Finding Nature and Nurture in Puerto Vallarta

I went to Puerto Vallarta looking for something I wasn’t entirely sure existed. It’s called the green flash. A final burst of green light just as the sun disappears below the horizon. In a collection of her diaries called Puerto Vallarta: My Memories, Catalina Montes de Oca de Contreras writes about staying on the beach after dinner, 100 years ago, hoping to catch it. Local lore says that if you do, your wishes come true. 

There is, I’m sure, a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation for the green flash. 

I don’t want to know it. 

I prefer the explanation to feel more like something you come across in an old book with a few of its pages missing. You don’t fully believe it. But you find yourself staring a little harder at the horizon anyway. Just in case.  

Puerto Vallarta is good at making you believe in things like that. 

I checked into Casa Kimberly, a hotel my driver called “the hidden hotel.” You really could walk right past it. Step inside, and the reverse is also true. The city disappears. 

The hotel is wrapped up in Puerto Vallarta’s old Hollywood mythology. The romance between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor intensified during the filming of The Night of the Iguana, and Burton eventually bought the house across the street and had a bridge built between them. I’d read Tennessee Williams’ play before arriving, which made walking across that bridge feel a little like walking through history. 

Casa Kimberly is a place in time as much as it is a place to stay. Romantic. Quiet. Luxurious. Like staying at a friend’s house… If your friend happened to own a mansion in the middle of Puerto Vallarta.  

The next morning, I traded luxury sheets for dirt and gasoline. 

I was driving a souped-up RZR through the mountains with River Park Tours, following my guide, Omar, around hairpin turns. 

The route took us across three bridges, past a waterfall, and up to Jorullo Point, a lookout painstakingly built by local farmers and landowners. For a few hours, I was a kid playing in the dirt again. Or maybe a spy disappearing through the jungle. 

That evening, I washed off the mountain and walked upstairs to The Iguana at Casa Kimberly for a martini and fish with asparagus, baby carrot, poblano mashed potato, and pineapple sauce.  

Pro Tip: The restaurant offers live mariachi performances Monday, Wednesday, and  Friday nights from November through April, and each Friday for the month of May. 

This became the rhythm of the trip. Get out in the elements. Get into my element. Repeat.  

The next morning, I boarded a yacht for a luxury snorkeling trip. Snorkeling’s meditative. Put your face beneath the surface and the world goes quiet. Below me, I saw colorful fish completely unconcerned with emails, deadlines, or return flights. 

Back on the boat, after a relaxing pit stop at the idyllic Majahuitas Beach, a little community started forming among the 20 or so passengers. A couple from Mexico City. Some Canadians. Honeymooners from one of the Carolinas. People I’d sit beside on a train back home without ever thinking of introducing myself. 

The rules are different here. There are fewer strangers in Puerto Vallarta. 

That night, Café des Artistes made me one of the best meals of the trip. Its famous cream of prawn and pumpkin soup (“a 35-year tradition”) is finished tableside with soup ladled from an actual pumpkin. I’ll admit. Pumpkin isn’t really my thing. It’s not something I would usually order. But that’s the difference between a good restaurant and a great one. The great chefs get you to love new things.  

For the second half of the trip, I moved to Hotel Mousai. Where Casa Kimberly is old-world romance, Mousai is colorful, modern, and slightly surreal. My balcony had an ocean view, a hammock, and a hot tub. The rooftop pool had the ultimate view. Some great tuna tostada, too.  

Hotel Mousai is everything you want from an all-inclusive, adults-only place. Fine dining. Fabulous views. Friendly guests. Impeccable service. At one point, someone in a white lab coat walked around the rooftop pool area cleaning guests’ sunglasses. It’s those tiny details that make it a hotel you’ll love instead of just heavily like.  

My final day was devoted to the spa at Hotel Mousai. Hydrotherapy, sauna, steam, cold plunge, then a massage that began with my feet being washed and a small rock placed in my hand during an intention-setting ritual. After spending a couple of days bouncing through mountains and swimming in the Pacific, I welcomed the transition to a calmer state.  

That night, I took one last boat ride to experience Rhythms of the Night, a strange and wonderful combination of jungle, dinner, and theatrical spectacle accessible only by water. 

Felt like the perfect ending. Nature and nurture one last time. 

I never saw the green flash. But at some point, I stopped looking for it.  

Pumpkin soup. Hairpin turns. Fish swimming beneath me. Strangers becoming friends. Freshly cleaned sunglasses by a rooftop pool. A little rock placed in my palm. These became my green flashes.  

Maybe that’s the magic of Puerto Vallarta. It’s a feeling as much as it is a place. It’s the feeling that there’s always a little more waiting on the horizon. It is the green flash.