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This year seems to have been a year of terrible PR for Mexican vacation spots in the Canadian media. The murder of a couple in Cancun last February continues to receive attention. The apparent hit and run of a teenaged Canadian tourist in Acapulco in January. In both these cases, the family in Canada have strongly disagreed with the conclusions of Mexican police who have come off as trying to play down the crime or push it away rather than really solve it.

The latest incident receiving coverage was the recent drowning of a 72 year old Canadian swimming at the beach in front of the Palladium resort in Punta Mita just north of Puerto Vallarta. It wasn’t the drowning per se that was the cause of the media frenzy. Again it was the response to the events - neither the hotel or emergency officials were at all helpful in searching for the man. The man’s son, Gordon Zimmerman, was quoted as saying that “the assistant manager, the person in charge, informed me there was no ability for them to go out on the water, or any ability to search for someone in the water. No boat. The Jet Ski they had was broken, and had been broken for two years.”   The hotel apparently rather than helping with the search seemed more interested in playing down the whole event and not alarming other clients on the beach.

On CBC radio today, a travel “expert” today suggested people traveling to the “developing world like Mexico” should bring lots of cash and wave fistfulls of cash at people when an emergency occurs to get the help.

Clearly Mexico is developing a PR problem. Does someone need to tell them the first rule of public relations in a disaster is to come clean not to try and cover it up with more lies? Or does this run counter to Mexican culture?

Locate it on the map: Palladium Vallarta.

Just north of Banderas Bay, in Nayarit state are the nearby towns of Sayulita (about 25km north of PV, locate Sayulita on map) and San Francisco (about 30km north of PV, locate San Pancho on map). San Fransisco is much more commonly known as San Pancho, Pancho being a common nickname for Francisco and just overall a much better name fit for such a laid back place.

Sayulita has basically a surfter vibe, lots of inexpensive accomodations and young people. San Pancho a quiter vibe and a mix of people enjoy the place. On the high end, it’s got some small but very luxury resorts and some beautiful private villas.

Just another option in the area, perhaps they both have features which would remind some people of PV thirty years ago.

The Boston Globe ran an article entitled today entitled Her birthday bunch happy she picked 60 and is a quick and dirty little write-up of some area attractions. The people in the article stayed at San Pancho’s luxury Costa Azul (locate Costa Azul on map).

I myself spent 3 nights in San Pancho a few years ago and quite enjoyed the quiet.

The first gay civil unions in Mexico took place today under a new law which took effect in the Federal District only today. The law confers on gay couples, similar rights to married couples in the certain areas such as inheritance rights but not in others such as adoption.

With the huge gay community in Puerto Vallarta, it would sure be great to see the Jalisco state government following this lead and bring this here too.

Read the story: BBC News: Mexico City embraces gay unions.

Escaleras Originally uploaded by coba.

I like this simple image from Puerto Vallarta.

One of the many stairs in this hillside town.

And so this is my picture of the week. If you click on the image you’ll get to the Flickr page for this photo where you can navigate to several other interesting images from this photographer by clicking on the links in the photo notes.

One of my intentions with this blog was to seek out great trip reports from Puerto Vallarta and Banderas Bay and post links to them here. Hey, I’ve had some great trips to Vallarta and have been inspired by the flowers, the hills, climbing the stairs, playing in the surf or just wandering old town on a caffeine buzz.

So how come when I do a blog search for Puerto Vallarta blogs, all I find are margarita-fueled drunk fests about how PV is “awesome!”. The cultural experiences people seem to have found seem to be how cute their waitress was at their all-inclusive resort which they barely left (except to go to Señor Frogs).

I know that Puerto Vallarta has a spring break and easy vacation vibe but it also has lots of galleries, creative people, people who’ve moved their to write, to paint in the amazing light. So where are you? Send me your writing that captures how special this place is and it’ll get published here.

Carpet of Monarchs at the Sierra Chincua sanctuary, Michoacan by Steve Bridger Alejandro Colunga’s Lounge of the Magicians public sculpture in Guadalajara. Nightime photo by Doug Dosdall.

I love a good beach, don’t get me wrong. But that doesn’t mean there are other things I like too. And many people who visit Puerto Vallarta aren’t aware of what the other options are that are not too far away.

One of my favorite vacation strategies is to book an open jaw ticket, i.e. flying into one city and departing from another (read the linked article for details on how this works). So one could fly into Puerto Vallarta and depart from Guadalajara for example, thereby combining time at the beach with time in the wonderful vibrant city of Guadalajara. If you like there are many places to explore along the way too, whether you rent a car and take your time between the two points or go by the excellent Mexican bus system and pick a few stops along the way.

For example, The North Shore News recently published an article entitled Mexican Adventure in which the author drove from Puerto Vallarta to Sayulita, Tepic, Tequilla, Guadalajara, Morelia and the Monarch Butterfly sanctuaries near Angangueo. It would be easy enough to return your rental car and fly home from Morelia or Guadalajara.

I did a much longer open jaw a few years ago to explore Mexico for several months. I flew into El Paso, Texas and then went on to explore the Copper Canyon, Mazatlan, San Pancho (just north of Sayulita), Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City and finally Puebla where I flew home. Phew. Needless to say you need to have a few months free to do that.

The trick here is to find an airline which services both Puerto Vallarta and your end point. Continental Airlines services an amazing amount of points in Mexico including Puerto Vallarta, Morelia and Guadalajara. And Alaska Airlines last year added service to Guadalajara to complement their longstanding excellent service to Puerto Vallarta.

Plan your trip: click on Travelocity Flight Search then click Multi-Destination to search for an open jaw.

Originally uploaded by edifica.

This beautiful capture of the Seahorse Statue on the Malecón at sunset by Rachel P is the photo of the week here on Puerto Vallarta Satellite News.

This statue is found just a couple blocks north of the Plaza Principal and is one of the many piece of public sculpture in Puerto Vallarta.

Do you have a photo you think would be a good photo of the week? Submit it to info@puertovallartasatellite.com.

Find it on the map: Seahorse Statue.

Puerto Vallarta Satellite is part of the travel blogs network at Blogads.

Vallarta's Top Picks! Hotel Mercurio  Gay owned, friendly, near gay beach! Casa Cupula  Luxury gay/lesbian boutique hotel

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