Mismaloya

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Mismaloya is just down the road a few miles from Puerto Vallarta. It’s a small bay, with a big hotel on one side, where nobody is ever on the beach, and a string of shack restaurants on the other side that is full of people. We’ve been coming here forever. Ali floated around here pregnant with Ouest while her sister looked on in amazement at her giant belly, and my aunt swam in the Pacific Ocean for the first time here. While it may be touristy, we love it for its grungy, very Mexican, touristy-ness.

Look close. Those are all frogs in the lagoon behind the beach.

Rosy cheeks and salty hair mark the end of a good day.

Ouest, turning her Papa’s mannerisms into comedy gold.

Around 1999 we went on a cruise with eight friends. When the ship stopped in Puerto Vallarta, we grabbed a taxi van, asked him to stop and pick up a case of beer, and then take us somewhere fun for a few hours. He brought us to this place. A restaurant with a natural rock water slide, a rope swing, and a restaurant. It’s also famous as a filming location for the movie Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not quite up to par with Mismaloya beach at the bottom of the hill being famous for Night of the Iguanas with Richard Burton, who brought along his soon to be wife Liz Taylor. The movie, and the attention the two got while on set, are widely credited around here for taking P.V. from fishing village to international tourist destination.

Fortunately, Lowe came up laughing.

But after that he held on to my shorts like his life depended on it.

Ouest went down at least a hundred times. It’s the end of the dry season here, so the water wasn’t running nearly as fast as it will be a month from now, which I viewed as a good thing. Ouest, of course, thought we should come back then.

Hermie the hermit crab died. Crabby lives on, but not nearly as happily. We’re all going to miss her.

Out for another stroll around downtown P.V.

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10 Comments on “Mismaloya”

    1. That is Crabby. He was/is our active crab. Hermie was always more off on her own. Maybe always sick, maybe older, maybe not happy we took her away from her lover in New Jersey…

  1. Are you willing to share the location of the place with the rock slide (or maybe the restaurant name)? I’d love to check it out on my next trip!

  2. We’ve stayed in Mismaloya several times. Any word on the land battle with the locals being evicted south of the river?

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