Long before the town's transformation into a popular tourist destination, Puerto Vallarta, or as it was originally known, Las Peñas de Santa Maria de Guadalupe, began as a humble fishing village. Nestled between towering mountains and a sprawling sea, Las Peñas was home to only a handful of families, their livelihoods tied to the rhythms of the ocean and the stunning sunsets that blanketed their homes each evening.

Inaccessibility was a defining feature of this paradisiacal wilderness. Nestled within a web of crocodile-inhabited rivers and . . .