WHEN GIVING DIRECTIONS, Puerto Ricans tend not to use street names, preferring instead to go with landmarks like “the old ceiba tree” or Las Tetas de Do–a Juana (“Do–a Juana’s Breasts”), the 2,700-foot twin peaks near Cayey, in the south-central part of the island.

P.R.’s wild side

This habit stems from decades of inadequate road signage. And while the signs may have improved, old habits die hard. So on a recent two-hour drive from San Juan to Isabela, in western Puerto Rico, while I was searching for a horse stable run by Tropical Trail Rides, I happened upon a man gardening under a glorious flamboyant tree and I braced for the worst. Fortunately, the hospitality of rural Puerto Ricans, or jibaros, tends to match their disdain for conventional direction-giving. “Follow me,” the gardener said, jumping into his pickup truck.


Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth since 1952, has a population of 3.9 million. Luckily, more than a third of them live in the San Juan metropolitan area. Compared with other parts of the 3,435-square-mile island, the west—a loosely defined region running from Isabela, in the north, to Gu‡nica, in the south—has always been a place to find a little breathing space, and since the fifties it’s been a secret closely guarded by savvy Puerto Ricans and a handful of American surfers. What initially lured the gringos hasn’t changed: a 70-mile coastline with prodigious waves that backs up to varied terrain, from the lush pine, teak, and mahogany forests that blanket the Cordillera Central to the arid Arizona-style desert.
Start your tour with the 20-mile drive from Isabela south to Rinc贸e;n, a stretch that offers some of the best surfing in Puerto Rico. From there, travel 14 miles south to the port city of Mayag眉ez, the largest town on the west coast, then 23 miles south to the calmer waters of the Caribbean Sea, where you’ll find sublime snorkeling off Cabo Rojo. When you reach the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge, just south of town, mountain-bike a trail network among thousands of migratory birds, then cap it off with a swim in the nearby bioluminescent bay. If you’re not already aglow, this dip will do the trick.

Horseback Riding

Easy riders; taking a tour of Survival Beach, near Rinc贸n

THANKS TO MY green-thumbed friend, I finally found Tropical Trail Rides, where owner Craig Barker, a transplanted Californian, was waiting by the barn alongside a sturdy corto fino horse, my first ticket to riding the wild west.
Barker saddled me up and I departed with a small group from Shacks Beach, a beloved surfer’s spot in Isabela, and rode to a trail where we trotted under the shade of an almond forest. We emerged three miles west, at the fabulously deserted Survival Beach, a wide stretch of sand backed by 150-foot cliffs.
After galloping along the beach, we climbed the craggy cliffs to a point where our guide, Jessica, balanced precariously on a rock outcropping as she pointed out the channel where humpback whales run in the winter. Fifty feet above us was the fence surrounding the former site of Ramey Air Force Base, a key Cold War staging ground for B-52 bombers and now a commercial airport and U.S. Coast Guard base. As we headed back toward Isabela, we stopped at an empanadilla stand on Route 4466, where I inhaled a few bacalaitos (codfish fritters). My bill, with coffee: $2.
Tropical Trail Rides (787-872-9256, ) charges $35 for a two-hour guided ride. Villa Montana (two-night packages for two start at $382, breakfast included; 888-780-9195, www.villamontana.net), a few hundred feet west of Tropical Trail Rides, has 54 villas on its 30-acre site.

Surfing

En route to the waves of Rinc贸n

IN 1968, PUERTO RICO hosted the World Surfing Championship in Rinc贸n, putting the west coast on the map for wave riders. “Puerto Ricans long ago became used to seeing crazy Americans out here,” said Casey Moul, a surfer who moved to Rinc贸n from Rhode Island in 1983 and is now headwaiter at the town’s luxurious 52-room Horned Dorset Primavera Hotel. “Rinc贸n is a very friendly place.”
So are its waves.
The most popular surfing beaches—Tres Palmas, Sandy Beach, and Maria’s—are scattered around Rinc贸n’s Punta Higuera Lighthouse. The best breakers are typically eight feet, and water temperatures hover around 80 degrees.
Surfers with disposable income will want to splurge and stay at the Horned Dorset. The Mediterranean-style hotel, which seems better suited to Monte Carlo, sits on an unnamed 20-foot-wide beach that extends for miles. It recently added 22 duplex villas cantilevered into a cliff, but the original 30 rooms are only feet from the lapping waves. Daily rates at the Horned Dorset (800-633-1857, ) start at about $600 for doubles, including breakfast and dinner.

