Breaking the silence pt. 1

To those of you that have bothered checking this site in the last few weeks, I thank you and apologize for the deafening silence. There have been no posts as of late due to the fact that I had been traveling with family and then with friends for the last few weeks in Mexico. My first set of travels were with my family in the region of Mexico known as “la Huasteca,” an amazing area of the country, rich in natural beauty. After that I was with friends in a town on the Pacific coast of Mexico, just north of Puerto Vallarta, a little town of 3000 homes called Sayulita. It's this latter part of the trip, since it was the coastal half, that I’m going to mull over in this little entry.

My first impression as I arrived by bus in the morning to Puerto Vallarta was absolute astonishment at the size of Puerto Vallarta and the scope of development in the area. Everywhere one looks there is construction going on, and every billboard seems like an advertisement for real estate. Now, I’m no stranger to that sort of thing and I’ve probably been in coastal areas that are under more intense development. In my various travels into Mexico I’ve been to the Cabo San Lucas area, Guaymas on the Sea of Cortez, the Puerto Vallarta area, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Puerto Escondido and a long time ago, Cancun. I’m not sure if I was simply not aware of what seemed to be going on around me the times I visited those other places or if indeed this time around in Puerto Vallarta something different was going on. However, it seemed that everywhere you looked, some sort of development was occurring, be it new hotels and resorts or residences and condominiums.

My second impression was how absolutely gorgeous that landscape and the Bay of Banderas is. The green mountains, as they roll toward the ocean, the lush vegetation lining the beach, the beach itself and the wide arc that the bay forms, all under a brilliant blue sky and blazing sun that makes the water glisten and twinkle all the way to the horizon. And if you’re lucky enough to catch a thunderstorm (or two, or three) in the rainy season, the addition of clouds painting the skies a rainbow worth’s of colors makes sunsets unbearably beautiful.

Sayulita is somewhat different from Puerto Vallarta in that it’s a much smaller town about 50 km to the north of "PV". It’s a small town that’s main attractions are the good vibes and proximity to several good surf spots. However, you can kind of tell with the number of houses in various states of construction or remodeling, the number of real estate offices and the volume of trucks carrying either construction materials or local labor, that the pace of development might not be all that different from that of its neighbor to the south.

. . . the POINT of this five hundred word introduction is that during the week that I was down there I couldn’t help but keep wondering, I couldn’t seem to quiet that voice in my head amid all the fun I was having with my friends: “Who the heck’s in charge of all this stuff?!” . . . I’m guessing that the answers are out there. I’m sure that there are a number of organizations and institutions and hundreds of individual actors that must grasp the breakneck rate of development and are making all sorts of necessary arrangements to maintain this area as serene and sustainable an area as it could possibly be, right? Certainly the development that I saw left and right wasn’t or isn’t going on without some sort of plan . . . correct?

To be honest, I don’t have the answers right now. I’ve got a few days of research to do . . . it's all part and parcel of Coastopolis and attempting to wrap my head around a lot of these issues, and of course, to try and eventually influence them in some sort of positive fashion by thought or deed. Whether that happens is a big IF . . . and the questions aren’t even that ironed out in my head yet anyway, but there are a lot and they're good ones, so if you’ve had some of your own or want to discuss something feel free to add to the mix . . .

. . . I know I’m going to miss the beauty of that part of that country until I return to it. There is something about it that speaks to the soul, a message far beyond the typical soothings of a week’s vacation. Something profound and beautiful and compelling . . . and in dire need of people who want to keep it that way . . .