Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita

Off the point of Punta Mita, at the northern tip of Banderas Bay on Mexico's Pacific coast, a small rock in the sea carries a single golf green. Players on the Pacifico course at Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita hit across the water to reach it, and when the tide is high an amphibious vehicle carries them over. That optional hole, numbered 3B and called the Tail of the Whale, has been the resort's calling card since it opened in 1999.

History

Punta de Mita was a fishing village in the state of Nayarit when developers set out, in the 1990s, to turn the peninsula beside it into a gated resort community. Four Seasons was its first hotel, opening at the end of 1999 together with the first of Jack Nicklaus's two courses there. The second, Bahía, followed in 2008, the year the St. Regis opened further along the shore. Private villas and residence clubs filled in the land between. The coast north of Puerto Vallarta, once known mainly to surfers, has since been promoted as the Riviera Nayarit.

The fishermen of the old village were moved to a new settlement at Corral del Risco, on the bay side of the peninsula, where their pangas still go out each morning and take visitors to the islands.

Architecture and design

The Mexican architect Diego Villaseñor laid out the resort as a village of casitas on the slope above the sea. Clay tile roofs, palapa thatch, whitewashed walls and stone paths keep it in the vernacular of the Pacific coast, and the public buildings are open to the breeze on several sides. Bougainvillea and palms run between the casitas. Art by the Huichol, or Wixárika, people of the Nayarit sierra, with its bright beadwork and yarn paintings, appears through the rooms and halls.

Rooms and suites

Rooms sit in two- and three-storey casitas, each with a terrace or balcony, and most look over the ocean. Many suites have their own plunge pools, and the largest villas on the point add private pools, gardens and staff.

Dining

Aramara, named after the Huichol goddess of the sea, is the resort's restaurant for Mexican and Asian cooking. Other restaurants and bars sit by the beach and the pools. Fish comes in from the boats of the bay, and the coast's own dish, pescado zarandeado, a whole fish split, marinated with chilli and grilled over wood, is worth ordering here as anywhere in Nayarit.

Wellness

The spa offers massages and treatments in rooms and cabanas within the gardens, and the fitness centre, tennis courts and yoga sessions complete the programme. The beach faces the bay rather than the open ocean, so the water is usually calm enough for swimming and paddleboarding.

Weddings and events

Weddings are a large part of the resort's life. Ceremonies take place on the beach and on lawns above the water, timed for the sunset over the bay, with receptions on terraces or in the gardens. Function rooms and outdoor spaces host incentive groups and company meetings, and golf is often part of the programme.

Location

Puerto Vallarta International Airport is about 45 minutes south by road. The Islas Marietas, a national park since 2005, lie offshore; boat trips leave from Corral del Risco, and access to the hidden beach known as Playa del Amor is limited by permit since its closure in 2016 to let the reef recover. Humpback whales winter in the bay, usually between December and March. Surfers ride La Lancha and the breaks at El Anclote near the village, and the town of Sayulita is a half-hour drive north. As a resort on the Riviera Nayarit, it was the first of its class on this peninsula, and the hotels that came later on the point were built in its wake.