San Sebastian Del Oeste

We stayed in Los Picos for one more night before going to a magic town in the mountains, San Sebastián del Oeste. Four years ago, we stayed for 3 weeks in the neighbouring town of Mascota but never made it to S.S., even though we wanted to. This is the year the “wind blew us” to this delightful town.

We once again relied on taking a taxi and then the ETN bus to Estancia and then another taxi. The whole trip took about 3 hours. San Sebastián is only about 50 m away from Puerto Vallarta on a winding, picturesque mountain road.

Our taxi came at 1 pm giving us lots of time to catch the 2:40 pm bus to Las Estancia. We met a delightful fellow Canadian, Christina, who had just been stung by a stingray in Puerto Vallarta! She was heading onward to Mascota so we were able to give her some tips.

The tropical vegetation of the coast began to give way to the landscape of the sierra that has forests of oaks, pine trees and a much cooler climate . After approximately an hour, we crossed the Progreso Bridge, an impressive work of engineering spanning a 425-foot-deep ravine. A couple of minutes later, we stopped in the bustling town of La Estancia de Landeros. We got out and easily got a taxi ($7 Cdn) to take us to San Sebastián.

Back on the road, we spent another 15 minutes on the winding and ascending road that leads to San Sebastián, a pueblo mágico situated 4,595 feet above sea level. We passed agave farms (for tequila) and coffee farms, as well as a chocolate factory.

We went through the welcome arch and drove on the main street lined with giant ash trees (fresnos), noticing the local architecture, the mansions and the colourful, stately buildings, a reminder of the wealth and importance of this place during its most prosperous period.

On entering the town, my first impression was that we were in an old time Mexican movie set. It didn’t look like a modern village in the 21st Century. Winding, cobblestone streets, old white and red adobe buildings, columned porticoes where some men were playing dominoes and drinking coffee, street dogs galore and lots of flowers. The main square has a lacey, French-style kiosco (bandshell) with gardens around it.

San Sebastián was once was the most vibrant zone of a mining and commercial town that grew to have a population of more than 20,000 in its heyday (today it has about 5,000). In fact, during the colonial period between the 17th and 19th centuries, it was one of the most important mining centers in the country, yielding great riches from the silver, gold and lead found here. That explains why there are so many mansions/haciendas in the town. Many of these big houses have been converted into boutique hotels.

There are 2 stone bridges in town, a straight one and a curved one. We originally wanted to stay in a hotel near the curved bridge but we found out it was being renovated so the driver took us to one called Los Arcos, right on the square. At one time, it was an old hacienda, which was later converted into a monastery and then a hotel in 1951. It has a restaurant on its porch and a large inner courtyard.

We ended up staying in one of the bedrooms/cells for 2 weeks and really enjoyed the friendliness of the people who worked here as well as the townspeople we met.Read more