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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Mexican village exudes a cacophony of life

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We went to Mexico on vacation, and found a community that lives and breathes the concept of doing business locally. That, of course, means we avoided any of the big tourist destinations, like Cancun, Acapulco, or Puerto Vallarta, where giant, foreign-owned hotels siphon away the vast majority of tourist dollars with their all-inclusive packages.

Such hotels, are essentially, American or European enclaves, that tie up vast swaths of prime Mexican beachfront, providing only limited, low wage employment for those local residents willing to suffer the regular abuses of too many gringos.

We found a much different, and far more inspiring experience in the small town of Sayulita, located on the Pacific coast about 30 miles north of Puerto Vallarta.

If you’re looking for the sanitized version of Mexico offered by the big resorts, you probably wouldn’t find Sayulita to your liking. It’s not your typical small Mexican town, as the throngs of people who poured into the place over the Christmas holiday, attested. But it has all of the hallmarks of the real Mexico, from the narrow and dusty cobblestone streets, to the wandering dogs, to the ever-present (especially at 3 a.m.) roosters.

Twenty-years-ago, Sayulita was a sleepy fishing village, when a few Americans who had begun to spend winters on its uncluttered beaches, decided that a few amenities, such as a little beachfront restaurant, might make the town more inviting. They were soon joined by other local residents, including Mexicans, who saw the potential of tapping some of the tourist dollars that were already apparent in nearby Puerto Vallarta. When a highway connecting Sayulita to Puerto Vallarta was built about a dozen years ago, the town took off, in its own unique and inspiring way.

No one seemed able to tell us how many people lived in Sayulita, although it wouldn’t have surprised me if there were 10,000 people, during the Christmas holiday, jammed into its streets, its inns, and its single, small luxury resort, recently built along a steep hillside on the south end of the main beach.

The streets were jammed most of the time with people, dogs, and cars of every make, model, and condition. While the noise got a bit grating, at times, to the ears of an American from the silent North, I recognized it for what it was— a cacophony of life. It was a joyous sound, as I had to remind myself many mornings at three a.m. when the music from the downtown plaza was still going strong. We stayed in an open-air apartment on the top floor of a modest house in downtown Sayulita, so the all-night parties in the plaza may as well have been going on in our living room. I had brought earplugs in anticipation, but they could only do so much.

In America, of course, the city council would have passed an ordinance to shut down the outdoor music at 10 p.m. But Sayulita has no city council, no planning commission, no zoning rules, and no police to enforce the rules even if they existed. They have no fire department, no newspapers, and what passes for mail service is a truck that rolls through town once a month carrying packages or letters. In a town with at least 50 restaurants, there’s no health inspector, and half the time the food is served at tables sitting in the street, in the midst of the dust and the traffic and the animals.

Sayulita is the virtual definition of anarchy, yet, amazingly, it all seems to work.

And much of it is thanks to a remarkable attitude by many in this small town. That “spirit of Sayulita” was, for me, best exemplified in the person of Vidal Prado, a young man (I’m guessing early 30s) who has become the local birding expert. My wife Jodi and I hired Vidal one day to take us birding near the old colonial town of San Blas, which is widely considered to be one of Mexico’s top birding destinations. When Vidal was still a kid, a man named “Chencho,” saw potential in him. Chencho, an internationally-known bird guide in the San Blas area, gave Vidal a couple bird books and a pair of binoculars, and told him if he would take the time to learn to identify all the local birds, he could make a living guiding others. Vidal followed his advice, and now is booked solid most of the six-month tourist season.

The birding on our trip was excellent, but what most impressed us about Vidal was his firm belief in the value of keeping the tourist dollars in local hands. And, by that, I don’t mean his hands, since the money he charged us for the trip to San Blas ended up in many pockets, including that of our driver, our boat operator, a locally-owned restaurant, and even to the little wildlife refuge that was raising crocodiles for release as part of a recovery effort. This little refuge, tucked back in the jungle and accessible only by boat, is where Vidal got his start, leading visitors on short tours for tips. The place gets no help from the government, or grants, and appears to exist mostly out of force of will. Vidal was hoping to increase the exposure of the facility in order to attract more visitors and generate a bit more revenue.

Vidal understood that the tourist dollars that were now flowing into Sayulita and nearby communities could improve the lives of his friends, family, and neighbors, but only if they remained in the local economy. While small town boosters in the U.S. often bemoan the appearance of a big box store in a nearby regional center, in Sayulita, residents were at least as upset over the appearance of a small chain-owned convenience store at the beach, as well as at the entrance to town, because they saw it as siphoning away too many tourist dollars.

Sayulita was, in many ways, a closed loop economy, in which almost everything sold came from a local artist, farmer, or fisherman. Virtually all of the inns, shops, and the seemingly endless array of small restaurants, were owned and operated by local residents, and they all seemed to share in the concept of communalism. The town works because the residents all have a stake in ensuring that it does.

It’s a shared philosophy that would be hard to re-create in a different setting. But here, where traditional Mexican villages are often large extended families, distinctly American notions of individualism and wealth are of little relevance or value. While many of the new Sayulitan business owners are American, they share, for the most part, the value system of their Mexican neighbors, and that helps make it all possible.

When an issue arises, certain people (they call them “vigilantes,” mostly because they are vigilant over their community) take steps to address it in a direct, but peaceful, manner. I have no doubt that the town has its share of conflicts simmering at a level we couldn’t detect in a short visit there, and with only limited Spanish-speaking ability. I do know that many are already concerned that over-development could spoil this unique little town on the edge of the Pacific.

But, overall, I was impressed and inspired by our experience in this remarkable community. It can be a bit rough around the edges at times, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone with mobility concerns, but I can honestly say I’ve never seen another place like it anywhere. I’m already eager to visit again.