Puerto Vallarta's main drawback, as far as I could see, is that the outstanding hotels—the Four Seasons Punta Mita, to the north, and a string of worthy properties along the otherwise undeveloped Costa Alegre, to the south—are too far away to be anything but destinations unto themselves.

Oh, and although I am generally a proponent of cultural diffusion, I can't help but ask, Does Puerto Vallarta really need a Hooters?

From Puerto Vallarta, I headed south along the Costa Alegre by rental car, a method of transport I would not necessarily recommend, considering (as I failed to do fully in my planning) that Mexico is no small place and that some of the terrain is very rough. The 170-mile, five-hour stretch to Manzanillo, though, was easy—all paved, well maintained, and guarded by a military roadblock or two—perhaps not coincidentally because of those resorts, which are some of the most exclusive, and reclusive, in Mexico.

I drove past the turnoffs for the Hotelito Desconocido (where you pony up considerable money for the privilege of not having electricity) and Las Alamandas (where you can avoid the bother of coming in by road by landing at its 3,300-foot airstrip). I aimed to spend the night at the more plebian—if that is a word which can be used of an accommodation whose least expensive room, in season, will set you back more than three hundred dollars—El Careyes Beach Resort and then go on the next day to El Tamarindo Golf Resort.

Although sharing the same management, the two properties have an entirely different feel. Tamarindo, with only twenty-nine bungalows, is an intimate hideaway (although to increase privacy, they really ought to thicken the foliage around the eight beachfront units). The Careyes is not huge—only forty-eight rooms, done in a cross between Mexican and Mediterranean folk style—but it's much busier, with a spa and a list of activities that includes polo, in case you feel the need to get in a chukker or two.

The Careyes sits on a small cove with its own private beach, one of the most ideal places for swimming that I would see. And the restaurant is no slouch either. The red snapper, served with a spicy garnish, was perhaps the best of several memorable meals on my journey. I'd have stayed to test the whole menu, but I was due in Dudley Moore country the next day.

Bo Derek famously jogged along the beach in Manzanillo in the movie 10 (supposedly set in Acapulco), and in the process did much to form the 1970s image of a Mexican resort. Since then, in my opinion, both Bo and Manzanillo have faded somewhat.

Although I did take some pleasure in waking to the sound of Mexican cadets calling out the cadence as they ran along the beach at dawn—and in then being able to roll over and go back to sleep—I found that, as a resort town, Manzanillo suffers from the presence of both naval and commercial shipping. Not that my impressions were entirely negative. Las Hadas, the grand-scale resort that was featured in 10, is aging well. The twenty-seven-hole course at the Grand Bay Hotel, north of the city, has helped Manzanillo garner a reputation as a good golf destination. Toscana, the beachfront dining spot of choice now that the owner's other restaurant, Willy's, was destroyed in a storm, is a pleasant spot for a meal. And of course I am grateful to the waitress at Toscana who steered me away from the shellfish: "How you say? Red tide."