View of the Pacific Ocean near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Photograph © Kip Ross

A Place Apart
By K.M. Kostyal

So you're soaking up the sun and the crafts and the margaritas in tony Puerto Vallarta, and suddenly it all becomes too much: the hip-chic crowd, the two-for-one happy hours, the where-to-eat-next decisions. Fret not, the escape from your Mexican-escape holiday is just down the Pacific coast: Playa las Animas—the Beach of the Souls—a tantalizing name for a superlative bit of beach beyond the reach of all roads.

To get to its sugar-soft sands, you can board a water taxi in Puerto Vallarta. But if an hour-long cruise with boisterous merrymakers—headed for other ports—doesn't sit quite right, you can follow Highway 200 south for a dozen miles or so, and at the point where it veers inland, you veer coastward to the little seaside village of Boca de Tomatlán. Along its thin beach, local children splash in the swimming hole. Their fathers wait beside their panga skiffs to ferry the likes of you to the isolated dreaminess of Playa las Animas.

A 20-minute putter along the coastline, and you're in sight of its palms, waving like flirtatious demimondes. Negotiating the swells that roller coaster the panga to shore, your ferryman beaches you and asks in broken English when you want to be picked up—no places to stay overnight here.

Pick out a beach chair at one of the handful of thatch-roofed restaurants and settle in for a day of wave watching and bodysurfing. When the waiter comes by, tell him that you'll be wanting the grilled red snapper and some homemade tortillas. You'll never taste snapper that's fresher, or more perfectly cooked. If you're feeling adventuresome, also ask for a bottle of raicilla; a moonshine squeezed from fermented agave root, this is some potent stuff. Sound a tad too audacious? Then try a fresh-baked pie—coconut, lemon meringue, pecan—sold by local ladies who walk their wares up and down the beach.

Follow the nearby path into the rain forest, where a shy waterfall dangles from a cliffside, and ocelots and monkeys doze somewhere in the green tangle of lianas, ferns, and palms. They might spot you, lazily, but you probably won't spot them. That's as it should be. After all, you're just a visitor to this beach of the souls.

Information: Visit www.mexico-travel.com. Playa Las Animas is about 15 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, on Mexico's Pacific coast.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.