Seeking Sunshine in Sayulita
It’s been a while since my last post, so I decided I would share a bit from our recent “sunshine vacation” down to Sayulita, Mexico. No bikes this time, just sunshine, food, and relaxation.
Sayulita is on the west mainland side of Mexico. The closest airport to it is Puerto Vallarta, and the small town of around 5000 people is mostly known for its surfing. Are we surfers you ask? – no, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy Sayulita!
Sunshine Vacations
So why Sayulita? A couple years ago we started doing vacations around February to give us something to break up the long winters. Naturally, we usually choose sunny warm places, and this year was no different. Recently I’ve been focusing on learning Spanish more, so it only seemed natural to choose Mexico as a way to practice my beginner level second language as well as get some much needed sun. Neither Andrew nor I had spent any real time there previously so we were excited to try somewhere new. Since we are NOT resort people (or at least we don’t think we are – we haven’t actually ever been to one) and we wanted somewhere that would feel safe, while also give us a chance to experience some culture, we were looking for a non traditional “resort town”. We also wanted to keep our flights from Portland cheapish and shortish if we could. I first came across the town of Sayulita in a travel article, but what sealed the deal in choosing it was hearing about Andrew’s sister’s family trip there the previous year. Sayulita was the perfect spot for this year’s sunshine vacation.
If you know me at all, you know I’m a planner. For this trip however, we decided we were going to try things differently. This would be a more “traditional” beach vacation. Usually I create spreadsheets for all our vacations with suggested itineraries laid out so that at the end of the trip I don’t feel like we “wasted our time” or missed anything awesome – I like to be efficient with my trips. But this trip we were going to do a lot of beach sitting, so there wasn’t really an itinerary to be needed. We also wanted to try to go with the flow. Okay okay, I still did more planning than a normal person does, I mean I couldn’t NOT make a spreadsheet – but it was definitely a lot emptier than normal. I found us an adorable place to say in the heart of downtown just steps away from the beach called Casa Love. I also took down notes from Emily’s (my sister in law’s) trip, and then we just waited for the vacation to start.
Okay, maybe not an entirely ‘go with the flow’ trip, literally the day before we left I ended up booking us onto a snorkeling/whale watching excursion – I couldn’t help myself! I just can’t NOT plan. And it was great, glad we went. And we still had plenty of time for beach sitting and spontaneity.
It’s funny how different people think. I was chatting with someone who had moved to Portland from the Philippines recently, and he was telling me how excited he was to finally get his driver’s license. With his license he would have so much more “independence”. I get it, this is America after all, but for me, it’s almost the opposite. Personally, I feel so much more independent when I can get somewhere WITHOUT a car. I hate being dependent on cars.
So naturally, rather than taking a taxi or renting a car to get from the Puerto Vallarta airport to Sayulita like I’m sure most people do, we took the bus. It was definitely intimidating upon arrival. But, thanks to advice from Andrew’s sister we knew exactly where to go, the stress came from being hassled by multiple taxi drivers on the way to the bus stop as they tell you “oh no you don’t want to take the bus, it will take you three times as long” in various ways. And of course there’s always that little bit of anxiety when you wait for things. At least by hassling us the taxi drivers confirmed we were waiting in the right spot though!
We managed to get on the bus without waiting too long. The bus driver had to spot us 10 pesos though because he didn’t want to make change from our 500 peso bill that the ATM had given us (the bus was 110 pesos instead of the 94 the internet said it would be so we were only prepared with a single 100 peso bill, that was our bad for trying to be too precise).
So this particular bus was an interesting welcome to Mexico. It was an older coach style bus with a high floor and a manual transmission, not at all like the transit buses we see in the US. Additionally this bus had been “customized” over its years of service, likely by the current driver, and sported a big collection of folk art in the front including several dreamcatchers, a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and several posted poems/prayers. Because we didn’t want to make too big of a scene and mark ourselves as “that kind of tourist” we failed to take any photos so you’ll have to settle for your imagination this time. Additionally the older bus sported no AC, but plenty of open windows giving it a nice breeze. Although the bottom of the curtain had come loose from the railing and kept flying into my face. The 2 hour bus ride was pretty uneventful and ended at the bus station in Sayulita, no need to ask for a certain stop.
I will note that our bus back to the airport at the and of our trip was a much nicer / newer bus with AC and sadly no art collection, just a normal bus. It was also less intimidating leaving Sayulita since that was at a bus station with ticket sellers, whereas outside the airport was just a crowded stop off the street with several different busses coming through it and a single person shouting out the destinations of each arriving bus.
Tacos y Comida Mexicana
Mexico and tacos go hand in hand. So once we were unloaded in our hotel in Sayulita, we wandered around to get our bearings, then hit up Mary’s for some tacos. We each had a sampling of flavors, but the Mary’s fish taco was one of my favorites of the trip. Too bad Andrew didn’t get to try it though since it had fish.
Our go to taco place of the trip ended up being Naty’s Cocina. They were more of a fast food type place, where you waited in line and placed your order directly to the person who would make the taco right in front of you and then you found a table. This seems to be the “normal” way to get tacos in town. They had lots of good vegetarian tacos, the best being the rajas de chili poblanos (sliced poblano peppers with cheese). They also had a different flavored delicious agua fresca every day.
Most of the restaurants in the downtown portion of Sayulita came with buskers performing and unashamedly asking for tips afterwards. Our first night we were treated to a decent duo: a drummer and fire performer. Most of the performers, ranging from dancers, singers, jugglers, etc, were pretty impressive. Although there was one absolutely awful violin player we had to sit and listen to one night. Andrew ended up tipping him out of pity – so maybe that’s his schtick and he’s bad on purpose?