For those not on the splurge plan, try the Rinc贸n Beach Resort. The 120-room red-tile-roofed hotel and its swimming pool front a wide, sandy beach—nesting grounds for leatherback and hawksbill turtles. The owners smartly avoided beachfront lighting, which can be fatal to the turtle hatchlings. Doubles at Rinc贸n Beach Resort (787-589-9000, ) start at $160.
For surfboard rentals, sales, and info on where the best waves are breaking, call Playa Brava Longboards and Coffee House, in Aguadilla, at 787-890-2189.

Mountain Biking and Hiking

Endo: Singletrack meets sea near Cabo Rojo

MOUNTAIN BIKING gathered steam in Puerto Rico in the mid-eighties and has developed into a full-fledged local passion under the auspices of La Comisi贸n Mountain Bike de Puerto Rico (). The group organizes a few dozen races between March and October, mostly on western trails. Preferring to pedal at less than race pace, I hired Hilda Morales, of AdvenTours (787-530-8311, aventura@coqui.net), to organize my ride. She in turn hired local field biologist Emilio Font-Nicole to guide me by mountain bike, foot, and kayak through the Combate region, which includes 1,836-acre Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge.
We started out near the 1,249-acre salt flats of Cabo Rojo, biking past the crystallized edges of the flats and into the refuge, whose guests include thousands of migrant warblers that stop here on the way from Alaska to South America between September and December. Piping plovers, yellow-shouldered blackbirds, and brown pelicans—all endangered—also use this as a stop. We rode about eight miles along flat trails blazed by the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps in the thirties and came upon the remnants of a train track laid more than a century ago by the American Railroad Company. Conservationists are lobbying legislators to incorporate the track into a proposed 100-mile mountain-bike trail network.


Leaving the refuge, we rode up the steep rocky paths surrounding the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse, which sits on dramatic limestone cliffs carved by pounding waves. From the lighthouse, we rode down to the horseshoe-shaped shore at Bah’a Sucia (“Dirty Bay”)—which is anything but—and took a cleansing dip.
That evening, I drove 20 miles east of Cabo Rojo to Gu‡nica and the Copamarina Beach Resort (doubles start at $165; 800-468-4553, ), a plush 106-room hotel, with two miles of sandy beach connected to the public Cana Gorda Beach. The resort is adjacent to the 11,000-acre Gu‡nica State Forest, which contains 25 miles of hiking trails.
The Wheel Shop (787-255-0095), in Cabo Rojo, rents mountain bikes for $20 a day. AdvenTours’ Hilda Morales can arrange guided biking, hiking, kayaking, and bird-watching trips. Half-day bike tours are $78 per person; half-day kayaking tours are $63 per person; and a full-day combination runs $107.

Snorkeling and Scuba Diving

Flippering out near La Parguera

THE FAMED 20-MILE-LONG Parguera Wall, five miles offshore from La Parguera, is one of the best dive sites in Puerto Rico. The Wall, which is 500 feet deep in places, sprouts with black coral and is a hangout for moray eels, barracuda, stingrays, and sharks.
Not crazy about the idea of becoming shark bait, I decided to snorkel instead. I set out with Captain Angel Rovira, owner of Parguera Divers (787-899-4171, ), for a three-hour tour to Enrique and Media Luna reefs. We sped about 15 minutes out in his 30-foot Island Hopper. The water was choppy, but visibility was at least 30 feet, enough to catch glimpses of blue tangs, grunts, and damselfish.
The most magical underwater experience near La Parguera, however, is swimming in its bioluminescent bay at night as millions of single-cell organisms called dinoflagellates cause the water to shimmer and glow when agitated. Do your part and head down to La Parguera’s docks before the sun sets and find a driver who will take you out in his skiff (about $5 per person) so you can take a swim and turn on the glitter.
Parguera Divers charges $33 per person for a three-hour snorkeling tour and $70 for a half-day scuba trip (two-tank dive), $85 with equipment.

