One of the tourism companies I worked for this year had a tag line we would always say at the end of tours:
“At ___ ____ we don’t say goodbye, we say see you later!”
I guess the sentiment behind it is that we want customers to purchase additional tours with us, but we also don’t want to say goodbye to our new friends and let the adventure be over. Sayulita was somewhere it was very hard to say goodbye to, so for now, I am just saying “See you later Sayulita!”
I visited Sayulita, which sits, (or rather lazily lounges) in a bay 25 km north of Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, three weeks ago. It was a very welcomed beach stop towards the end of my seven week adventure around the country, after spending a couple of weeks in inland colonial towns.
I had never heard of Sayulita before visiting Mexico, although it is clearly very popular with the North American crowd and travelling surfers. Mexicans kept raving about it while I was in Leon, San Miguel and Guadalajara, so I decided to go see it for myself.
If you are lucky enough to visit Mexico (one of my favourite travel destinations so far) try and include a stop on the Pacific Coast. It’s got a bad rap in the headlines lately, but I seriously felt safer in Sayulita than anywhere else in Mexico; it’s SO laid back. Just research in advance which spots are safe for tourists and which places are best avoided.
Some Sayulita highlights included:
- Hanging out with an awesome bunch of travellers who were volunteering at / staying at the Amazing Hostel at the time (that’s its actual name!). This included hilarious Canadians, a super friendly American retiree who gave free professional massages and organised his own birthday feast and invited us to a beach folk / indie jam.
- Sunbaking and swimming in the super warm water at Playa de la Muertos, a secluded but easy to access beach by a cemetery (prettier than it sounds – promise!) just south of the main beach.
- Releasing baby turtles into the ocean. I feel like this experience would cost a mint back in Australia, but in Sayulita it’s a free activity every night on the main beach from 5:30pm during the season and you can pretty much release as many turtles as you want and watch them make their first ever trek into the sea.
- Swimming in the warm ocean in our underwear (or sans underwear for some of us) at 2am after dancing barefoot to a reggae band at Don Pato’s.
- Trying to find another beach further south and having a young local guy called Abraham show me the way, with an included visit to his personal tree house as well as an invitation to the resort he worked at, Playa Escondida. I visited the resort with some hostel friends later that afternoon and Abraham gave us a tour, showed us where they filmed ‘The Bachelor’ and let us use the swimming pool / jacuzzi all afternoon. It’s who you know!
- Taking a cruise on a catamaran to the ‘Hidden Beach’ and dancing with new friends whilst enjoying the open bar and on-board water slides.
- Meeting random people…including a Mexican guy called Fernando who challenged me to multiple games of Connect Four outside a bar while I waited for my friends to show up (he won every time apart from the times he LET me win). He also taught me how to salsa…and how to sneak into the salsa night at a local venue for free!
- Eating awesome shrimp empanadas, marlin empanadas and fish tacos from a local food stall and devouring amazing chicken and red salsa tamales in banana leaves that were sold out the back of a car on the road to our hostel pretty much every night.
- Attempting to learn to surf. The waves were rolling in really fast when I tried at the water seemed super salty, but despite my grumpy-cat-face, my friend / instructor was super patient with me and eventually I managed to stand up, meaning I can claim that I went surfing in Mexico!
It’s hard to put into words what’s so awesome about Sayulita, but it’s definitely got something special about it…even the Mexicans have listed it as a Puebla Magica, meaning a magical town. Part of it is due to it’s size I’m sure. This is such a little, buzzing town that everyone seems to end up going to the same few bars in the evenings, meaning if you stay for a few nights you are bound to run into your new buddies on the beach / dancefloor / at the restaurant more than once.
This is a perfect, friendly and fun location for the solo traveller. I hope one day I will be back.
See you later, Sayulita!
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