San Blas, Mexico was founded in 1531 as a busy port of call for the Spanish navy. In the late 1700s over one hundred Spanish families were sent to settle there and shortly afterward the small seaside town became an official naval base. According to Wikipedia, “for about twenty years in the late 18th century San Blas was one of the busiest ports and shipbuilding centers on the Pacific coast of the Americas, rivaling Acapulco, the eastern terminus of the trans-Pacific Manila galleon convoy.“
Despite its grand beginnings, the little town was soon to find its fortunes sinking as everything about it made it – still makes it – an inconvenient and inhospitable place to settle: it has a beautiful beach that is completely occupied with flesh eating sand flies, the heat and humidity are almost unbearable, it’s been the landing point of more than one monumental hurricane, monsoon rains and lightening storms flatten the landscape during the summer months, and the mosquitoes are epic.
Recently, I had the pleasure of spending six weeks there. It was one of the most difficult, physically uncomfortable experiences of my life; it was also inspiring, enlightening and brimming with local stories and mythology that made its history feel like an ever present ghostly specter. San Blas was a magical, disagreeable place that I’ll never forget.
One of my great discoveries while there was the wreck of the Playa Hermosa Hotel. Located down an isolated stretch of beach, the hotel, which was built in the early 1950s, was initially planned to lure in the rich and famous. This was just before the time that the Hollywood film Night of the Iguana was filmed in nearby Puerto Vallarata and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton glamorized Mexico by buying their love nest in the region. Since its port was abandoned, San Blas has been looking for ways to regain its esteem and in the last fifty years this effort has mostly revolved around trying to compete with the popular resort towns in the region – something it does unsuccessfully by virtue of the local pestilence, which keeps tourists well clear of its long stretch of surf. To eliminate the sand flies would be detrimental to the mosquitoes and to eliminate the mosquitoes would be detrimental to the shrimp nurseries, which are currently the biggest industry in the town. There is a delicate ecological balance at play, one that leaves little room for tourism. Yet, they continue to try.
The Playa Hermosa Hotel is a ghost – one of many in the area. The owner of the bungalow I rented during my stay in San Blas, an old hippie who joyfully celebrated his independence from his home country on the fourth of July, told me that in the 60s when he was a child his mother brought him and his brother to stay at the Playa Hermosa. He said it was beautiful and glamorous back then: bright white and covered in sparkling aqua colored tile. He and his younger brother immediately ran out to swim in the ocean. When they were a few yards out they looked back to shore and noticed people waving their arms around, yelling something. It was only then that the boys turned out to sea and noticed the shark fins moving back and forth in the water beyond them.
“We high tailed it to shore and decided the pool was a safer bet. Then as sundown approached the jejenes came out and we were jumping and scratching and making way for inside!” Jejenes are the local term for sand flies. Despite this dubious first encounter, the gentleman eventually ended up moving back to the region and made it his home.
It is public record that back in the 60s actor Lee Marvin, probably most famous for his role in American war film The Dirty Dozen, frequented the Playa Hermosa because he thought the fishing was good. My landlord told me that it was also widely rumored that Jim Morrison spent a drug hazed week there in 1969 and it’s where he wrote the classic song LA Woman. Of course, this is pure local mythology and there is absolutely nothing to back it up . I’ve looked at Morrison’s tour schedule in 1969 and although he played Mexico City, there is no reference of him ever being in San Blas or the Nayarit region of Mexico.
After its hay days in the 60s, the hotel was mostly forgotten and slowly fell into disrepair. By the 80s, it’s upper floors had been converted into apartments for ex-pat Americans who came to San Blas to live cheap, smoke pot and surf. Eventually even they moved out as the roof leaked and the electricity became non-existent. The final death blow to the hotel came in 2002 when the deadly Hurricane Kenna struck land at San Blas. The Playa Hermosa Hotel is in a beautiful location, but it would have been a deadly one with its windows looking squarely out onto the approaching squall. The 16 foot storm surge that hit the town in 2002 destroyed 95% of its buildings and left little more than a pile of rubble where the stark white hotel used to stand.
During an overcast afternoon, I visited the site and took some photos of what was left. There are rumors in town that someone plans to clear the site in order to build a new and better hotel. But it’s been nearly 10 years since Kenna and that seems unlikely. What seems even more unlikely is that anyone would chose to stay there. Even though the hotel was only about 50 years old when the hurricane toppled it, there is something that feels ancient about what is left: the ghostly tall bone white walls, the remnants of the art deco architecture and everywhere, blue tiles.
The Grand Entrance
Forgotten Structures
Empty Rooms
An Old Tree and the Rubble of the Hotel
Blue Tile
Chimney
Swimming Pool
What's Left
There is a local bar in town called Billy Bobs; it is always filled with old weathered gringos telling stories about how they came to live in San Blas and about the mythology of the place. They smoke their pot, drink their cheap beer and listen to classic rock from the 60s and 70s. Jim Morrison’s deep, hollow voice clatters out across the garbage strewn streets of the town and a crocodile named Fluffy lives in the back. “We feed him fish,” they say.
