of the La Yesca site.The CFE is hold­ing ten­ders for around half a dozen power gen­er­a­tion projects this year.

DESTINATION MEXICO
MEXICO BRIEFING
Cozumel rebuilds, new ports sought

Almost a year after Hur­ri­cane Wilma destroyed or heav­ily dam­aged the two piers that han­dled most of Cozumel’s cruise ship traf­fic, both are still months away from being reopened.

The Punta Lan­gosta pier near San Miguel, Cozumel’s only city, might be open by the end of the year, a spokes­woman for the island’s tourism board said last week. But Punta Maya, a much larger dock with a sprawl­ing com­plex of restau­rants and shops, was destroyed and will reopen “some­time” in 2007.

Most vis­it­ing ships will con­tinue to ferry pas­sen­gers to the down­town pier by ten­der boat.

The rest of the coun­try is mak­ing up for some of the lost capac­ity with new or mod­ern­ized ports accom­mo­dat­ing big­ger ships and pro­vid­ing year-round ser­vice. With 3,100 cruise ships and 6.5 mil­lion vis­i­tors, accord­ing to its tourism board’s 2005 sta­tis­tics, Mex­ico is the world’s top cruise destination.

Ense­nada, hub of Baja California’s bur­geon­ing wine indus­try and Mexico’s second-most vis­ited port, is work­ing with cruise lines to cre­ate more West Coast itin­er­aries. Puerto Vallarta’s port is expand­ing to berth mul­ti­ple mega­ships at one time, includ­ing two new docks. Chi­a­pas com­pleted a cruise ter­mi­nal in Feb­ru­ary and expects to serve 10 ships next year. Campeche, in the Yucatán, is nego­ti­at­ing to bring cruise busi­ness into its his­toric port.

Pacific coast recovery

Recov­ery from Hur­ri­cane Wilma has over­shad­owed hur­ri­canes John and Lane, which slapped Pacific Mex­ico around this August and Sep­tem­ber but did lit­tle last­ing damage.

Mex­ico Bou­tique Hotels, with prop­er­ties in Los Cabos, Aca­pulco and Zihu­atanejo, reported they were up and run­ning a week after John swept through. Mazatlán, grand­daddy of Pacific resort cities, invoked “busi­ness as usual” a few days after Lane brushed by.

Some hotels seized upon a mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­nity, announc­ing new hur­ri­cane poli­cies appeal­ing to hurricane-wary trav­el­ers. Palace Resorts, for exam­ple, with all-inclusive prop­er­ties in Can­cún, Riv­iera Maya, Nuevo Val­larta and Cozumel, is offer­ing rebook­ing, relo­ca­tion and resched­ul­ing with rate guar­an­tees, and can­cel­la­tion within 72 hours of sched­uled arrival at no penalty.

First things first

Fre­quent trav­el­ers to Mex­ico know Mex­i­cana is one of the best air­lines going, so they also need to know that fly­ing Mex­i­cana out of San Jose means a ter­mi­nal change. Mexicana’s move from Ter­mi­nal C to Ter­mi­nal A, begin­ning Wednes­day, is the first of a series of changes at Mineta air­port. Pas­sen­gers cur­rently depart from Ter­mi­nal C and arrive at Ter­mi­nal A.

Can­cún, Mexico’s second-busiest air­port, is now using mov­able coun­ters to check pas­sen­gers in and print board­ing passes any­where in the air­port via wire­less link to its cen­tral com­put­ers. The new process should reduce wait­ing times and might lead to spe­cial ser­vices such as group check-ins with­out stand­ing in line.

Sinaloa, the state includ­ing Mazatlán, raised its hotel tax from 2 per­cent to 3 per­cent this sum­mer. The addi­tional funds will pay for tourism pro­mo­tion in the state, which has increased air ser­vice from the United States and Canada and is build­ing new roads, some con­nect­ing with west­ern U.S. states.

The great outdoors

Two Mex­i­can navy patrol ships have given their lives to revi­tal­ize Cozumel’s famous but hurricane-battered reefs. The 85-foot Laguna Mandinga and 42-foot Patzcuaro were sub­merged in June as attrac­tions for divers. In the com­ing year, three more ships and an air­plane will be sunk out­side the National Marine Park to main­tain the draw of Cozumel’s extra­or­di­nary under­wa­ter ecosystem.

