Getting Oriented

The original town, Old Vallarta, sits at the center of 42-km (26-mile) Bahía de Banderas, Mexico's largest bay, in Jalisco State. From here, the Sierra Madre foothills dive into the sea. Mountain-fed rivers nourish tropical deciduous forests as far north as San Blas, in Nayarit State. South of PV the hills recede from the coast, and the drier tropical thorn forest predominates south to Barra de Navidad.