This week’s dream: The surreal beauty of Mexico’s Costa Alegre

I can easily understand why French poet André Breton once called Mexico “the most surrealist country in the world,” said Julia Chaplin in Travel + Leisure. On the Costa Alegre, a “blissfully underdeveloped” stretch of Pacific coastline, every day seems to freely blend decadence, whimsy, and bold, dreamy visuals of a kind you’d expect in a Frida Kahlo painting. For decades now, the area from Puerto Vallarta south to Manzanillo has been a magnet for artists, naturalists, surfers, and various other dreamers who’ve been easily folded into the tolerant local culture. Among their rewards: “night air that feels like silk” and “a climate so perfect that many houses are built without walls.”

My first destination was a luxury eco-resort so off the beaten path that I had cactus scratches on my rental car by the time I found it. Cold-eyed armed guards met me at the gate, but the vibe inside the Hotelito Desconocido property was more “Fellini meets Robinson Crusoe,” with thatched-roof guest huts perched on stilts at the shoreline and staffers bustling about the psychedelic surrounding gardens. At sunset, I panicked when I realized that the huts don’t have electricity, but hundreds of torches and candles soon cast the entire resort in an exotic glow.

My fellow guests mostly avoided Puerto Vallarta, but I had to see it. Avoiding the trinket shops and crowded bars, I instead explored the newly rediscovered old quarter, where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton once owned homes. In a hilly section behind the city, narrow cobblestone streets cut between dilapidated mansions built by 18th-century ship captains. We headed north for dinner, first stopping in the high-end suburb of Punta de Mita to gawk at Imanta, an over-the-top beach resort where guests stay in Mayan-style stone houses. In nearby Sayulita, a surf town filled with smoothie stands, taquerias, and “lots of young, tanned hippies,” I chose a restaurant where diners sit on swings attached to a tree. It wasn’t easy eating seafood linguine on a moving seat, but I had to admire the owners’ interest in subverting convention. “I’m sure André Breton would have approved, too.”

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At the Hotelito Desconocido (hotelito.com), doubles start at $452.