That Time We Rented a Car

“Let’s rent a car” she said…

When my travel companion threw out the idea of renting a car in Puerto Vallarta and drive up the coast. My first thought was “YES! That is a great idea”. So we did!

After 4 nights on Los Muertos beach, we took a taxi back to the airport to find a rental car. Our plan was to quickly pick up a car, run to the airport to grab another friend who was joining us for this weekend adventure, and head out of town. Little did we know, that even during slow season, it is wise to pre-book your car. We had the taxi driver bring us to Sixt. Upon arrival, we found out that they do not always keep more cars than they have reserved onsite. Ok, lesson learned.

The lady behind the Sixt counter was so wonderful. She called a friend who works at another agency. He did have a car for us! And he came and picked us up from Sixt, and brought us back to his location. Easy Rental a Car was great!! The guys in the office were friendly and made us feel good about our choice. We quickly filled out the information. They even walked around the car, talking video of all of the existing scratches and other damage. I also had to take a couple pictures, just because. The rental for 3 days, in a mid-sized sedan, cost us about $60 a day. Including the 3rd party insurance and we chose to pay the extra $10 a day for the extra coverage. Overall, our lack of planning cost us an extra 45 minutes of time. We still had plenty of time to get to the airport to grab our friend.

We are on our way! Feeling great, in control, paying close attention to the traffic lights, and other slightly strange traffic rules. Suddenly, the Policia arrived next to our car, motioning us to pull over. He pulled up behind us on his scooter with a huge smile on his face. Yep, you got us! We had no idea what we had done to draw his attention. He checked our driver’s license against the rental car papers. After deciding that we were actually supposed to be in this car, he started chatting with us. The first couple minutes of awkward conversation, was lead by him describing the difference between an green, yellow and red light. More confused that ever, we told him that we know what the colors mean and that we did not go through a red light. This comment was rewarded with more chuckles. Finally, he told us that we could come and pick up our driver’s license at the Police station tomorrow and pay the fine. We told him we were heading out of town and that we would not be able to come to the station tomorrow. More chuckles. He now offered us the option of paying the fine onsite, right now. So for $1,250 pesos we were allowed to leave with our driver’s license 😉 AND he escorted us to the airport parking so we could park and go find our friend.

It didn’t take long to find our friend at the airport and hit the road. We drove straight through to Sayulita with no additional meetings with law enforcement. The driver north was easy and full of new and beautiful scenery.

Our GPS brought us in on a rough side street to enter Sayulita. Huge holes, mud puddles, and other random items gave us much to dodge as we made our way to a main Sayulita road. We did it! Luckily I was not driving! We had excellent directions from our Airbnb host and quickly found our place with parking right outside. Time to park the car!

The next day was our drive to San Pancho. We put a little effort into taking a taxi. But after a couple attempts to procure a ride, we decided to drive. Easy Peasy. The drive to San Pancho and back was easy and uneventful. We decided to drive through Sayulita and check out the other side of town. We were staying on the North side so had only seen what was between us and the main town area. Since there was so much happening in town, and the roads being quite narrow. This drive was a little slow and challenging. And not the type of slow where you would see something interesting and pull over. Parking looked tough. After this tour, we were happy to arrive back at our Airbnb and park for the night.

The morning brought another uneventful drive. This time to Bucerias. Parking here was much easier, many options and much more convenient. We parked right in front of our hotel for the night.

This brings us to our departure day. Time to make the short drive from Bucerias to the airport. We struggled with how to get from the city street onto the main highway. And apparently we were about to do it wrong. This time the Policia approached on foot, waving us over. We had not even committed an infraction yet. Here we go again. This time it was even more awkward. Huge language barrier. We even used our phones to translate. After a bunch of back and forth, we finally figured out what her beautiful smiling face was saying. She also was giving us the option to pay the fine onsite. But she wanted $40 dollars and for us to discretely put it inside a folded piece of paper that she kept handing us. Moving on…

We filled up with gas and arrived back at the Easy Rent a Car agency with no more issues. Phew. All in all, it was really nice to have the flexibility of having a car. But not sure we will do it again any time soon. And if we do, we will go into it with a mindset knowing that we might have some extra stops and fines to pay.