Vieques: The Boom Is Over

I’M ABOUT 20 MILES off of Puerto Rico’s east coast, lying on an unnamed and empty beach on the eastern end of the island of Vieques. After kayaking 45 minutes to get here, I decided to spend some quality time with my towel. A year ago, this would not have been possible.
When I lived on Vieques in 1998, the beach I’m lying on—along with two-thirds of the entire 21-by-six-mile island—was locked up behind a chain-link fence. In 1941, the U.S. Navy built bases on both ends of Vieques, relocated thousands of locals, and began using the eastern tip for bombing practice. When a stray bomb killed a civilian in 1999, the contentious issue of the Navy’s presence flared into protests and civil disobedience.
Last May, the Navy relented and left. The fences came down and 17,100 acres of former Navy land were turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create a national wildlife refuge. We suggest you get yourself to Vieques now, before the calm after the munitions boom is replaced by the crowds of the commercial boom. A word of warning: Heed the signs indicating that unexploded ordnance may be in the area.
The best way to experience the island is to base yourself in one of its two towns—Isabel Segunda, on the north side, or Esperanza, to the south—or at one of two rustic lodges tucked back in the hills among the banana groves, Hix Island House ($175-$260 per loft; 787-741-2302, ) or La Finca Caribe (doubles, $80; 787-741-0495, ). You’ll want four-wheel drive, but don’t be surprised if your rental’s gas gauge doesn’t work—just embrace Vieques’s don’t-sweat-the-details vibe and get on with experiencing these newly reopened spaces.
** The East End
There are two main attractions on the east end—Red Beach and Blue Beach—both of which can be accessed via the Garcia Gate, 2.5 miles northeast of Esperanza.
To get to Red Beach, drive 1.5 miles east of Garcia Gate until you see a turnoff to the right. A mile down the road, you’ll see a peaceful one-mile-long cove with silky sand and gentle waves. Or if you prefer to ditch the car, guide Karl Husson, from La Dulce Vida, in Esperanza, can escort you there via a 2.5-mile muddy mountain-bike ride on singletrack that spits out onto Red Beach ($65 per person; 787-617-2453).
A mile past the Red Beach turnoff, the road ends at Blue Beach, a mile of sugar-white sand meeting turquoise ocean. Bonus: Three-acre Isla Chiva lies 200 yards out in the bay. Swim to its western side and you’ll find a reef swarming with puffer fish and barracuda.
** The West End
Wilder than the beaches on the east end, the 1.5-mile Green Beach is accessible only through the Green Beach entrance, eight miles west of Isabel Segunda. Drive two miles along the paved road and bear right at the fork. Once it becomes dirt and bends south, all the turnoffs for the next mile will take you to Green Beach. To up the adventure ante, drag your rented sit-on-top into the swells and paddle south a quarter of a mile around a rocky spit to cruise over shallow coral-encrusted canyons swarming with yellowtail snapper. Follow the coast south until you find a two-story boulder sitting in the surf: At its base you’ll see a set of sandy baths that fill up with ocean water. Pick up kayaks at Aquafrenzy, in Esperanza ($40 per day; 787-741-0913).
** Getting There
Fly from San Juan on Vieques Air Link ($69 one way; 787-741-8331). Rent a car from Steve’s Car Rental in Isabel Segunda ($45 per day; 787-741-8135).

