The Chonchos Journal
Field notes from Los Chonchos.
Not a blog, and nothing you need to subscribe to. These are the long answers to the questions people ask us before they come — whale season, the crossing, provisioning, and what living without walls is actually like.
Written once, properly, so nobody has to email us for an answer we could have published. Each one takes a question people genuinely type into a search box and answers it the way we would answer it in person.
Wildlife
When is whale season in Puerto Vallarta?
They are in the channel that runs straight past the decks here from the end of October to late March. Month by month, what is actually in the water — and why a breach is a bonus, not a promise.
Getting here
How do you get to Los Chonchos?
Two ways in, both of them unusual. Times, costs in pesos, what a wet landing involves, and what happens when the swell is too high to land.
Food
Provisioning in Puerto Vallarta before you go off-grid
There are no shops where you are going. What to buy the night before, what travels an hour on open water, and the three things every guest wishes they had brought more of.
Living here
What is it like to sleep in an open-air palapa?
No walls on the ocean side means hummingbirds through the room and an iguana on the deck. It also means insects. The honest version, before you book a house without walls.
Choosing
How remote is too remote?
No road, no shop, no doctor, no card machine. A short set of questions that tells you honestly whether a roadless beach is the vacation you actually want.
Living here
Off-grid without roughing it
Solar power, gravity-fed spring water and a gas stove add up to hot showers and cold beer. What off-grid actually costs you in comfort, and what it does not.
Six bungalows, and whale season goes first.
The rate is the same all year, so booking early costs you nothing and gets you the months everybody wants.