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About Puerto Vallarta
In 1851 Guadalupe Sanchez, a boatman from Cihuatlan who used to bring salt from San Blas or the Marias Islands to Los Muertos beach, became weary of waiting for the muleteers to come and pick up the load. Sometimes it would take them days to reach this solitary spot. As he was still a young man of nineteen and had just gotten married, Guadalupe saw it fit to establish himself in this beautiful place he would call Las Penas. This, in a few words, could very well be the story of the founding of what we now know as Puerto Vallarta.
By 1918, enough people lived around the Rio Cuale to give the settlement a name on the map. The name Vallarta was chosen in honor of Ignacio Luis Vallarta, former governor of the State of Jalisco. On November 11, 1954, Mexicana de Aviacion airline inaugurated its flight Guadalajara-Puerto Vallarta. Aeronaves de Mexico (Aeromexico) had enjoyed the monopoly of the route to Acapulco but Mexicana found in Puerto Vallarta a destination to compete with the famous bay in Guerrero. Visitors started coming in from other Mexican Towns and from abroad. Among them, the famous movie director John Huston who wrote:
"When I first came here, almost 30 years ago, Vallarta was a fishing village of some 2000 souls. There was only one road to the outside world - and it was impassible during the rainy season. I arrived in a small plane, and we had to buzz the cattle off a field outside town before setting down!"
But it was not until a decade later, when John Huston chose the nearby deserted cove of Mismaloya for the shooting of the film version of Tennessee Williams' play the Night of the Iguana, that the town was put on the international map.
During the film's shooting, the paparazzi of Hollywood descended to report on every development of romance between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
In face of the growing demands of tourism, the need for an adequate response from authorities and investors became urgent, and the governor of Jalisco from 1965-1971, Francisco Medina Ascencio, was there to promote the change. Through his efforts Puerto Vallarta was outfitted with the infrastructure required of an urban development and a modern tourist destination.
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