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There’s a swoosh of heaven that runs from Hawaii through Mexico to Central America and the Caribbean. Don’t let it bask in the sun by itself. Our 43 sweet spots are waiting—surrender and go.
By James Glave
By Meg Lukens Noonan
By Kevin Moeller
By Jeff Hull
By Kent Black

Trailing Off on Kauai

It was our first morning in paradise. The deserted white beach at our tent flap stretched a quarter-mile out to the breakers. The backdrop was a sheer-walled green valley聴some oo aa birds flitting over ancient taro terraces thick with wild guava trees, orchids, and vines. Off to our left, nubile twentysomethings splashed naked under a beachside waterfall. It was almost too much to take.
So why were the neighbors packing up already?
Most who make the grueling, full-day 11-mile trek to the Kalalau Valley, an isolated outpost at the far eastern end of Kauai’s spectacular Na Pali Coast, rest on the sand for at least a day. Many take time to explore the lush highlands and visit with the dozen-odd “full-timers” who, dodging Hawaii State Parks regulations, have formed a tropical microsociety straight out of a certain Leo DiCaprio box-office flop.
But these two hikers were acting like they were late for work. We’d met them the day before on the hike in; now they were hoofing it in toward Red Hill, a steep, sun-scorched 360-foot slope that you must descend into the valley, fully aware of the work it will take to climb back up it on the way home.
“Wait, didn’t you just get here?” I asked.
The boyfriend came over and lowered his voice. “Don’t you know how it works here?” We didn’t.
“First they invite you in on a game of chess, right?” He looked around, fidgeting. “Next thing you know, the afternoon is gone, and someone’s offering you roast wild goat for dinner. And then you’re waking up the next morning and that聴he motioned toward Red Hill聴looks like a lot of work. So you hang around for another day. And play some more chess. And the day turns into a week . . .”
His girlfriend rolled her eyes. She clearly wasn’t buying his Aloha Moonies theory.
Neither were we. My wife, Elle, and I were savoring our first taste of wild Hawaii. Our mud-and-sweat adventure had begun after we crossed the Hanakapi’ai River聴the Kalalau Trail’s two-mile mark and the mandatory turnaround point for day hikers. We ascended 5,000 feet, seesawing in and out of five valleys along the only hikeable stretch of the Na Pali Coast.
Protected by steep pali, or cliffs, the Kalalau Valley is the perfect hideout. It was here in this jungle in the 1880s that an ailing fugitive and his wife eluded authorities for years聴Jack London immortalized them in his 1908 story “Koolau the Leper.” Taro farmers populated the valley until the early 20th century. The hippies came later.

We found much to like in this Eden, including a series of deserted waterfall pools deep in the forest. After leaving our beachside homestead, we blew hours goofing off, swimming, exploring, sticking our noses into wild lilies. Heading back, we met one of the residents, dragging a folding chaise lounge聴how the heck did he get that in here?聴along the sand.
“Jay” is a high school gym teacher who lives in Kalalau during the off-season. He’s terribly mellow and powerfully muscled, sporting a shark-tooth necklace and not much else.
How does he survive here? “I have friends all over the island who help me out,” Jay said, adding that he also pulls papio and moi fish from the surf and hunts goats in the backcountry. After a few minutes, the conversation wound down, and Elle and I headed off to explore the nearby sea caves.
Then Jay called after us. “Hey . . . do you play chess?”

