Sayulita, Nayarit: Paradise Found or Paradise Lost?

One day I arrived early at a party. Two of my friends were watching a show called Bachelor in Paradise. I noticed that the place where the show was filmed looked oddly familiar: the style of houses, the landscape, and especially the sunset. So I looked up the internet, and found out that I saw the same sunset just a couple months ago on the seashore of old Mexico, in a village called Sayulita.

Main Beach of Sayulita

The center of Sayulita

Colorful Sayulita

Local legends say that the beginning of Sayulita as a popular tourist destination is closely related to another place not far from there. Once upon a time, there was a quiet fishing town called Puerto Vallarta. In the 1950s, Puerto Vallarta became a place for escapists, beach hippies and artists from the United States to get around the society overshadowed by the Korean War and McCarthyism. Then travel agents, airlines, tour operators, and the government found out about the potentials of Puerto Vallarta. Decades later, Puerto Vallarta became one of the biggest mainstream vacation spots in Mexico that rivals cities like Cancun and Acapulco. 

Sometimes you can still find the old Sayulita in the wee hours of early morning, before most tourists get up

Or you can go a bit further away to get a taste of old Sayulita

A back street in Sayulita

Still, you can find the old village at the most unexpected spots in Sayulita

Many who once enjoyed the tranquility of Puerto Vallarta were looking north to find their new escapist paradise. Then they found Sayulita: also a fishing village, but with perfect surfing conditions. Because the location of the village is not  too close to Puerto Vallarta, it survived the constructions of massive resorts in the so called "Riviera Nayarit" region. The village remained quaint and relatively untouched in compare to the nearby Nuevo Vallarta or Bucerias.

Unlike Cancun or Puerto Vallarta, many businesses in Sayulita, like this one, are probably not owned by companies based in the United States

Everything changed as the way people travel changed. People got tired of packaged vacations and decided to DIY their whole trip with the helps of smartphone apps like Uber and Airbnb. All of sudden the village saw a huge influx of tourists. Constructions focusing on high-end homes and boutique hotels made the real estate in Sayulita comparable to those in wealthy parts of the United States. The population, both permanent and temporary, exploded as a result. 

Crowded streets of Sayulita

Crowded beach in Sayulita

A bustling street in Sayulita

In the early hours of the day, you can spot large amount of garbage left by the previous night's party scene

However, while the hype for the village was here, the basic facilities and infrastructure that would help the village to sustain such big population, was not. It all started out with tourists complaining getting sick and claiming that the town had "sickness" in its air. Then the local authorities found out that the main beach of Sayulita was heavily polluted - because most of villages in coastal Mexico had no water treatment systems - all sewage were simply pumped directly into the ocean. To save the new tourist economy of this former fishing village, business owners and the local government raised money and built a small water treatment plant. 

Playa de los muertos, or "beach of the dead" is a relatively quieter alternative to Sayulita's main beach

What makes Sayulita different from Puerto Vallarta is that although both places have "beach of the dead", the one in Sayulita does actually have a cemetery which you have to pass in order to reach the beach.

While tourism certainly helped the area to be more developed, many others, especially original residents who could no longer afford to live in Sayulita and the first generation of gringo beach hippies, moved to other less developed communities the same way Vallarta people did decades ago. To them, pristine environment in a rustic village is a way of life. Yet many tourists who heard about how good Sayulita was expecting it to be more than just a village in a developing country. The result? The local community and businesses face comments expressing that someone's supposedly perfect holiday in Sayulita was nothing but a "mistake". What would happen? Either it drives more potential tourists (money) away, or it will lead to more constructions and developments....

Yes, you will see kids selling food in Sayulita. At the same time you will also see more meaningful relationships between vendors and customers. In this picture, the vacationer shared his bungee cord with curious "local business operators"

Whether it's a good thing that more and more people find out about Sayulita (or in this case, somebody's "secret paradise"), I'll let you make the call.  Yes, more visitors will lead to the place to be more developed. The quality of vacation will be consistent as there will be less "surprises"that will make someone, especially those who were not aware that they were going to a rustic village in a third world country. Also Yes, development will totally change the lifestyle and landscape of the place. It will make people feel indifferent about the location and come up something like "Santa Monica in Mexico" or "Santa Fe by the Sea". The real reason why people fell in love with Sayulita in the first place, might be buried under the golden sand of the once pristine beach forever.