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We pull into traffic.

Immediately, I understand that traffic here is more of a free for all with the suggestion of lanes. Cars slide into spaces that do not exist. Motorcycles thread between lanes like excited chihuahuas. A bus painted in bright colors lurches past us with people standing inside holding rails, faces calm while I’m gripping my door handle like an emergency eject.

The driver honks once. Another car honks back. It feels conversational.

The airport drops behind us, then the city gathers fast. Storefronts, signs, palm trees, people crossing where you couldn’t pay me to cross.

Spanish on signs, concrete walls, through open windows when we slow down.

There’s English too, but different. Blunt, directional language meant to sell me something while offering some semblance of help. Tourist English.

The cab swerves around a truck.

The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. “First time?”

“That obvious?”

He laughs. “Si.”

Great.

“Puerto Vallarta is good,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Very good. Hot now.”

“I noticed.”

He laughs again.

We move along a wider road first, then everything tightens. Buildings come closer. The sea flashes blue between gaps, then vanishes behind hotels and palms and walls. The mountains rise on the other side, green and steep, closer than I expected. Like the whole city got wedged between water and rock and decided to become beautiful out of spite.

The air changes as we get farther in. Salt. Heat. Exhaust. The kind of humidity that makes every smell more serious.

My suitcase thumps once in the trunk when we hit a bump, and I think, absurdly, of my cam stuff wrapped up in T-shirts.

I told myself it was practical to bring it. Money is money. If I’m staying, I’ll need more.

The cab turns, and the neighborhood changes again.

Narrower streets. Older buildings. Balconies with plants spilling over railings. Color everywhere. Weathered, sun-faded walls, chipped paint, vining pink flowers bright enough to look fake.

The driver says something I don’t catch.

“What?”

He points ahead. “Romantic Zone. Old town.”

“Oh.”

The Zona Romántica isn’t romantic in the way brochures mean it. It’s denser, messier—lived in.

Restaurants open to the street. Men in tank tops walking like they know they’re being looked at. A bar with rainbow flags hanging above the entrance. Two men touching hands outside a shop, one of them shirtless.

The cab climbs.

The street tilts hard enough that I sit back automatically. The tires bump over uneven pavement. Buildings fall away behind us. The ocean appears again, bigger now, flashing silver-blue past rooftops and palms.