The Ins and Outboards of the Exumas

Beached: solitude off the Exumas Cays

Cut your boat engine in the clear water of the Bahamas’ Exuma Cays and who knows what will appear: a five-foot lemon shark swimming slow S-curves under your hull, a pair of stealthy eagle rays, clumps of conch shells among purple barrel sponges, even a family of swimming pigs—yes, pigs—which, long abandoned by their owners, live quite well off their pink good looks and the Wheat Thins tossed overboard by boaters. This bountiful 100-mile strand of 365 narrow, mostly uninhabited islands, bounded by the cobalt depths of the Exuma Sound to the east and the aquamarine shallows of the Great Bahama Bank to the west, is amazingly only 40 miles from the Vegas-like excesses of Nassau. But when you drop anchor on one of the cays’ empty, wild, bisque-colored beaches, you might as well be on the other side of the big blue world.
A peripatetic island escape begins at quiet Staniel Cay in the center of the Exuma chain. Book one of the Staniel Cay Yacht Club’s snug pastel cottages—each comes with a 13-foot Boston Whaler powerboat—in advance. Then spend a week day-tripping your way around these narrow, close-together islands, some barely the size of a major league pitching mound, others large enough to support a fishing village, a beach resort, and a couple of open-air bars serving conch fritters and Kalik beer. Don’t worry about your sketchy navigational skills—these are nearly idiotproof cruising waters. You need only your eyes to figure out how to get to your next anchorage. A fairly reliable sense of how shallow is too shallow for your boat will help, too.
One day you might focus on fishing, working the shimmering bonefish flats of Harvey Cay and Pipe Creek, about three miles from Staniel Cay, or angling around Exuma Sound Ledge, a thousand-foot drop-off just a few hundred yards offshore. On another day, motor to Thunderball Grotto, a snorkel-through cave, swing by “Pig Beach” on Major Spot Island, and then visit Compass Cay, where you’ll be greeted by a group of creepily Pavlovian nurse sharks looking for handouts. Make the short walk to the bluff-backed crescent of sand on Compass Cay’s east side and spend the rest of the day prone. Or head south one morning to Bitter Guana Cay (no need to know how it got its name), where you’ll see iguanas prowling the beach, and stop on another island, Great Guana Cay (don’t ask), for cracked conch with the locals at Lorraine’s Cafe.
Plan on taking a couple of days to explore the pristine reefs and coves of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, a 176-square-mile, no-take preserve (no fishing, no collecting) overseen by the Bahamas National Trust, where you can also hike the four miles of trails near Warderick Wells. The park begins at Conch Cut, about five miles northwest of Staniel, and ends 22 miles north at Wax Cut Cay.
Most evenings, you’ll be content hanging out in the Staniel Cay Yacht Club’s dockfront bar, eavesdropping on the catch-drunk anglers and hypertanned nomadic yachties. Save one night, though, for dinner in the hilltop clubhouse at Fowl Cay, a swank new three-cottage resort about a mile and a half by boat from Staniel Cay. You should know, however, that this is one very classy place—shoes are mandatory.
THE DETAILS:
Flamingo Air flies from Nassau to Staniel Cay every day but Saturday for $70 one-way (242-377-0354, ); from Fort Lauderdale, many companies charter planes to Staniel Cay—try Island Air Charters ($900 for up to seven people; 800-444-9904, ), or from Nassau, Air Charter Bahamas ($590 for up to five people; 305-885-6665, ). Cottages at Staniel Cay Yacht Club (242-355-2024, ) start at $167 per person per night and include a 13-foot Boston Whaler. At Fowl Cay Resort (866-369-5229, ), cottages start at $4,750 per week for two people, including meals, beverages, and a 17-foot boat. For information on the Exuma Land and Sea Park, visit .

Off Belay on Culebra

Flamenco Beach: Culebra’s prized possession

When I took off for Culebra, a seven-mile-long island outpost east of Puerto Rico with a stash of oceanside face climbing, I had every intention of spending my time on the rocks. I was ready for the feel of sea spray on my back while working 5.10 friction moves. But then I discovered how the sleepy rhythms of an undeveloped island can get in the way of any serious ambition.
Like Vieques, its neighbor to the south, Culebra is part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and has played host to Navy bombing practice, though things have quieted down since the 1970s, when locals protested to stop the ordnance rain. In fact, everything is quiet. There are no sprawling resorts or gaudy casinos, just one town, Dewey, and 1,542 Spanish-speaking islanders. There are opportunities for adventure—sea kayaking, sailing, diving, and of course climbing. You just have to fend off total lethargy to get to them.
Flamenco Beach is Culebra’s prize possession, with consistently clear water and a mile of silky white sand. To get there, visitors take a 20-minute flight from San Juan aboard a prop plane, which buzzes over scrubby dry-tropical forest before dropping with a gulp onto the lone landing strip; I walked, sandals flapping, the mile and a half to Flamenco Beach. Weekends can bring ferryloads of Puerto Rican families, but even then there’s little competition for sandy real estate. Find yourself a vacant acre, plop down under a palm . . . and erase those Jersey Shore memories of folks stacked around you like frankfurters on a Weber.
Restless beachgoers strap on masks to eyeball hogfish and schools of tang just offshore, or they boogie-board the shoulder-high breakers at the beach’s south end. A mile-long dirt path leads to neighboring Carlos Rosario beach, which borders the Luis Pe-a Marine Reserve—part of the island’s 1,568 acres of wildlife refuges—where snorkelers snoop the seagrass beds for conchs. In the deeper waters of the reserve, near Cayo Yerba, divers swim with stingrays among huge boulders festooned with yellow cup corals.

