Cabo Corrientes: measuring absence

Cabo Corrientes is a municipality covering more than 2,000 square kilometers with a population of only 9,000.  Neighboring Puerto Vallarta is also a "municipio," but it has only two-thirds the area of its neighbor, Cabo Corrientes, to the southwest and instead of 2,000 people, it has more than 350,000 residents.  The municipality of Puerto Vallarta has a population of about 269 persons per square kilometer which is about 60 times the population density of Cabo Corrientes.  

The secluded beach at Playa Amor, Mayto. © David Kimball, 2013

El Tuito: the Center Point for Travel to the Beaches of Cabo Corrientes

It takes about 45  minutes to drive from El Tuito to the closest beach locations such as Mayto, Tehuamixtle or Villa del Mar. 

But the time required to reach any of these beautifully desolate beaches will soon be magically shortened.   The passable 44 km road from El Tuito to the Mayto coastal area, for example, will be comfortably paved by the end of 2015, according to the Municipal Headquarters in El Tuito.  (Before then, caution is advised in the June – October rainy season).  The drive to all of the Cabo Corrientes beaches from El Tuito will become shorter, faster, less expensive and safer as pavement takes over from the gravel surface.

 Beach Routes from Tierra Alta

Beaches of Cabo Corrientes

Cabo Corrientes and its open Pacific coastline have formed wide, sweeping, scalloped beaches that are more temperamental than Vallarta’s grand old bay.   In fact, many of the beaches along the Cabo Corrientes coast are easier to reach by car than by boat.  But if you know the simple, common sense driving routes that take you from El Tuito through the rugged mountain landscape of Cabo Corrientes, you can arrive at a world of wild, untouched beaches that seem quite unrelated to the domesticated waters of Banderas Bay.

Beach at Mayto

Playa del Amor, Mayto
A small beautiful beach at Mayto.  It feels private but can be reached by going to the Rinconcitos Hotel.

Tehuamixtle

There is a swimming beach and oyster farms right in front of  the beach.

Playitas Beach 

Strange and beautiful rock formations on an empty beach.

Aquiles Serdan Beach

From Banderas Bay to Cabo Corrientes

There are times that Banderas Bay seems like a relatively safe theme park for seafarers who don’t really want to go to sea.   Banderas Bay seems to have been artfully designed for vacations and retirement.  It seems to have been invented for people who believe they have suffered enough, so bring on the paradise, now, please.

But as you leave the urban confines of Vallarta, the realities of tropical Mexico are always close at hand. If you drive 25 minutes west from Vallarta along coastal Highway 200, you will cross into the Cabo Corrientes municipality just past Boca de Tomatlan.   The road abruptly leaves the coast, swings due south and inland toward the town of El Tuito in the Sierra Madre Mountains.  The winding road climbs into the pine and oak forests and you will begin to notice that, by contrast to the dense human landscape of Vallarta, there is just a thin scattering of people in the clustered settlements along the road.  You are in Cabo Corrientes.

Map of Puerto Vallarta and Cabo Corrientes Municipalities

From: Mexconnect.com