Puerto Vallarta has quite an interesting History to say the least. There’s not much that has been documented about the area prior to the 19th century.
The most information prior to the 19th century was when in the 16th century, Hernán Cortés who led an expedition and was exploring the Pacific Side. He sent two of his ships North, exploring the coastlines, one of ships crashed and all but 3 men were killed supposedly. It’s to be believed that the bodies from the shipwreck were washing ashore and the Natives encountered them which gave the Beach of Puerto Vallarta the name of Playa Los Muertos which translates to Beach of the Dead.
How Puerto Vallarta came to be
The name came from Ignacio Vallarta who was a former governor of Jalisco. He graduated with a Law Degree from the University of Guadalajara in 1854. Ignacio was involved with the political debate between liberalism, Santos Degollado and traditionalism, Pedro Espinosa.
He fought in the Reform War and was involved in the French Intervention in Mexico.
There are two statues honoring Ignacio, one in Puerto Vallarta and the other in Guadalajara.
The then to the Now
Something that is new and keeps getting better is the transportation situation in Mexico. The Mexico government has invested heavily in getting transportation improvements and making it a more accessible travel destination. This includes creating the airport and the cruise line terminals, which is one of the main forms of income.
Puerta Vallarta had about 548,000 people from cruises visit in 20204, on average they racked up 909.9 million pesos or $48,079,116.00. They say that the average spending of a tourist is $80.64 according to Record-Breaking Cruise Tourism Boosts Puerto Vallarta’s Economy | visit-mexico.mx.
Weather what time to go
The weather in Puerto Vallarta varies from rain to sun, going at certain times of the year will affect what type of trip you’ll have. The rainy season goes from the middle of June through the middle of October, but most of the rain happens between July and September. The rest of the months the sun comes out to play and the average day will hit at least 86 °F.
Puerto Vallarta is prone to earthquakes. On 9 October 1995 an earthquake located off the Colima coast shook the crown from the top of the Roman Catholic Church.
Puerto Vallarta Still Has Active Issues
One main active issue is poverty, and that’s because of the constant employment seeking that happens. There are still some areas that are rural and have poor roads or sewer systems. Like Colonia Ramblases only has about 10% of their roads paved and they’ve been around since the 1940’s.
Puerto Vallarta has about 45,000 regular dwellings and about 10% of them do not have a potable water supply, %8 do not have connections to a sewer system and 4% do not have electricity.
There are unfortunately more issues, and they are a little scary sounding. Tourist are warned to be careful because scams have gotten more in-depth and bad; I would suggest if it isn’t with the cruise line like an excursion for an example, then I would be more on edge and cautious about vendors and prices.
Another problem that isn’t as serious is Tourist getting sick from eating uncooked food from Mexico. Something that not a lot of people know is that our body bacteria are not used to eating these other foods that have another bacteria makeup.
You can get really sick from eating fruit or anything that isn’t cooked because the bacteria or orgasms are still alive and active. It’s important to be cautious of what you put into your body when on vacation because we never know if our bodies can process it. You are generally okay to eat anything from an excursion if you do it through the cruise line because the excursions need to follow a certain guideline when they serve food.
Even though this all looks delicious and I bet it is, your stomach may have a bad reaction to it. Remember too that if you do get something cooked don’t put anything that isn’t cooked on or with it. Like with tacos don’t get the salsa or stuff like that. Just be safe and aware of the dangers that come with traveling to other places.
