If I’d known I would end up living in Arizona, I should have studied Spanish at school, rather than French and German. Where I sit is about 180 miles from the Mexican border, and it heavily influences the local culture, from food through music (as we can hear if we open our windows on a Saturday night) through to lucha libre. But despite the relative proximity, my sole experience of Mexico had been a couple of days in Rocky Point. That resort bears about as much similarity to the “real” country, as Taco Bell does to authentic Mexican cuisine. However, inspired by YouTube videos – and I freely admit, that might have been a mistake – we ventured deep into the interior of Mexico, to the town of Sayulita. For a visit, but perhaps with a view to permanent residency, if we liked it.

The trip involved a two and half hour flight from Phoenix down to Puerto Vallarta, in the province of Nayarit. From there it’s about an hour’s drive north-east to Sayulita. There are various options, including Uber, the local bus (fare: about three bucks) or a private car-hire. We went for the last named, and on arrival went looking for our driver, Ivan. Doing so, however, requires you to run the gauntlet of a pack of feral – we’ll use that word again – operators who lurk outside arrivals at the airport, ready to prey on anyone who shows the slightest bit of doubt as to their destination or how to get there. Fending them off required relentless, firm and frequent usage of the most important Spanish phrase for a foreign tourist in Mexico: “No, gracias.”

Ivan eventually located, we headed into the wilderness on the road to Sayulita. Well, initially, the wilderness was of the industrial kind, but we emerged from the city, into what turned surprisingly quickly into old-school tropical jungle. The kind where, if your car fell off the side of the road, it probably wouldn’t be found again, except by future generations of archaeologists. We arrived in Sayulita, population about five thousand, where everybody had showed up in their cars to greet us. Or as we realized later, it just seemed that way. This was not a town built for cars, with basically no roads wide enough to pass and cobblestone streets. Add to that: our apartment complex was half-way up the side of an urban mountain, and our hosts had considerately provided a bowl of ear-plugs by the bed. Concern was reaching Vacation Threat Level Orange.

Let’s go out and get dinner. We found a nice-looking restaurant with outside dining, and settled in. We then discovered that any such location was inevitably accompanied by two things: feral dogs and feral children (told you that word would be back!). The former were soliciting scraps; the latter selling anything from corn on the cob to candy. At least the kids understood “No, gracias”. The canines did not, and kept staring at you with eyes which were somewhere between, “You gonna eat that?” and “I could gnaw your face right off, y’know.” I would have checked on my phone whether rabies was widespread in Mexico, but the roaming data service by T-Mobile in Sayulita wouldn’t load any site constructed after 1988. Still, you’ll understand why Chris was contemplating rebooking our flight home to, like, tomorrow morning.

Next day, however, the culture shock had worn off, and we discovered the town did not suck as initially feared. It is certainly touristy, and I suspect the prices get marked up accordingly. But even marked-up, things still were cheap by American standards. I’ll use my go-to metric here of a beer in a restaurant, which was typically around 60 pesos, less than four bucks. The food was similarly reasonable and very tasty: for obvious reasons, Phoenix has some pretty good Mexican restaurants, but literally everything I ate during our stay was top-notch. We did stick to “proper” restaurants, not being entirely sure about the health department status of the numerous street food vendors. You’d probably get away with it, but why risk spinning the Wheel o’ Gastrointestinal Disorders?

If Montezuma’s Revenge had struck, you’d have been well sorted for drugs. If restaurants and bars are the two top industries in Sayulita, third is very clearly pharmacies, which were literally everywhere. One day, the breakfast place we were eating at, had a pharmacy on each side, and one of those had another, on the far side of it. When people refer to the “Mexican drug cartels”, perhaps this is what they mean? They’re just like Boots or Walgreens, present on every street corner? We’re not just talking aspirin and cough medicine either. Rules about what you can buy are considerably more lax, as the picture (right) shows. But there’s a weird dichotomy at play here. Sure, you can buy Xanax or Human Growth Hormone over the counter. But a bag of crisps comes with multiple stern government health warnings, telling you about the excess salt, saturated fats and calorific content. Go figure.

It was pretty humid, an inevitable result of being beside the Pacific Ocean. While the temperature was a good 10 C cooler than Phoenix, it didn’t take long for the sweat to start trickling down your back. This might have merited a cooling dip in the ocean, but… nah. We’re good. I’m a land mammal, and there are too many things trying to injure me in the water. Jellyfish. Sting-rays. Sharks. Hell, the water itself, because Sayulita’s main beach had a bit of a dodgy reputation as recently as February. Again, we decided to err on the side of caution. Had we been there longer, we would probably have tried heading out of town, and checking out quieter beaches along the coast. But we simply adopted a low-key approach, involving naps. Lots of naps. We certainly gained a new appreciation for the siesta, and thoroughly endorse its merits in this kind of climate. Good rule of thumb: one hour outside = one hour of sleep.

By the end of the four days, I think we’d come to like Sayulita, certainly much more than we expected on the first night. We only needed the earplugs once – oddly, on the Sunday night – and have to say, every person we interacted with was friendly and helpful, a genuine pleasure. [Might have helped that Chris speaks Spanish like a native. I… can just about ask for the bill, or directions to the library. If given sufficient warning and a downhill start] It was quite crowded, even though this is apparently the off-season. Winter is when it gets really busy, and I dread to think what it’s like then. As a holiday destination, it gets a thumbs-up, provided you know what to expect. But any plans to move there permanently have firmly been consigned to the bonfire of “Things that only seem a good idea on YouTube”, alongside getting a baby monkey and doing stand-up comedy.