San Blas is filled with ghosts.
All images by Amy Thibodeau
Amy Thibodeau is originally from the Canadian Prairies, spent the last few years in one of the world's greatest cities, London, UK and is spending the next year traveling around the world. She is interested in everything, but lately is mostly fixated on travel, food, art, politics, creative writing, cuddly animals and experimenting with different kinds of photography. You can find her on her personal blog 
Amy,
Fascinating post! It’s great to read the history of this forgotten town and a shame to see what may have been a beautiful and magnificent building in such disrepair. Thanks for sharing.
Chris
Thanks Chris!
San Blas is still a very beautiful town, most of the town has been reconstructed and it is flourishing.
What a fabulous looking place!
It was genuinely beautiful and kind of eerie. Thanks for the comment!
Great Post Amy,
I love visiting hidden and haunting places like these. There is something about the contrast of history and neglection that I love.
Also love your pictures, the filter adds to the story.
Thanks – I am an obsessive photo taker. I’ve still got about 200 pictures from Mexico that I haven’t processed yet.
I am going to Japan for a few months this fall and have heard that there are a lot of abandoned placed in the rural areas there. I intend to take lots of photos!
Really neat! We explored the hotel ruins when we where in San Blas in 2006. It was neat then, I can only imagine it in its heyday.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/preciousroy/100958502
Thanks for sharing your link April. Wow! It’s gotten a lot worse since you guys were there. There was no top floor with balcony left and the whole thing was so unstable, you definitely wouldn’t want to climb up on it!
This is a good website!, i just recently found it and now is on my Bookmarks.
Keep the effort of keeping this Website updated, I’m more on the mexico fishing business, and if you have a chance please visit my site http://www.mexicofishingdeals.com
thanks and keep tight lines.
Job O.
I stayed in this hotel in the summer of 1978 with a friend during a surfing summer. We were the only two guests staying at the hotel, with the exception of the old man/woman who lived and worked there. I left my bikini on the ledge of the 2nd floor and watched as an iguana crawled down the ledge and dragged my bikini top along with him. I have a ton of pictures from my stay…..a hurricane blew in close to San Blas one night we were there and I have a vivid memory of the old man walking down the stairs carrying a lantern as he tried to work the shutters closed.
My spouse took me there for my first night in a hotel room after being on a crowded school bus, filled with compasinos for three days from Nogales. I was unable to pee or move for 3 days. We got off the bus finally in San Blas and he decided it was best to walk! by the time we got to the Playa Hermosa, I was completely bitten with mosquito bites all over my body. We got into the room and there was an iquana in the sink and the sheets were filthy, along with the pillows. I wanted to kill him right then and there. But then, I really wanted to kill him the next morning when covered in jejene bites which were covering the mosquito bites. We had only been married a few months, and I almost left him then and there. But as luck would have it 2 Canadiens and their kids from Quebec, came to the rescue with clean sheets, pillows and bug coils. They were our next store neighbors and heard all the arguing and crying!!!!!!! We ended up staying a week, once my sustos subsided!!!
My girlfriend and I ran away to the Playa Hermosa for a month in January of … 1986? 87? It’s all so hazy. At that time there was a moderate crowd of Europeans, Canadians, and Americans who came to live cheap. A lot of drugs, a lot of long days sitting around the the one big wooden table in the otherwise empty “lobby bar”, drinking absurdly cheap beer from the cooler at the reception desk and playing an endless game of penny-ante poker. I remember a number of Canadians who came down every winter to live on their “seasonal unemployment” half salary, which was very very easy to do in Mexico then. Germans, Dutch, and California surf bums rounded out the crowd. I don’t remember the bugs being all that bad – winter was probably the time to be there. But man, it was a cool place – it was like camping in a deco ruin even then. The empty swimming pool looked exactly the same as it does in your pictures.
great story. Back in the late 80′s, my folks actually looked at buying this hotel with a group of investors. Lots of Mexican legal red tape. That and an amazing amount of dough to rehab it. I loved going to San Blas though as a teenager. Would love to go back as an adult. Hopefully the Las Brisas Caribe is still open.
I stayed at the Playa Hermosa in 1962, the first of four or five weeks spent there through the 60′s and 70′s. It was never what one would call high end although the food they served was good and cheap and the bar was open. It was always during the summer months (I and friends were snake hunting) the mosquitoes were brutal but only ran into the jejenes on one trip.
There was no air conditioning, what you got if they weren’t all taken was an electric fan. Unfortunately the electricity was off as much as it was on. Sleeping in 90 degrees with 90% humidity took some getting used to.
What I remember most about the place was the desk clerk. When you asked him for matches to light a smoke he’d give you a box and tell you what matches are called in spanish. If you again asked for matches you’d be ignored until you requested them in spanish.
Oh, and there were geckos running all over the place at night. I loved it and am sorry to see it’s no longer in business.