As we left the marina in Paradise Village we decided to go to Yelapa, a small beach town of 1500 residents that lies in the southernmost cove of Bahía de Banderas. We saw several pods of whales along the way and had to stop for one whale who crossed our bow. This is whale season. The whales come to give birth in the warm, protected waters of Banderas Bay.
There are no cars or roads in Yelapa so the only way to get here is by boat. It’s a rolly anchorage so we won’t be staying here long. Panga boats come and go all day long bringing tourists from Puerto Vallarta to spend the day at the beautiful beach.
We heard Yelapa has two waterfall hikes. The closest waterfall is a short hike to the village only 10 minutes from the beach. The other hike is a 5 mile roundtrip hike through the jungle and starts at the North end of the beach. We decided to do both. Directions to the jungle waterfall are only by word of mouth. We were at a beach cantina inquiring about directions when a friendly, older gentlemen who introduced himself as Johnny Banana, sat down at our table and willingly gave us directions for the jungle hike.
After hiking for 45 minutes we clearly were on the wrong path. After reaching several dead ends we turned around when a lady named Joyce appeared. She asked us in English where we were headed and we explained to her the directions we had received to hike to the jungle falls. She asked if we got our directions from Johnny Banana and we said “yes”. She laughed and didn’t say any more. Johnny obviously doesn’t know his left from his right so the directions were backwards (we should have been suspicious when he told us his name). It seems to have missed a turn and we were headed in the wrong direction. We took Joyce up on her offer to take us to the waterfall. She was a great guide. She took us through jungle brush, over boulders, we waded through the river in a few spots, climbed over stumps, through soft sand banks, and around stray donkeys who were standing in our path. She provided an informative narrative of all the flora and fauna along the way. We ended up hiking both directions with her and learning about her interesting life teaching yoga in Yelapa. Fun facts about Joyce: she stands on her head every morning for 10 minutes and walks 5 miles through the jungle to take a bath in the river every morning. Joyce is 70 years old. People come from all over to attend the yoga retreats here in Yelapa.
Nothing is nicer after hiking but to sit on the back of our boat and dangle our feet in the tropical water. There is a lot of surge and soft sand so its impossible to land our dingy on the beach. So we’ve had to use the water taxi’s. We give them a call on the VHF radio and they pick us up at our boat and run us to shore and back.
We will need to stay a second night tonight since we got back to the boat just before sunset and its about a 3 hour sail to La Cruz and we don’t want to arrive late and anchor in the dark.
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