Another day comes to and end in San Pancho, Mexico
“Come, sit down, just relax and enjoy. Isn’t it beautiful? If the world is coming to an end, let it be this way, bro!” Max lies down on the beach next to a palm tree. In front of him is a deep blue Pacific Ocean getting ready to absorb the last rays of sun; it is as calm as its name. Behind him, a mile-long almost deserted beach stretches out. Max’s bright green eyes are fixed on the horizon and his blond long hair, combed in braids, is playing in the wind. The orange-yellow surf board that accompanies him is resting next to a six pack of Indio-brand beers.
“Life could not be sweeter,” sighs the 32-year-old PhD student from Connecticut softly, before closing his eyes and repeating an om-shanti-om like-sounding mantra. Max is certainly at his own personal zenith – just as the rest of the people around this hidden little town seem to be.
Officially San Francisco, but almost universally San Pancho – in Mexico, people, places, pets and even drug lords are often known by their short names – is a somnolent little town of less than 1, 500 inhabitants, located less than 30 miles north of Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit. Until recently, San Pancho was all about traditional fishing families and siesta-filled afternoons. “Here nothing really happens,” Don Julián, a 67-year-old born and raised in San Pancho, says with a big, inviting and toothless smile. “Our days are a succession of low and high tides. We do not have much but we have exactly what we need.”
And for what one can see around, Don Julián might just be right. Being born or living in San Pancho is in itself a great gift; one needs not much more to be happy. The perpetually smiling faces of children and adults alike are a good barometer of that.
But things are changing. San Pancho is just one of a number of small, previously off-the-radar Mexican coastal Pacific towns that are triggering the attention of a new kind of tourist, molded by 21st century expectations. Max, the blissed-out PhD student, is representative of the kind of people that San Pancho attracts. “Yes, man, San Pancho is all about authenticity and that’s what I’m eager to consume as a traveler,” says Max, before going back to his karmatic limbo next to the palm tree.
San Pancho also stands as the perfect example of just how inexact the travel advisories issued every now and then about the United States’ southern neighbor really are - despite the worries around Mexico’s years-long fight against organized crime, San Pancho as safe as a nuclear bunker.
“The only shots we have in San Pancho are those coming from a tequila bottle,” says a laughing Don Julián, who despite his age, never misses his two filled-to-the-top glasses of the agave-distilled liquor right before going to bed. (“It is the best remedy against old age ailments, you know,” he says, winking.)
San Pancho is never too cold in winter nor unbearably hot in summer but just lovely in spring time – when the town’s cozy bed and breakfasts, cabanas and hostels get ready to receive a sizeable number of American youngsters for their spring break vacation. But don’t let the thought of squealing Americans put you off; San Pancho has something that even hormonal young people can’t spoil. You have the Four Seasons and St. Regis in Baja and Cancun, the hippie-loving nudist beaches in Oaxaca and the yacht-filled ports in the Yucatan. But what San Pancho provides is just not attainable anywhere else: Pure old style Mexico, good tequila and all the time in the world.
