Rhythms of the NightPuerto Vallarta

Las Caletas sits on the southern shore of Banderas Bay, past Boca de Tomatlán, on a stretch of coast with no highway along it. The villages there are reached by boat, and so is the cove. That single fact shapes everything else about the evening.

It means the crossing is not an add-on someone bolted onto a meal — it is the only way in and out, at sunset going and in the dark coming back. It means everyone arrives together and leaves together, on a fixed schedule, because there is no road to slip away down. And it means the site behind the beach is as dense as it is precisely because no vehicle has ever driven to it.

The cove was once the private retreat of film director John Huston, who shot The Night of the Iguana nearby in the early 1960s — the production that turned Puerto Vallarta from a quiet town into a destination. The paths and planting you walk through at night grew out of that, rather than being built as a set.

ALMA, the current production, is staged into that hillside rather than on a stage placed in front of it. There is no dialogue to follow, which makes it work for any language, and the setting does a great deal of the work that scenery would otherwise have to.

All of which is the honest answer to whether it is worth the price: if what you want is dinner and a show, you can do that in town for less. If you want an evening somewhere you could not otherwise go, there is no substitute for it — we have written the full version, including who should skip it.

New to the town? Our guides to Puerto Vallarta at night, romantic things to do and dinner shows cover the rest of the evenings, including the ones that cost nothing.