A La Penita Vacation with Ghosts

- By Susan J. Cobb

La Penita Hilltop Ocean View

La Penita de Jaltemba is a charming beach town but not in the touristy sense. Its Pacific Ocean edge is marked by moss covered, wave-battered remains of large houses, victims of Hurricane Kenna, which in 2002, swept away a way of life, along with bricks and mortar. What remains are ghosts: a pair of seahorses atop two pedestals mark the entrance to what was once the malecon, a seaside walkway that residents are assured will be rebuilt “someday.” There is one, and only one, restaurant directly on the beach. The bright parasols of Las Brisas draw locals and tourists on Thursday morning market days. The food is good and they stay.

To walk south along this beach requires climbing up and over the ruins of spacious patios, skirting the footings of what were once walled gardens. Sand-smoothed fragments of tile, stone, and glass provide materials for local mixed media artists. Photographs are best taken at sunset, when light and shadow lend charm and intrigue to what may look harsh and shabby at midday. This is “the real Mexico,” travelers say. The boats drawn up on shore are not for excursions but for local fishermen.

La Penita Hilltop View North

To walk north on the beach is to end up in a place of more ghosts. El panteon viejo, the old graveyard, melts down to the shallow beach at the north end of town. Crypts and stones tilt at odd angles. What secrets are hidden in the sand? The graveyard sits at the foot of a cuesta, an outcropping of black lava rock, a solid base to four or five elegant vacation homes entrenched high above, escaping the waves but not escaping the ghosts. The inn at Casa de los Amigos welcomes paying corporeal guests. Could there be a better place to read a mystery novel or begin writing one?

On the north side there stretches at least 7 kilometers (4 miles) of unobstructed palm-fringed, golden sand beach. At the end, hard up against the base of el cocodrilo, the snout-nosed landmass that crouches at the northern end of Bahia Jaltemba Bay, is Boca de Naranjo. Here there are more ghosts. The frayed and sun-bleached remains of a dozen or so beach palapa restaurants scatter this remote section of beach.  Once a nice place to sit for hours, drinking Pacifico beer and watching whales pirouette and play off shore, a development company evicted the restaurants with plans to build a resort there – someday.

Rincon de Guayabitos Ocean View

If you go by foot, take water, a hat, and sunscreen, since you can easily lose time when ghosts are involved. My teenaged nephew found that out several years ago.  His Sunday morning excursion from our home in Rincon de Guayabitos (I’ll-be-back-in-an-hour-or-so-Aunt-Susan) turned into a rite of passage. Was it ghosts that drew him on and on, enticing him to hike all the way to the base of el cocodrilo? He returned late in the afternoon, sunburned and dehydrated, but as he confided later, with a new perspective on life. Going and coming he had contemplated the ghosts of La Penita.

Things here today can vanish with a breaking wave. Nothing lasts forever except the memories.  Instead of returning to college the next semester, my nephew joined a carnival and traveled through the States for two years, living “full out,” gathering memories that would last a lifetime. Back into his studies now, he still counts that day on Bahia Jaltemba Bay as a pivotal time. Walking with ghosts can sometimes bring the living to life.

For a unique experience, take a La Penita Vacation on the reminiscent shores of Bahia Jaltemba Bay in the Riviera Nayarit, Mexico.