Reflections On Puerto Vallarta & An Intro to the Unique Magic of San Blas, Mexico
We just left Puerto Vallarta and are currently in the blissful city of San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico. Thankfully, the drive from Puerto Vallarta consisted of nice roads, no tolls, and not a single time being pulled over by the cops. It was a much-welcomed change!
If you've been following along, you probably remember that we've been pulled over in Mexico five times since the beginning of February.
Most of the three-hour drive was right along the coast, but since we were surrounded by jungle, we barely saw the water at all. The trip consisted of winding paths through the rainforest with trees that all but swallowed the roads.
It wasn't until we were almost to San Blas that we finally got a taste of the ocean.
After arriving in this small town of 5,000 people, we didn't waste a moment before starting to explore. In just a few hours of destination-less walking, we started to discover some of what this city has to offer.
First impressions? We are more than pleased with it. It's a quaint town where everyone seems to know everyone. We've encountered some of the nicest people we've met in all of our travels and had interesting conversations with other travelers and expats.
San Blas has one of the oldest ports in Mexico, and for a long time, had the most important naval base on the west coast. Unfortunately, the town has been decimated by one major storm after the next over the past decades and is no longer a thriving port city. However, despite being challenged by storms, the town has proven to be resilient and the special energy here remains.
(Jordan:) I'm not usually one to be very in tune with the energies that places or people give off, but within a couple hours of being here, I felt like I was surrounded by a strong field of tranquility. I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand the first thing about this type of thing, but the Earth (or something else entirely?) is emitting something here that makes it an extremely enjoyable place to be!
(Maddie:) In contrast to Jordan, I've always been especially sensitive to each individual's emotional/personal energy. Coming to this city was such a relief after being in all the commotion of Puerto Vallarta. There's something uniquely calming about San Blas. One conversation with a resident from Canada made me realize that the city somehow attracts kindrid spirits.
We've been traveling through Mexico for six weeks and visited about ten different cities.
Visiting places that we don't end up liking goes a long way in helping us appreciate the ones we enjoy.
For instance, we spent two and a half weeks in Puerto Vallarta before coming to San Blas. It left a lot to be desired. Although it's a very popular tourist destination, it just wasn't for us.
In this video we discuss what we liked about Puerto Vallarta in addition the reasons why it's not a city that we want to live in.
@sharingeverybite (Maddie)
@shenanigator (Jordan)
(and Laska the Siberian Husky)
Some cities you connect with more than others.Enjoy your travels
Places and people alike, I suppose. There are some people and some places that you jive with better than others. Thanks for commenting :)
Jordan
👍
If you're leaving one-word comments, or in this case an emoji, and then upvoting every one of your comments at 100% power...sorry, but I have to downvote that.
Awesome travel destination, I am pretty sure you enjoyed and learned a lot from it. I like how you put in the details with your photos and videos, it is like a piece of me have been there too. Thanks for sharing!
We haven't been here long to explore much yet, but absolutely love what we know of San Blas!
Thanks for the compliment regarding the photos and videos. Many of our Steem posts have been mostly videos, but we're trying to incorporate more photography so the posts tell a story.
-Jordan
That's a very wise decision to include photos in your posts, it gives more color and makes it easy to read too.
That is true. Just like the saying; maybe we meet some few bad people in life, so when we meet the good ones, we can learn to appreciate them.
It's sad what happened to San Blas, and i am glad you could still feel the energy coming through. It's such a beautiful place, from the pictures. Well done, again and again and thank you for being so amazing. I appreciate all you do.
Absolutely! Places, people, experiences... they're not always going to be good, but it's relative. When the bad stuff comes around, it shows you how great the other things are. Learning to be grateful and appreciative is a fine art.
Thank YOU for always posting such thoughtful comments and following along with our journey. Truly means a lot to us!
Your engagement and appreciation means a lot to me too. Really glad you are having fun too.
As a Mexican myself, I am very happy to know that you have had such a good time in Puerto Vallarta and San Blas.
