Yelapa: Car-free village leaves visitors and residents free to take detours along the way
The plan was to meet at Pollo Bollo, Yelapa’s best restaurant. To get there, I’d have to plod through the sand, wade across a lagoon and slog uphill. But the pescado ajo would be worth it — unless I got waylaid by Charlie, the wide-roaming basset hound who had stolen my heart.
To love this car-free village on the Bay of Banderas, you need energy for walking, and a genuine affection for stray dogs. But unlike the thin canines shunned in most of Mexico, Yelapa’s dogs are revered. The communally owned hounds even have their own “healer”: volunteer veterinarian Pamela Rojas.
I flip-flopped toward Pollo Bollo, enjoying the
sabor — the flavor — of the village. Egrets stalked the shallows, and pelicans dive-bombed the bay. Beach bars filled with card-playing caballeros who downed blue agave moonshine (known as ricia) and listened to jukebox ranchera.
Charlie found me near the market and waited as I stroked the long faces of donkeys — still Yelapa’s traditional beast of burden.
Only two decades ago, the village had no electricity. To keep the margaritas and fish chilled, bags of ice were tossed ashore from Panga boats stocked in nearby Puerto Vallarta.
In those days, hippies strung hammocks in open-air houses called palapas. “I’d rather have a palapa in Yelapa,” Tshirts proclaim, “than a condo in Redondo.”
I never made it to Pollo Bollo, deciding to ruin my appetite with a slice of lemon creme from a local temptress known as “The Pie Lady.” The sun set while I tossed coconut husks into the surf for a fetching yellow Labrador, and treated Charlie to a belly rub.
My friends at Pollo Bollo understood. In Yelapa, endless diversions lead you off trail: A quick milk run leads to a game of kickball on the street; a hike to the Waterfall is delayed by a stop at Hortensia’s Tienda, where you can get corn slathered with butter, lime, chiles and cotija for five pesos — about 38 cents.
Once I set off to the coin laundry, only to find myself wading the lagoon at midnight after dancing cumbia at the disco — dirty laundry still in hand.
Whenever I return from Yelapa, my day planner and four-walled house seem like a cage. What would I give to spin sun-drunk again to the lovesick riffs of Vicente Fernandez? To forge a knee-deep river for another plate of pescado ajo? To see Charlie again?
There are people who have given it all. You will see them on Yelapa’s beaches, eyes closed, absorbing the Mexican sun. Like dogs that caught a scent, and never made it home.