Eco­tourism in Chi­a­pas got a boost recently from a new infor­ma­tion cen­ter in San Cristo­bal de las Casas. Trav­el­ers can also make reser­va­tions with the many orga­ni­za­tions and agen­cies oper­at­ing among the region’s moun­tains, rivers, vol­ca­noes, forests and canyons. The Chi­a­pas Eco­tourism Info Cen­teris oper­ated by Senda­Sur, which man­ages eco­tourism in Mexico’s south­ern­most state.

Puerto Val­larta villas

Mex­ico Bou­tique Hotels, a reser­va­tion and mar­ket­ing asso­ci­a­tion for small, inde­pen­dent hotels in Mex­ico, has cre­ated a group of vil­las mod­eled after its col­lec­tion of 45 hotels.

Costa Val­larta Bou­tique Vil­las includes six lux­ury prop­er­ties in and around Puerto Val­larta, cho­sen and inspected by the association’s man­age­ment. Plans call for 25 addi­tional prop­er­ties by the end of the year. Vil­las include concierge ser­vice and a staff.

At the orig­i­nal Mex­ico Bou­tique Hotels col­lec­tion, mean­while, rates are unex­pect­edly low through the Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas hol­i­days. For as lit­tle as $75 a night, vis­i­tors can stay in unique lodg­ing in intrigu­ing des­ti­na­tions, such as Posada de las Minas in the rus­tic, artsy min­ing town of Min­eral de Pozos; Azú­car, a bun­ga­low retreat in trop­i­cal Ver­acruz state; or Xaloc, a resort of nine palapa bun­ga­lows on a vir­gin beach on the small Caribbean island of Holbox.

In Jalisco, the state whose town of Tequila earned World Her­itage sta­tus this sum­mer, the Casa­M­agna Mar­riott Puerto Val­larta Resort is offer­ing a tequila-themed Secre­tos Reposado pack­age through Dec. 16, start­ing at $222 per night for three nights, includ­ing a bot­tle of tequila and a tast­ing with the res­i­dent tequila som­me­lier. The resort serves 60 brands of tequila, includ­ing its own brand pro­duced from agave azul grow­ing on the property.

And if that’s just too … ordi­nary, a mere $4,000 a night will get you the villa in Costa Careyes (south of Puerto Val­larta) that graces the cover of September’s Archi­tec­tural Digest: three bed­rooms, includ­ing a 200-foot infin­ity pool, stargaz­ing tower/media room, 270-degree ocean view and staff of seven. Pre­vi­ous guests include Roth­schilds, Gates, Armani, Taran­tino and Gere.

Other activ­i­ties beckon besides surf­ing
Sayulita, Mex­ico

From the far south­ern long­board breaks of Punta Mita to the beach-breaking tubes at San Pan­cho to the boat-accessed reefs of Cha­cala, Nayarit deliv­ers con­sis­tent, warm-water surf for all lev­els. It is renowned as one of the best surf coasts on the planet.

Sayulita offers a great right break for begin­ners and long­board rid­ers, and a speedy left break for rip­pers. Nayarit’s waves are smaller in the sum­mer months — the area’s off­sea­son — but even 3-foot waves can pro­vide 20-second rides.

The swells swell in the win­ter, when waves can reach triple over­head heights. The win­ter is when the hump­back whales crest in Sayulita’s small bay, deliv­er­ing a buoy­ant expe­ri­ence for surfers wait­ing for that per­fect wave. Sayulita abounds with surf­board rentals rang­ing from $15 to $25 a day depend­ing on the qual­ity of board.

Don Pedros board rentals (Calle Mar­lin #2, 329–291-3090) on the beach, run by the diminu­tive surfer Davy, offers deals for week-long rentals of qual­ity rides.

Punta Mita offers six slowly peel­ing breaks per­fect for lazy-day long­board­ing. The beach-pounding breaks at San Fran­cisco — which for some rea­son is known locally as San Pan­cho — and De lo Mar­cos are much less crowded but demand a bit more skill (hint: Bail early or eat sand).

Some surfers hire a panga boat in Sayulita ($45 for a quick ses­sion to $150 for all-day hunt­ing) to ferry them to dis­tant reef breaks and more remote waves along the Nayarit coast.

Pad­dle softly around the Sayulita local surfers and def­i­nitely don’t drop in on them. Sayulita begin­ners are bet­ter off learn­ing the art in the early morn­ing hours before the aggres­sive, tal­ented and tourist-weary local surfers take over the break. For a show, watch the locals put on a dis­play of surf­ing prowess. Some of those young rip­pers are inter­na­tional surf stars, and their skills are unrivaled.

