Playa las Tortugas, Mexico

 Early morning view to the south

In my next life: pelican. They may miss out on the mountains, but that skimming-over-the-breakers trick is for me. Pelicans defy gravity with their clunky bodies and cumbersome bills, but graceful lines of these big birds swoop and hover over the warm waves here. Sandpipers dash around in the shallow water, and herons with their backwards-pointing knees gingerly wade by the estuary.

Playa las Tortugas, 70 miles north of the Puerto Vallarta airport, plays a little hard to get. It's a solid two-hour drive to get here, sometimes over twisty roads or through small towns with their series of steep, hardly benign, speed bumps. The last six miles on the access road are unpaved and heavily potholed. Rentals of these beach houses do not come cheap. But immediately upon arriving here, it's easy to see that this beach is special.

For a good part of my adult life, I have searched for the perfect beach--good surf, soft sand, no rocks, swimmable water, not too crowded, an absence of mosquitoes or other pesky bugs, and lengthy enough that you have to turn around before reaching the end. This is it. Late yesterday afternoon we walked for two hours and didn't pass one other person, just endless lines of palm trees from a coconut plantation. We turned around before the end of the beach was even in sight. The sand is soft, albeit a bit scorching in the middle of a cloudless day; the ocean water is uncommonly warm; and the waves are just right for boogeyboarding. Good surfing is found at the mouth of the estuary.

Coconut palm groves

Phase I of the Playa las Tortugas development contains thirteen houses; only five of them are truly beachfront. The rest are set a little further back and rely on upstairs terraces for views of the ocean. Our house has four bedrooms, three baths, spacious high-ceilinged living areas, a kitchen with a dishwasher (a first for us in rental houses in Mexico), a patio with outdoor eating area, and its own 200-square foot thatch-roofed palapa with chairs and hammocks. I can see the waves breaking from where I currently sit at the dining room table.

We are close to the northernmost point of the beach. Take a right from our house and you will reach the turtle sanctuary and then the estuary. We're here at a quiet time for turtle activity. Turtle nesting is July through November, and releases are August through January. Two in our group explored part of the protected estuary in kayaks yesterday. It teems with 125 species of birds, jumping fish, and apparently, way upstream, a number of rather shy crocodiles. Platanitos, the closest fishing village, can be reached by swimming, canoeing, or kayaking across the estuary, climbing some stairs, and then walking for about 20 minutes--Sunday's dinner plan.

View eastward into the estuary

What's most astounding about this place is the total lack of people. Seems that we are the only group renting one of these houses during this particular time in March. Yesterday we saw a few local fishermen on the beach and two foreigners. That's right, two. Missing are the hordes of teens on spring break and the locals hawking their wares ("Best price, just for you, miss"). No one is asking if I'd like cornrows in my hair (me?), if I want tamales for lunch, or if I want to drag home a new collection of blankets. There is no trash on the beach, no high rise hotels in sight. In fact there are no buildings whatsoever in sight south of this development. None.

Flowers on the patio

Speaking of tamales...we decided to hire a local cook to prepare two meals a day for us in our house. Suffice it to say we are not going hungry. Aurora arrives around 8 AM to concoct a fabulous breakfast feast--freshly squeezed orange juice, a hot entree like shredded chicken mixed with onions, bite-sized tortillas and a homemade tomato sauce; fried potatoes; fresh fruit such as papaya or pineapple; refried beans sprinkled with crumbly white cheese; a small salad; yogurt; and coffee. Everything is made from scratch, even the tortillas. As we waddle away from the outdoor breakfast table, Aurora washes all the dishes and starts preparing our dinner. She spends the better part of the day in our kitchen and then leaves a full meal for us on the counter. We can eat it in the late afternoon or evening. In between her chopping, sauteing, blending and mixing, she cleans our house. Unbelievable. The best part is that this is all authentic Mexican food--no gringo, cheese-slathered slop here. We only feel guilty that we can't come close to consuming all the food she makes. Where's Sandy when I need him?

Some may arrive here and feel too isolated being away from a town filled with restaurants, bars, and local dogs lazing in the streets; away from a myriad of planned activities, a supermarket, or gift shops. For me, this is nirvana--a place to not be bothered or pestered, a place to enjoy the soothing sound of the surf, a place to completely escape and unwind.

 

 The rental house