Not tacos, but another restaurant of note was Northside Café. Despite it’s very English sounding name they specialized in traditional mexican breakfasts, they served up some very tasty huevos rancheros and chilaquiles.
Practicamos Nuestro Español
As soon as we landed in Puerto Vallerta, the airport officials passed out our immigration form. I was amused at the arrogance of our fellow passengers for being upset that the form was only in Spanish, as if that wasn’t the official language of the country they were visiting. I enjoyed parsing my way through the forms different questions and helping some of the others translate some of the weirder parts.
Sayulita is still a pretty heavily American tourist saturated town. While it is a vacation destination for many Mexicans, there were a lot of English speakers with next to no Spanish knowledge. When we were at a busy restaurant downtown, I could tell the waiters didn’t want to deal with my broken Spanish so I would often revert to English. But further out of the heart of the city the locals were much more patient with me and excited to help teach me and let me do my best to converse.
In particular we had a great time at the Friday market (Mercado Del Pueblo). We had a lengthy conversation with one of the blanket sellers who had spent a decent amount of time in Southern Oregon. He was more than happy to help me practice my Spanish with him while we talked about blankets, family, and Oregon. And we got a beautiful new blanket out of it.
The only time I was actually forced to use my Spanish was when we were checking out of the hotel. Not wanting to end up with leftover cash pesos, we had to get our cash deposit back from the housekeeping staff so we could buy breakfast! Luckily we got it all sorted – and we absolutely nailed the cash spending, we came home with about 45pesos (so just over $2USD) just enough to add that spare change to my foreign money collection.
La Playa
The beach was perfect. The weather was sunny and in the 70’s (20’s C), so an ideal sunshine vacation spot. It was so nice that you could sit in the sun, shade, or hang out in the water and never be uncomfortable. Our first afternoon we made our way to the beach to enjoy some sun. We started out as our normal frugal selves, bringing a towel to lay on, and just finding our own space along the crowded – but not overly crowded – beach. We took tuns lying in the sun and playing in the waves. Vendors were constantly walking past offering various trinkets or food items.
Turns out the beach chairs and umbrellas were only 300 pesos for the day (~$16 USD) so on our first day Andrew found some comfy beach chairs with an umbrella and restaurant service while I decided to take a private surf lesson. I had never surfed before, but I wanted to give it a go. It was a lot easier than I was expecting. Granted, I don’t think I’d be any good without someone in the water choosing my waves for me and pushing me at the right time to make up for my lack of arm strength. But, I was able to stand up on like my second attempt. It was a lot of fun, but probably not something I will take the time to develop the strength and skills for.
After my lesson I joined Andrew in the beach chairs for drinks before we decided to get beach side massages – what a way to start a vacation!
We enjoyed our beach time sitting, soaking up the sun, and letting all the vendors come to us. Although not having needed to use it in a while, we both clearly forgot how to put sunscreen on, because we both came home with some pretty splotchy looking skin!
Sadly we both pretty early on also joined what we coined as the “cut foot club” probably from shells or rocks on the sea floor while we were running through the waves. It was annoying to constantly have to deal with keeping our cuts clean and covered, but we didn’t let it stop us from enjoying the ocean and the beach!
Jungle Hike
Sayulita is tucked away between some tropical jungles. Wanting some variety, we headed north for a 3 mile roundtrip hike up to some secluded beaches north of town called Playa las Cuevas (Caves Beach) and Playa de Malpasos. It offered some really cool views. There were lots of intertwining trails you could follow to get there, but the service was decent so we were easily able to keep track of where we were with the All Trails app. There was also a neat cave at one of the beaches (hence the name “caves beach”) that we had not timed very well with the tides to bother exploring, but it was entertaining watching other people squeeze their way in. On the downside, the humidity in the jungle was no joke, it didn’t take us long to start sweating, so we were happy to get back into town where it was a much more pleasant temperature.
Marietas Islands Excursion
As mentioned in the intro, I did decide to book us a snorkel/whale watching excursion. It was a half day trip (we used Sayulita Entourage, but there are lots of options). They drove us out to Punta Mita where we transferred onto a boat and they took us out to the Marietas Islands. It was a really neat tour. The water wasn’t the clearest, but you could still see a lot of cool sea life including several varieties of puffer fish, tuna, sea urchins, coral and a sea turtle. It was however much too cold for fully enjoying the snorkeling. One of the other guests bailed halfway through and got back on the boat because she was too cold, the rest of us toughed it out. The ride back was definitely chilly – luckily we had been warned to bring towels and could wrap ourselves up in them.
That part of Mexico also happens to be where humpback whales breed. On our way back to the mainland our guide and captain were able to take us to see several whales with their babies (and a couple dolphins) playing in the water. We got a decent showing before heading back to the dock.
To Sum Up
Overall I’d say Sayulita was the perfect place for a sunshine vacation. We spent $2500 for 3 full days in Sayulita (plus two travel days – so a 5 day long vacation). Almost half of that cost was in the flight (I did spend a little bit more on plane tickets to not have to land/leave at too unreasonable of hours). I don’t normally tend to do repeat vacations, but I’d go there again. It was a lot of fun and exactly what we needed to help us get through the tail end of this winter.
....Now to start training for our upcoming bike adventure this June - stay tuned
2 Comments
Kristen
I loved reading about Sayulita. We have have spent San Pancho, just north of Sayulita. It’s similar but a little less busy. Hippy surfer beach vibe. I love that area and agree that going back is always a pleasure.
Angela
Yeah we heard good things about San Pancho while we were there! We’ll have to branch out further next time haha ☺️