The San Blas Social Club - Borderline Crazy

After a rather uneventful New Year’s Eve at the Mexico City airport, I boarded a flight to Guadalajara. After landing, I decided to save the cab fare and take a bus to the central bus station, which was pretty close to my hostel. Or so I thought. It turns out the bus I took went to the new bus station, not the old bus station (which is much more central, in case you were wondering). I then hopped on another bus to centro, which winded its way ever so slowly through the city. I hopped out when I figured we were as close as we were going to get to the hostel, and walked 20 minutes. Upon arrival, I was very happy to see a very nice hostel, grab a shower and talk to the friendly staff for an hour. Turns out I even had the dorm room to myself!

The next morning I sorted out more data for my phone, knowing internet would be hard to come by in San Blas, jumped on a local bus to another bus station, and was on my way to San Blas. San Blas is a lovely little fishing/surfing town north of Puerto Vallerta, where I intended to spend a week soaking up some sun, getting some work done, and some homework.

Luckily I only spent one night here!

I arrived in San Blas right around sunset and headed to the beach. Unfortunately the guesthouse I was staying at only had a very small room available for the night, but after that I could move into a large bungalow right on the beach. I put up with the room for the night and wandered off in search of tacos, which turned out to be the best I’ve had this trip.

The next day I was wandering around the town where I ran into a gringo who had apparently been on my bus to San Blas the day before, who owned the San Blas Social Club, a bar right on the main square of the town, and best of all, had wifi.

I ended up most nights there, particularly when I realized my room did not have a grounding pin outlet I needed to charge my laptop. At one point I asked the guesthouse owner if there were any different plugs around and he suggested trying the kitchen. I found one that worked (!), wandered off and when I returned in an hour I found a not very charged laptop and a not working fridge. Apparently trying to charge my laptop had short-circuited the fridge. Woops.

And so I ended up back at the Social Club, where a host of (mostly older) gringos and Mexicans drank Martin and Louis’ (apparently an old comedy pair, in this case meaning a beer and a shot of house tequila) and told jokes. It was most definitely the social club of the town.

The rest of my days consisted of attending a birthday party for the owner of the San Blas social club, taking long walks on empty beaches, eating tacos, watching sunsets, and yes, doing homework! It was definitely a place I would go back to. You can see why it attracts a small but loyal club of expats who return year after year.

After a week, I took my leave of the Social Club and hopped on a bus to Sayulita, to meet up with Marieke and her boyfriend Jon.