Whiling Away the Time in Puerto Vallarta

I spent two weeks in Puerto Vallarta. It’s in an amazing setting with a sweeping bay and the city set into the surrounding hills. The city itself isn’t spectacular, but it’s got a nice, comfortable feel to it. Most of the Mexicans I’ve talked to while I’ve been traveling the country this past year said it’s their favorite larger city on the Pacific Coast.

I had a chance to scuba dive 3 days (a separate blog post), SUP for a day, get a lot of future travel planning done, and go to the oldest zip line in North America. Below are some general pictures of the city.

Looking south at the Zona Romantica from the Los Muertos Pier

The small island between Zona Romantico and El Centro. Hurricane Nora washed out one of the bridges and it will take them months to fix it.

My first day here we were getting a high swell from the backside of Hurricane Olaf, which ended up slamming into lower Baja the next day. If enough people take pictures with their backs to the swell, I wonder what the odds are that some of them get washed away?

They have a beautiful marina where I met the dive boat on two of my dive days.

Looking at the cliffs just south of the city

And the view from those cliffs looking out at the ocean

Coming up on Los Arcos where we dove one day. It’s a beautiful setting.

I decided to do my second zipline experience here. The company I went with started this in 2002 and claims they are the first zipline in North America. They did a fantastic job. The lines were a lot higher, longer and faster than what I experienced in Mazatlan. There were about 30 people in the group I was in and they moved us all through fast and made it a lot of fun. There was also a tequila tasting at the end, and after about 5 shots we all left much happier than before.

Just when you get comfortable doing this, they turn you upside down

I’ve got a large, comfortable Airbnb in the Zona Romantico, which is the main traditional tourist area at the southern part of Puerto Vallarta.