Locals Can Be a Tourist Too in Puerto Vallarta Vallarta Tribune
go to original August 17, 2012

How come I don't visit the local landmarks anymore?  It has been a while since I stopped going to either Los Arcos at Mismaloya or Los Arcos at El Malecón every week, as I used to when I was a newcomer.

My kids no longer think it is cool to walk along the beach with me, although they are not old enough to walk along the beach with a girl yet, caught as they are in the early teens. For the time being, they find it fancier to hang out at Galerías with friends.

I knew I had become a local when the timeshare guys simply quit trying to stop me for a presentation, after seeing me out on the street day after day and week after week. I am the knowledgeable guy now, and when I go walking camera-in-hand and  bump into a rookie OPC who tries to stop me, I can tell him "look man, I don't qualify for your resort, save the breakfast for a more valuable unit," having learned the lingo of the trade after years of exposure.  

Granted, there are more attractions in Puerto Vallarta now, the aforementioned shopping mall among them, but the most thrilling experiences I have lived have been in the outdoors. Zipping along the canopies of trees, climbing up the stairs to the mountain behind the church to find a spot for the best sunset photograph, sailing to try to watch whales, releasing turtles at the dusk, surfing under the... no, surfing is not really my thing, although I have good friends whose it is.  

Is overexposure to the beauty of nature making me blind to this very same beauty? Old friends from my former life usually tell me: wow! How lucky of you to live in a place like Puerto Vallarta! Well, lucky I am indeed, and when I think about it, I get saddened by the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I am missing new adventures of old Vallarta.  

So, welcome folks from far and away; there is only one Puerto Vallarta and you won't find it anywhere else in the world, that I can guarantee.

Go sightseeing, let yourself loose under the sun, walk barefoot on the sand, visit our many and good art galleries, admire the local artists along our new Malecón, in one word, be as tourist as you can be.  

That way, when you decide to move to Vallarta permanently, you will know the lingo!