Estado de Nayarit Hotels Reviews, Tips, Photos

Many wonderful features of this incredible house, but a couple of negative things that potential visitors should be aware of. More on both the positives and negatives below.

In April 2007 my wife and I and two other couples stayed at this absolutely beautiful villa located on the north end of the beach at San Pancho (whose official name is San Francisco), a wonderful little village about a 45 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. San Pancho is a wonderful, quiet little town with some nice shops, a mile-long beautiful beach (though the surf is too rough for swimming), great restaurants and good hiking.

First, the positives, which on balance outweighed the negatives. A lot of thought and attention went into the house and its beautiful grounds, so that the three main bedrooms are each very private--neither next door nor on top of each other. The various villa rental web pages for La Casa Palapa really don't do it justice in this regard, in that even the smallest of the three is quite nice. Like the other two, it has its own bathroom, private outdoor shower and outdoor sitting area.

The living area is outdoors but covered by a huge palapa, and flows into an equally nice uncovered seating area, which in turn is bordered by a great infinity pool. To supplement the outstanding views, including of sunset, we frequently saw formations of pelicans, frigates and other birds drifting overhead as they made their way up and down the coast. Yet another nice feature of the house is that the entire water system is filtered, so no worries about getting stomach bugs. If you don't mind a bit of a steep walk returning to the house, it is a five-minute stroll to the beach and to the north end of town--though the part of town where most of the shops and restaurants are is perhaps another 15-20 minutes away by foot. (I use the next section, Unique Qualities, to describe the negatives.)

The negatives of La Casa Palapa are that at its current pace the house that's being built right next door to it, and just a few feet away from its pool, will cause construction noise until at least mid-2008 and, after it's finished, will block part of La Casa Palapa's view. (Hard to say yet how much it will block, since construction is still in its early phases and part of the new house is somewhat downslope from La Casa Palapa. Part of the view looking up the beach is already blocked by the new house, however.) Plus two of the bedrooms are quite close to the new house and the current construction. We were not pleased that the owner had not told us about this beforehand, especially since the appeal of the place is partly its privacy and quiet and he was there just before were, but to his credit he gave us a partial refund (without our asking for it) after we voiced our displeasure. I don't want to overplay the noise--it was not constant pounding, and the workers were nice enough to turn down their radio when we asked--but it did go on for at least ten hours per day, except weekends.

A few much more minor things to be aware of are that: the tv monitor for playing DVDs is adequate but on the small side--though most folks probably won't want to spend much of their time in front of the tv; the internet connection is slow and spotty; and we did see a couple of scorpions, though they are not aggressive--you do want to check the sofa cushions and your clothes and shoes to make sure you avoid them. I know that the notion of scorpions is scary, but we got used to checking for them pretty quickly. Some might feel differently, especially if they have young kids.

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