Playa Mismaloya

The water reaches the shore in slow, clear waves. Green hills rise on both sides of a small cove. Wooden fishing boats rest near the sand, their paint faded by the sun. The air smells of salt and warm stone. Somewhere nearby, a small river slips down to meet the sea. This is Playa Mismaloya, a quiet beach a short way south of Puerto Vallarta.

The beach is short and gently curved. The sand is coarse and golden. Near the shore, the water stays shallow and warm, which makes it good for swimming. Behind the beach, the hills climb steeply and are thick with green trees. In front of you, the bay opens wide and flat toward the far horizon. The whole cove feels held and protected.

For most of its history, this was a small fishing settlement. A few local families lived here in simple homes near the river mouth. They fished the bay in open boats and pulled their catch onto this same sand. The road from Puerto Vallarta was rough and slow. Many spots along this coast could be reached only by water. So the cove stayed quiet and apart for a long time.

That changed in 1963. A film director named John Huston came to this stretch of coast. He was searching for a place to film a play by the American writer Tennessee Williams. The play was set in the resort of Acapulco. But Huston chose this remote cove instead. He was drawn to how green it was, and how cut off from the rest of the world.

The film was called The Night of the Iguana. Filming began here on September 23, 1963. It went on for seventy-two days, lasting until the end of November. Many of the scenes were shot in places that boats alone could reach. To house the cast and crew, workers built a small village of about twenty-five houses on the point above the beach.

The production drew famous actors to this small cove. Reporters and photographers followed close behind them. Stories about the filming, and about the people making it, spread far beyond Mexico. When the film reached cinemas on August 6, 1964, it carried the name of Puerto Vallarta out into the world. Many people say this single film is what first put the town on the map.

Huston himself grew attached to the region. He liked the fishing, the warm water, and the slow rhythm of the days. In later years he bought a home along this coast and came back often. The bond between the director and this part of Mexico outlasted the film by decades.

Today you can still find the remains of the film set on the rocky point at the southern end of the beach. Stone walls and rounded arches stand among the dry plants and vines. Weather and time have worn their edges soft. They look like old ruins now, though they are only a few decades old. It is a strange and quiet thing to walk among them.

Look out past the mouth of the cove. Small rocky islands rise straight from the water a little way offshore. This area is a protected marine zone. The sea around the rocks is clear and full of fish. Snorkelers and divers come here by boat to look beneath the surface, where the light falls in pale blue shafts.

The beach itself stays calm and unhurried. A few small restaurants serve fresh fish and cold drinks just back from the sand. You can sit in the shade of a palm roof and watch the boats come and go. Children wade in the shallow water near the river mouth. The pace here is gentler than in the town to the north.

Turn and look back at the hills behind the beach. They are steep and deeply green, and they fold down in long ridges to meet the sea. It is easy to understand why a filmmaker chose this exact spot. The setting feels wild and tender at once, both an edge of the jungle and a soft curve of shore.

The river that gives the beach its shape still runs down from those hills. In the wet season it swells and pushes sand into the bay. In the dry months it slows to a thin, clear thread. The land here is always quietly changing, shaped by water from both the river and the sea.

Mismaloya is a place where a sleepy cove met a brief moment of fame, and then settled back into its quiet. Stand at the water's edge for a while. Listen to the waves break and slide. The same sea that once drew a film crew across the world still moves against this sand, slow and patient, exactly as it did before.