I eyed the trail to my intended destination, the Punta Molinas climbing area, an hour and a half of ridge hiking from the beach parking lot. The volcanic crag, riveted with bolts covered in sea salt, is a humble 30 feet or so high, but the routes are 5.9 to 5.10—and the views of the Caribbean while dangling from a flake are expansive. Most times you share them with no one. But the afternoon slipped by, so I pitched my tent at Flamenco’s campground—surf 20 feet away—and watched a spearfisherman amble along with a dive bag full of red snappers, conchs, and lobsters, all of it hunted in a single lagoon.
By the next day, I’d let island time have its way with me and simply abandoned my notions of climbing. Too much work. I prowled around Dewey, stopping in a restaurant, El Caobo, where the cook pulled me into the kitchen to taste her guisada (chopped pork stew), handing me a spoonful with a smile. I ate a helping with fried snapper. Instead of being pumped out, knuckles bleeding, I sat there with a full belly and a sweating glass of Coca-Cola, slightly sunburned and utterly content.

THe Breezes Of Belize

Destination wet: the distant allure of Goff Kay

Read Kerr steered our 38-foot catamaran through a quartering chop off the southern coast of Belize. “Gee, Read,” I said, “kind of a rough ride. Can’t you smooth it out a little?”
“I’m not in charge of the ocean,” replied ten-year-old Read. “I’m only in charge of the boat.”
That was the tone for this eight-day sailing sojourn among Belize’s southern cays, a smattering of islands—some inhabited, none larger than a square mile—sprinkled between the coastal village of Placencia and the Mesoamerican Reef, the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere. The cluster of elkhorn and ivory bush corals, among others, stretches 450 miles from Mexico’s Yucat谩n Peninsula to the Bay Islands of Honduras, and is 20 miles offshore here.
A few days earlier, my friend Onne van der Wal (a nautical photographer and seasoned sailor), his wife, their three children, and I had chartered a sailboat without a captain (a.k.a. a bareboat). We left from Placencia, a friendly, quiet village of about 500 residents made even quieter in October 2001 when Hurricane Iris obliterated 80 percent of the structures in town and killed 22 people, including 17 American divers. We headed 20 miles east-southeast to Ranguana Caye, a spit of sand with palm trees and turquoise bungalows. Read and her younger brothers hit the water the moment the anchor did, gamboling like porpoises amid massive leaf corals.
Belize, Central America’s only English-speaking country, has 1,000-foot-wide barrier reef atolls to dive, 100-pound tarpon off Ambergris Cay to catch, and Mayan temples to explore. But from the moment Read enlightened us about her responsibility vis-脿-vis the sea, we freed ourselves from agendas. We were dinking around the outposts, dropping anchor alongside coral castles, and exploring former pirate haunts. We might cruise Punta Ycacos Lagoon in hopes of spotting manatees. Or we could swim with hawksbill turtles in the marine preserve at Laughing Bird Caye. We’d decide all this later.
Following Ranguana Caye, we ran 15 miles in an afternoon to the Sapodilla Cays, the southernmost islands. That evening Onne puttered the dinghy to a fishing panga and swapped two quarts of pineapple juice and a frozen key-lime pie for just-speared snapper fillets—dining out, cays style.
On one of our last nights, everyone retired to the cabins, leaving me on deck to sleep under the full moon. Clouds stole across the sky like great white secrets. Exhausted, I tried to remember how I got so tired: woke at sunrise, kayaked to a broad turtle-grass flat, waded around stalking bonefish and permit, paddled back, snorkeled. Not such a mystery after all. I started to think about the next day and realized that . . . well, I am not in charge of tomorrows.