For lessons, check out:

Duende Vista’s Surf Dawgs on the beach­front pro­vides two-hour lessons with board rental for about $25.

Tigre Surf School, owned and oper­ated by inter­na­tional surf cham­pion and Sayulita local Tigre Cadena and his broth­ers Diego and Regis, pro­vides top-ranked tuto­ri­als for sim­i­lar prices.

Bev Sander’s Las Olas surf camps pro­vides women-only surf instruc­tion, promis­ing to “turn women into girls” (lasolas.com)

While Sayulita — and most of Nayarit for that mat­ter — is pri­mar­ily a surf­ing play­ground, there are many options for play beyond board-wrestling.

Fidel Ponce’s Blue Mar­lin Fish­ing Tours in Sayulita (Cara­col and Manuel Navar­rete, 329–291-3563, although his office is really his boat, so ask for him among the pan­gas on the beach) is renowned for fer­ry­ing pole-wielding vaca­tion­ers to the sweet­est fish­ing spots in the region. Fidel charges roughly $30 an hour and offers snor­kel­ing and surf-break tours, as well.

Snor­kel­ing can be a chal­lenge along the coast of Nayarit and espe­cially in Sayulita because of the relent­less waves. But a short stroll south and west of Sayulita’s square to the Playa de los Muer­tos can pro­vide some excep­tional snor­kel­ing. The tiny cove is pro­tected from the waves, and a series of large pelican-painted rocks in the cove pro­vide refuge for an array of mul­ti­hued ocean crit­ters, includ­ing lazy blow­fish and dart­ing dorado. Best to bring your own gear if you plan on snor­kel­ing. The Playa de los Muer­tos — there’s a ceme­tery next to the beach, hence the name — is a pop­u­lar escape from the often zany Sayulita beach scene.

Horse­back gal­lop­ing along white sand, har­nessed zip-lining through dense jun­gle canopy and monkey-spotting moun­tain tours are offered by Ran­cho Mi Chap­ar­rita. The horse-tending crew at Ran­cho pro­vides well-salted and sanded vis­i­tors some respite with steamy excur­sions into Nayarit’s for­bid­ding jun­gle. Stop by their offices across from the base­ball field in Sayulita or call 329–291-3112.

Finance North Amer­ica Makes it Pos­si­ble to Pull Equity From Prop­erty in Mexico

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ — Even as Mexico’s real estate mar­ket
heats up, long-time own­ers through­out the coun­try are dis­cov­er­ing a hid­den
gold­mine in the form of equity in their homes and land there.

As recently as last year, the pri­mary way of tap­ping value in prop­erty
south of the bor­der was to sell it. This is no longer the case thanks to a
clever solu­tion mak­ing it pos­si­ble to access a home’s value in Mex­ico with
an equity line orig­i­nat­ing in the United States.

Help­ing to unearth these secret riches is Finance North Amer­ica
(http://www.financenorthamerica.com/) — a San Diego-based firm that in
2005 pio­neered US-based financ­ing for prop­erty in Mex­ico. This made it
pos­si­ble for Mexico’s real estate to be bought and owned by res­i­dents of
other coun­tries using tra­di­tional US-style mortgages.

Now with cash-out financ­ing avail­able on Mexico’s real estate, fam­i­lies
long in need of addi­tional cash sources can begin tap­ping into their equity
in real estate invest­ments from Tijuana to the Yucatan for items such as:

* Home improvements

* Col­lege educations

* A new car

* Vaca­tions

* Buy­ing addi­tional real estate

By pro­vid­ing Amer­i­can mort­gages and other finan­cial ser­vices to all
types of prop­er­ties through­out Mex­ico, FNA deliv­ers the con­ve­nience and
lifestyle ex-patriots liv­ing there desire. In addi­tion to remov­ing the
tra­di­tional require­ment of hav­ing to pay for every­thing in cash, FNA’s
mort­gage pro­grams also pro­vide the oppor­tu­nity to take cash out of
prop­er­ties south of the bor­der with­out pre­pay­ment penalties.

From Puerto Val­larta to Los Cabos, San Miguel Allende to San Felipe,
Amer­i­cans and Cana­di­ans have been invest­ing in retire­ment and vaca­tion
homes they’ve long desired. Custom-built and resales con­tin­u­ally lure
North­ern­ers to own their piece of the beach in this grow­ing market.

And thanks to Finance North America’s new Equity Cash-Out Pro­gram, the
only deci­sion one now needs to make is which of those other dreams to ful­fill
first.