San Sebastien del Oeste and La Bufa
The rainy season in Bucerias does drag on. Luckily, regular Happy Hours with good friends are therapeutic and help us deal with the endless heat, humidity and rain. Somehow the idea of getting away for a couple of days trumped the usual talk about how hot it is. How about…why not…where would we go, morphed into when are we going to San Sebastien del Oeste. How about Tuesday? See you guys at 11am.
Away we went. Going Tuesday, staying overnight, coming back Wednesday. Apparently an easy 1 1/2 hour drive. The easy part ended about 20 minutes east of Vallarta. Up a hill around a hairpin curve, up another hill, around another curve. You get the idea. That beautiful canopy of trees over the road? The shadows hide topes, and a myriad of potholes. Things you could lose your car in! Remember it is rainy season, and roadwork waits until the passing of tropical summer. Kelly, Mark, and Jacqueline enjoying the scenery, me, the driver, focused on my white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel.
We came upon the sign for Villa Cocoa. Have to be almost there. This is the same Villa Cocoa as the shop in Bucerias, and is 1 km outside the village. Sure enough, a few minutes later we parked at the village square. Not sure how to describe the village. Historically preserved…not really. Authentic…I suppose. Unchanged…for sure! The village was founded in 1605, and the church was built in 1607. They managed to get this accomplished without the benefit of master plans, official plans, and zoning bylaws.
We wandered around the village square, found a place for lunch, and after some more wandering found a hotel for the night.
The door to our room locked outside or inside with a padlock. Trick is to be on the same side of the door as the locked padlock.
On our checklist: we got here; we found comida and bebidos; and we have accommodation. Just have to get a tour to La Bufa.
San Sebastien del Oeste is an elevated valley in a truly mountainous area. Everywhere we looked were towering elevations in the deep green of rainy season. Late afternoon the clouds/fog settled in and the hills disappeared.
Preparing For Tacos on the Street – An Evening Staple in Any Town
La Bufa
La Bufa is situated on top of the mountains, with access by ATV, or a 4×4. As always in Mexico, someone always knows someone. In this case the owner of the hotel knew someone who would take us to the top. He will be here at 10 am. Everyone laughs about Mexican time, right? Jesse, our tour guide, showed up at 9:59 in an older truck with bench seats in the back. Here we go!
Passed through the village and gradually began ascending.
Then our journey began to change. Rainy season, right. The narrow winding, switchback after switchback, many portions of the road washed out, rockslides, places where Jesse got so close to the side of the road where we could look straight down. The entire gamut of emotions, euphoric, mildly euphoric, no longer euphoric, concern, grave concern, terror. Anyway an hour and a half later we reached the top. Spectacular views. No question about that.
Jesse is now ready to take us back down the mountain. For a little while we have been able to forget about how we got here.
The ride down featured all the switchbacks, washouts and looking over the edge places except that Jesse wanted to get back to town. We were half an hour getting back. Oh well.
After a delicious lunch we said goodbye to San Sebastien del Oeste, and started our return to Bucerias. When we turned onto Avenue Las Palmas in Bucerias there was a silent cheer in the car as we all realized we would likely survive to see another day. The four of us remain friends.
Many thanks to Mark and Jacqueline Spink for contributing photos…and for a ton of fun!
Dennis, your description of the trip was so interesting we felt we were with you and pleased to make it back. Thanks for the story and the pictures. Barrie Ont.