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Chacala is a sweet beach town just north of Puerto Vallarta about 90 miles. After living in Chapala, Mexico off and on since 1993, we were gobsmacked that we had not heard of this beach sooner.

So now we wanted to go, and since it was the high season, we wanted to be sure we had a hotel.

I looked and looked online, with nothing showing up under $110USD per night. As we both appreciate value for money spent, this wasn't what we were looking for.

I tell Billy of my frustration when he comes home from his morning coffee with friends, and in about 2 minutes, he finds Hotel Casa Chacala.

How did he DO that?

Hotel Casa Chacala

Billy and I think differently about a lot of things - which is good. We cover many bases this way and it makes for a good team. I was a little frustrated, amazed and a bit jealous that he could find this GREAT hotel in a manner of minutes when I had already been searching for easily 20 minutes already.

When I asked him what he did, he said he went to Google, put in "Map, Chacala, Mexico" and then enlarged that map several times.

All the rentals, the restaurants, and the hotels showed up, with pricing. If you click on the little balloon, more information about the business establishment shows up in a column on the left hand side - phone numbers, ratings, directions, website, everything.

Well, gee.

And I always thought I was hot stuff!

And, you know, maybe all of you already knew about this technique, but it was new to me, so I was impressed.

Our room, air con and fan, refrigerator and TV (which we never turned on)

So I immediately get on my cell phone and call the hotel to make reservations.

"No, we have no rooms available for those dates."

Oh no! Now what?

So the man on the phone and I jiggle around the calendar a little bit and finally find a window of 5 days that were open and I grab them.

This friendly, helpful, polite man's name is Valentin.

The swimming pool at the hotel

I'm thrilled and instantly relaxed since we now have a place to stay.

I copy down all my numbers to bring with me when we travel - his telephone number, the address, my confirmation number - the whole shebang.

Our taxi driver takes up this little dusty road... it's a tiny town, remember?

 

And we walk in to meet Valentin, but he's not there. Instead we speak to Lupita.

Sitting and hammock area looking towards the community kitchen

Lupita was social, upbeat, engaging... and she spoke some English. She checked our reservation and we were IN!

Upstairs we go to the 3rd floor and we have a room that looks out across the town and to the ocean.

Sweet.

Community kitchen

We did not use the community kitchen, but I did borrow a knife to cut up some fruit to put into the refrigerator in our room.

Wifi is terrific here in the kitchen area, and in our room... it was functional. That is very common in beach towns. If we wanted to Skype, upload or download anything, we came here for the speed of the internet.

BAM! It was fast.

View of the pool from the kitchen area

Hotel Casa Chacala was very clean and hot water was good in the shower. Beds were firm, and we had an ocean view and a small balcony for our room and to dry out our towels and bathing suits from the beach.

Nightly price at this time was 650 Pesos (about $35USD) - but since we ended up staying 9 nights, Billy bargained for a discount, getting the price down to 600P per night (almost $33USD).

It was well worth the price and Lupita, her sister and the maid were all wonderful.

The view from our room

We had a great room and a lovely view. We watched sunrises and sunsets from here, and could hear the birds and neighboring roosters every day.

The beach itself was about 2 blocks away, maybe a 7 minute walk by the time we settled into our chairs at Chico's or Chac Mool.

Hotel Casa Chacala

We would certainly recommend this small family-owned hotel. There are other hotels which are smaller, larger and those which are more expensive. This is the "Goldilocks" choice, actually.

If you do make a visit here, be sure to tell Valentin or Lupita hello from us!

Hotel Casa Chacala

1 Golfo de Mexico S/N Chacala, Nayarit

Tele: 01. 327. 219. 4057 OR 219. 4075

Website: www.hotelcasachacala.com

Email: hotelcasachacala@gmail.com 

For more stories and photos about Mexico, click here