Regarding the positive and the negative stuff from Puerto Vallarta, I think you hit on some very good points. Like all the people offering some sort of service or product while you are on the beach. They become annoying and do take out of the experience. Nevertheless it is also true that they exist because there is a market that has generated them. It would be too cruel to ask the government to do something about it, I think. Because they would only kick them out without really reintegrating them in some other way.
You're totally right that there's a market there. I absolutely wouldn't want the government stepping in to do something.
I often find vendors to be quite valuable to me because they're frequently selling something that I want at a time when it's convenient for me. There were just too many vendors hassling us in PV to the point that it got to be overwhelming and energy-draining.
That's fine though because that hasn't been the case in any other city we've visited so far.
The laid-back feeling of San Blas in a nice break for us from the relatively hectic PV.
Do you live in Mexico? If so, where?
I was born and raised in Mexico City, but now I have been living outside of Mexico for 6 years.
We don't have any immediate plans to go to CDMX, but do you think it's a place we should visit?
Mexico City has amazing things that you need to see. I definitely think you should go at some point. I could even make a list of things that you can't miss for you. Nevertheless, being such a big metropolis, the amount of people and traffic can be overwhelming. From what I saw/read, this seems like something that would bother you guys. So I would recommend to leave if for when you have a mentality that would allow you to live for a certain period of time in such a crazy city!
You're right about the big city thing. We came from a big city (Phoenix) and I think it'll be a while before we'd want to live in another. With that said, we're still open to visiting them. Our next stop is Guadalajara.
You gotta have tortas ahogadas there.
Those sound great! Any particular place we should get one?
Mexico. I think San Blas is such a cozy place. It reminds me of my hometown too. Hello Laska, seemse like Laska's enjoying it too. Have fun. ^^
We're finding San Blas to be quite the cozy town. Where did you grow up?
We weren't able to give Laska much exercise in Puerto Vallarta due to the immense amount of street dogs/cats. But here in San Blas, that's not an issue because the few street dogs are really tame and laid back. A tired husky is a happy husky, so she is indeed very happy here!
-Jordan
I grew up in the city but my mama and papa grew up in the province. It used to have only a few people and everyone knows each other. :)
Happy Laska! I'm glad.
Hope you have fun Jordan and girlfee!
Small towns can be fun! We thought it was funny that we were walking near the beach (about 15 minutes walking from our hotel/Airbnb) and struck up a conversation with a woman. We told her we just got in that day and she said "I know, I saw you checking in at The Social Club earlier."
That's total a super small town. My Papa's hometown. My aunt's hometown the beach is right outside the window. Lol. You can see the sunset every day. ^^
Excelentes tus post, en especial este me gustó mucho estaré al pendiente de tus publicaciones, saludos desde Venezuela...
Muchas gracias, @argenis2!
Come visit nigeria
We have some good resort here
Based on our Steem interactions with Nigerians, we'd absolutely love to visit there! The Nigerians we've talked to on here are some of the most friendly, intelligent, and passionate people we've come across!
-Jordan
Wow, nice timeout there, glad the cops stopped pulling you guys over. Beautiful environment and i know Mexico is a great place. Hope for more update on your tour.
They stopped pulling us over...for now haha. We'll see if that continues! Thanks for reading and commenting :)
Jordan
Great post. I enjoy following along on your travels. I spent several summer in Mexico visiting my grandfather. Mostly in Mexico City, but did visit Cancun and Acapulco. Would love to go back and explore some of the smaller beach towns.
Thank you, we're happy to hear you're enjoying our posts. Of those places, which did you like the most? We're always looking out for more recommendations.
Definitely Cacun and Tolum, the combination of the beaches and pyramids is just amazing. Really beautiful!!
Thanks for the suggestions! Hopefully we'll make it east in Mexico! So far we've pretty much stuck to the Pacific Coast. Mexico is huge! It could take a lifetime to explore it all. :)