I rarely go to the Romantic Zone anymore. This week, a friend came to visit, so I spent some time there with him. By the end of it, I’d asked myself a question I never expected to ask about a neighborhood I used to call home. If this were my first visit to Puerto Vallarta, would I come back?
I wouldn’t.
I moved into the Romantic Zone about 20 years ago and lived there for five years. Even now, when a friend visits, I want to show them the waterfront, stop for a drink and walk along the Río Cuale. This time I found myself wishing my friend could see the Vallarta I know from living here. The one he was getting to know made me want to go home.
Two tables, two prices
My friend ordered a mojito at a beach bar, and I said I’d have one, too. We didn’t ask the price. Then a group of Mexican customers sat at the next table and asked what cocktails cost. The waiter told them they were all 125 pesos. My friend and I looked at each other. We’d just ordered cocktails. We figured that was our price, too.
Ours were 225 pesos each.
Along the Río Cuale, my friend asked a vendor how much a Puerto Vallarta magnet cost. He buys one in every place he visits in Mexico and usually pays 30 to 50 pesos. The vendor told him 100. We were still looking around when a Mexican tourist asked about the same magnet. The price was 50 pesos, or two for 80.
I walked away feeling like somebody had taken one look at us and decided what we could be charged. That feeling stayed with me longer than the extra 100 pesos on my mojito.
The shots on my tab
At one bar, our waiter walked us next door to what he described as its sister bar. We had time before dinner, so we stayed for a drink. The bartender started talking about birdwatching, which my friend wanted to learn more about. We told him we might come back after dinner and see if he wanted to have a drink with us after his shift.
When we got back, the waiter from the first bar was taking over behind the counter. The bartender we’d been talking to joined us for a drink before heading home. I was happy to pick up that drink. Then the bartender on duty poured him another without asking and kept pouring as the night went on. The bartender working the shift was taking shots himself.
When I asked for the bill, there were 3,000 pesos in charges for shots I hadn’t ordered. I only ordered $1,200 pesos of drinks but ended up with a bill of nearly $5,000 pesos.
I contacted the owner the next day. “Sorry that happened, I will investigate,” he told me. A couple of days later, he said he was still looking into it. That was the last I heard. I used to run bars. If a customer had called me about being charged for drinks my staff had poured for themselves, I would have offered to refund those charges. I wouldn’t make the customer feel like I thought they were lying. I cannot imagine this was the first time this has happened.
On the Malecón and on the bus
Along the Malecón in the Romantic Zone, vendors openly offered us marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy. Some pulled out bags and pills to show us what they were selling. What stuck with me was how casual it all was. These were people working one of the busiest stretches of the waterfront, and they seemed entirely comfortable doing it in the open. I kept wondering what it would take for that to get the city’s attention.
Then there was the city bus on Halloween night. A mother got on with three small children in costume. Before the kids could sit down, the driver hit the gas. The bus lurched, and all three children fell and slid down the aisle. One was bleeding from a head injury. Their mother yelled at the driver as she got her children off the bus. I watched him ignore her.
When my friend and I first got on the bus, I said the driver seemed a little intoxicated. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was just tired. But it was interesting that my first impression was that he seemed impaired, given the incident with the children after I made that observation.
Of everything that happened that week, that’s the scene I keep coming back to. A mother should be able to take her kids on a city bus and count on the driver to give them a moment to sit down. If they get hurt, she should be able to count on him to help.
The reputation we make for ourselves
When people talk about why tourists might stay away from Puerto Vallarta, the conversation often goes straight to cartels and crime. Think about what you’d tell a friend after a trip like mine. You’d tell them what happened when the bill came. You’d tell them what you saw on the bus. And when they asked if you’d go back, you’d probably tell them to spend their vacation somewhere else.
Puerto Vallarta does some of this damage to itself. A price that’s the same at both tables, a bar owner who makes a bad bill right and a bus driver who checks on a hurt child are all things people here can do something about. They’re also the things a visitor remembers when someone back home asks what Vallarta was like.
I’ve lived here long enough to have other stories to tell about this city. A first-time visitor goes home with the story we gave them.
I felt embarrassed about Puerto Vallarta. The only silver lining was that my friend said my neighborhood was the only area of Puerto Vallarta where he felt like he was in Mexico. So the city is hanging on tight to its history and culture in some corners.
Opinion by Ian Parker
