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An emblematic element full of stories, which over the years has served as a link between the sea and the mainland. The Muelle de los Muertos has witnessed great beginnings and nostalgic farewells.
By José Alfonso Baños France
When we were children, almost all Vallartans lived in downtown Puerto Vallarta. My family and I arrived in this beautiful bay in 1972. After living in various places, we ended up living in an apartment on Juárez street at the corner of Agustín Rodríguez street, near the Cuale river municipal market.
From the balcony, you could contemplate the sea and the sunsets that surprised us daily, before "modernity" arrived and the Juárez parking lot irremediably blocked the landscape of the entire area.
My preschool education took place in the Emiliano Zapata kindergarten, having as a roof the shade of the very tall mango trees, which then stood out everywhere in the “Romantic Zone”. I also remember the silhouette of the Ejidal House, which stood with its high tile roofs, one block from my kindergarten.
Attending that kindergarten was one of the experiences that I treasure in my memory. The love and attention that teachers like Amparo Topete or Laurita Torres lavished on us was invaluable. In those yesterdays, Puerto Vallarta had good living conditions, characterized by a safe community of familiar and friendly people.
At the end of the classes, Georgina, the girl who helped with the housework, would pick me up. The meal was spent with the family, in those times when time was abundant. I was fortunate to live with my parents and my brother Fernando, two years older than me. Since I usually didn't have to do chores, we spent the afternoons in the street, playing with friends and enjoying the natural wealth of the Cuale River, the trees and the mountains.
One of our favorite activities was swimming across the Cuale River, leaving the north bank in the direction of the Molino de Agua hotel, where a fragment of jungle with rubber trees and traditional houses with portals rose, a place full of wildlife and macaws. , that caught the attention of any child. A place that was overwhelmed by the "progress" and the "boom" of the real estate market.
The Pier of the Dead, the great memory of my childhood in Puerto Vallarta
Most of the time we crossed each other swimming because the “new” bridge had not yet been built, which now joins the Center with the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood through Ignacio L. Vallarta street. Arriving at the other shore, we walked along the sand to the old Los Muertos beach pier, which stood defiantly with a platform of wooden staves through whose cracks you could see the bottom of the sea. Our greatest illusion was to fish, using modest means, giving a renewed use to the Cloralex boats, putting line, weights, bait and hook to see if we managed to secure any distracted fish. In those fabulous afternoons, we were building and affirming our love for this terroir. We simply allowed ourselves to be seduced by the fragments of mountains contained in the infinity of the sea...
Today, when I return to the pier, I am assailed by the nostalgia of my childhood. Although much of the landscape remains as it was 45 years ago, I have to scratch my memory to recognize the places that are gone forever. Those that remain to us like pieces of a puzzle without instructions and without meaning. The mountains that covered the landscape of those times, today have been covered by the silhouette of tall buildings and hotels. Nowadays, people are rarely seen fishing on this pier and it is almost impossible to use it as a diving board.
In 2013, the old pier of the dead was replaced by the New Pier that measures 665 square meters. It is made up of a pedestrian walkway and a modern metallic structure that resembles a ship's sail that is illuminated at night and that connects with a circular square. A structure that has now become a Vallarta icon in the same way, but that is far from the old wooden pier that framed our childhood adventures in those years. The good thing is that the constant visit of tourists and Vallarta to this beach still remains. By the way, one of the most traditional and which we still call the beach of "Los Muertos", when it should be called the beach of the living; for the joy and the great moments, which he has always given us over the years.
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