Just Park Me in a Palapa in Yelapa

Rocky’s shrill whistle pierced through the sound of waves crashing beneath my bedroom. Untangling myself from mosquito net and sheet, I lurched out to the balcony of my two-story casita to peer at the dark pre-dawn ocean. Rocky, my beachfront neighbor and a former fishing guide from Arkansas, was gliding past in his sea kayak, trolling with a simple hand line of 30-pound test and a two-inch lure. He jabbed his paddle in my direction. Vamos!
I sighed. It was going to be another routine day in Yelapa, a fishing village 12 miles southwest of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Getting to the 1,200-person settlement requires a bumpy 30-minute ride by outboard water taxi south from Puerto Vallarta, along the rocky coast of the Bah’a de Banderas to Yelapa’s little hidden cove.
I’d start the day by joining Rocky to fish along the southern edge of the bay, Mexico’s largest, through schools of porpoises and the occasional manta ray, and past cliffs alternating with uninhabited, palm-laden lagoons. If I was lucky I’d come home with some tasty fish—known locally as sierras—for ceviche. By midmorning I’d be back at my rented casita cleaning my catch, eating a late breakfast of mangos, and pretending to write in my journal while staring out at the Pacific.
My first hard decision would be whether to hike or swim next. If the onshore wind seemed steady and strong, it might be a good day to hike two and a half hours to the top of one of the 2,000-foot summits that nearly surround Yelapa—a derelict ranchito atop one peak is a favored takeoff spot for parasailors. Or I could swim a half-mile from the casita to the center of Yelapa’s main beach, where lollygagging and slurping fresh shrimp cocktails are the main pursuits. I’d squeeze in a siesta, of course, and then make my way to the south end of the beach, where steps lead up to the town—a maze of adobe walls and red-tile roofs crisscrossed by cobblestone lanes. There are no cars or motorcycles in Yelapa, though there is traffic of a sort. Mules, the taxi/truck/car/bus of Yelapa, provide the only overland way out of town, up narrow mountain trails that would make even the hardiest SUV stall.

About two years ago, the town got electricity. Some people lamented this progress, though its only real results are television, two dozen streetlights, and too much Ricky Martin played late into the night. And the placid village has adapted itself to more vigorous visitors: Sea kayaks can be rented from Hotel Lagunita or Casa Isabel, local fishermen at the docks arrange day trips, and Miller’s Dive Service offers multiday trips to the small islands in the bay.
I might contemplate these changes as I prepare for a twilight fishing jaunt. Unless, of course, it’s game night. The locals (Raicillas) and the gringos (Bimbos) play softball three or four nights a week at a dusty field a mile up the R铆o Tuito from town. The game starts around 5 p.m. and ends eight or nine innings later or when you can’t see the ball—whichever comes first. After several hundred games, the series is just about even.
If the innings are quick, there’s time to get back to the casita for a cocktail and sunset observation. Then it’s a short walk to satisfy my addiction to the barbecued chicken, fish, and ribs served at Pollo Bollo. By 10 p.m. it’s time to tuck myself under the mosquito net—where the rhythm of the waves will anesthetize me until Rocky’s whistle wakes me again.
Yep, same old routine.
THE DETAILS:
Boats bound for Yelapa leave at 11:45 a.m. Monday through Friday in front of the Hotel Rosita in Puerto Vallarta (about $9.50 per person one-way; 011-52-322-223-2000, ). Cabanas for two at Hotel Lagunita (011-52-329-298-0554, ) cost $45-$75 per night; the hotel offers kayak rentals and guided waterfall hikes. Casa Isabel (; e-mail, Isabel@yelapa.com) also has kayaks and rents five palapas that sleep two to six people for $45-$75. Miller’s Dive Service (; e-mail, millersdiveservice@juno.com) offers five-day dive packages for $165 to $175 for two-tank dives. For fishing and kayaking with Rocky, contact his company, Yelapa Extreme Kayaking (rockmoninoff@hotmail.com).

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