I had my taste of travel on a 3-week adventure to Mexico in January 1974. Back at home, I found myself drifting into a career in travel – not only did I become a travel agent/entrepreneur, I had become a traveler. However another six years elapsed before I commenced my 2nd adventure – it was in February 1980 that I flew to La Paz, the capital of Mexico’s Baja California. From there, I took the bus to Cabo San Lucas, the new ‘chic’ beach resort located at the very tip of the Baja Peninsula. As Cabo was in “its infancy” as a beach resort, there were only a handful of hotels in the resort area. From Cabo, I took the car ferry overnight to Puerto Vallarta. Upon arriving at the ferry terminal in PV the following morning, I caught the bus to my next destination – San Blas, a relatively small obscure beach town that had become a favorite port-of-call with birdwatchers.

Although San Blas was located only 100 miles up the coast from Puerto Vallarta, the journey would take a good 5 hours or so because there was no coastal road at the time. As a result, the route went inland into the mountains thru Tepic, the capital city of Nayarit , where I had to overnight before completing the journey the next day. The ride on the local bus from Tepic to San Blas (a good 40 miles) was a most scenic drive – descending from the mountains to the coast on a very winding switchback road, we passed by lush coconut and banana plantations.

I have some wonderful memories of my first visit to historic San Blas, a sleepy hole-in-the wall surrounded by mangroves and some very lush tropical vegetation. Back in the late 17th century, San Blas used to be an important Spanish stronghold and port city – located on a hill overlooking town are the crumbling ruins of a large Spanish military fort. Except for the jejenes (sea gnats) - which come out en mass sometime before dusk - San Blas was my concept of paradise. The pace was slow, the ambiance special and the tropical setting just heavenly. While I was there, I befriended the head immigration officer in San Blas who took me on a memorable birding expedition in the mountains some distance away from town. As a bonus, my stay coincided with the celebration of the annual Carnival. Next the journey continues to JAMAICA.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Mexico, nature, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.