Cerro de la Cruz (Puerto Vallarta)

Elevation: 119 m
Elevation Gain: 119 m
Cerro de la Cruz translates to “Hill of the Cross,” which could identify a great many hills in Mexico (and elsewhere) thanks to the common practice of adorning summits and high points with Christian Crosses. In Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a cross-adorned hilltop downtown is home to a scenic lookout (mirador) that provides panoramic views over the city, and the Bay of Banderas.
My Ascents:
January 29 2025
Trailhead: Bus stop (parada) at Morelos/Calle Abasolo

“Why do we live here?” 😑

This is a common annual refrain in our home every November through April as we stare through frosty windows at the frigid, snow-covered wasteland outside. 🍁🌨️ There’s nowhere on Earth I’d rather be from May through October, but those other 6 months… Ooof. They’re bad. No wonder the bears around here hibernate! 🐻💤

Unfortunately, a 6-month slumber isn’t an option for us (we’re lucky if we ever get to sleep through an entire night even). We, therefore, decided to plan a January 2025 tropical getaway to break up our winter. For some reason, two 3-month blocks of godawful cold seemed like they’d be more tolerable than a single 6-month house arrest sentence. After watching airfare prices soar higher than a Boeing, we eventually found a more budget-friendly option for a family of 5 (Flair Airlines to the rescue), and booked our getaway to sunny Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. 🌞 Equally keen to escape the cold, Brianne’s family opted to join us for a week of sun, sand, cervezas, Mexican “RACOONS” and more sand. ☀️🏖️🍺

Did I mention that there was a lot of sand?

LEFT: Ah yes, the SAND. Everyone wants to be on the beach, and the one thing that our otherwise dumpy all-inclusive resort 👎 had going for it was its beachfront location. As you can see, this proved to be a HIT with our little girls (Penny, Mera and Lillian), and countless hours were spent playing in the sand and braving PV’s sometimes-violent waves (“Death of the Ocean” as Penny enthusiastically referred to them). 🌊☠️
RIGHT: But this is the other, darker side of the beach with kids: sand EVERYWHERE. I’m not sure how, but after each daily trip to the beach, each of our 3 little girls brought at least a kilogram of sand back to our tiny hotel room. Given that the kids all showered off before coming into the room, I don’t even want to contemplate where that sand was before it ended up spread about the room… 🤔😬

The beach was lovely. The whale-filled Bay of Banderas was magnificent. But the sand, oh the sand. Well, it became almost as vexing as the snow back home!

So after (yet another) morning at the sandy beach, Brianne and I had ENOUGH and decided to take the kids for an afternoon hike downtown (so that we could put us much elevation between ourselves and the beach as possible)! 😂 Thanks to PV’s excellent public buses, 🚌 the commute downtown was as easy as it was affordable ($3.50 CAD total for 5 fares). As an added bonus, a Mexican bus ride is an adventure in and of itself thanks to bumpy cobblestone streets, lurchy gear shifting, and occasional guitar-strumming mariachi wannabes. Mexican buses aren’t for everyone, but we all enjoyed this and other trips on them.

LEFT: Having hiked up a lookout (mirador) downtown on a previous trip to PV, Brianne and I were eager to show our girls how the city and the Bay of Banderas looked from above on the Hill of the Cross (Cerro de la Cruz). After getting off the bus at Calle Abasolo, we easily followed this colorful road up towards the tower-littered hillside above.
RIGHT: Even when there were no colorful murals on the surrounding walls, vibrant flowers made for an aesthetically pleasing stroll up the ever-steepening road. 🌺

Looking back towards the oceanfront "Malecon" a few blocks into our afternoon adventure.

LEFT: As the grade steepened beyond “drivable”, the road was replaced by a pair of white staircases (one to ascend and another to descend), which briefly climbed up amidst an urban jungle.
RIGHT: After our short foray into “the jungle”, the white staircases deposited us back onto a street, which continued steeply up towards the white lookout/mirador that was now visible above.

LEFT and RIGHT: Sometimes, there was a sidewalk to follow. Sometimes there were steep stairs. Sometimes there was only a road. Sometimes there wasn’t even a road thanks to construction. The only constant on this middle stretch was that there was NEVER a railing and that the route never felt entirely safe. 😂

LEFT: Above the churned-up road, we followed a STEEP staircase, which ran alongside the apparent remains of a funicular. Why a 119-vertical-meter-tall hill needed a funicular up the last 20-meters is a question that may never be answered, but it was a relief that this sketchy-looking conveyance was no longer in-use!
RIGHT: Penny and Brianne huffing and puffing their way up the steep final staircase under the hot afternoon sun.

SUCCESS! My big girls enjoying another colorful Mexican mural from the top of the Hill of the Cross (Cerro de la Cruz).

LEFT: The Cross/Cruz for which the Hill/Cerro was named. ✝️
RIGHT: Look out Mexico! After being carried all the way up Cerro de la Cruz by yours truly, we unleashed 2-year-old terror Lillian upon the hilltop plaza. 🙉

The panorama east into PV’s non-beachfront hills and valleys from the “summit.” Click to see larger.

A closer look at the suburbs that wind their way up-valley to the east. To my knowledge, the seemingly large peaks to the left and right are unnamed, however, more distant Cerro Alto, Cerro la Sepultura, and Cerro San Luis tower beyond in the center of this image. The latter is almost 2,400-meters taller than the cross on our current hilltop!

While the mountainous jungles to the east were nice to gaze upon, the real eye-catcher atop Cerro de la Cruz was the view over downtown PV! 😍

Panoramic views west over the whale-filled Bay of Banderas (and more importantly a significant amount of distance between us and the sandy beaches below)! Click to see larger.

I wasn’t kidding when I said that the bay was FULL of whales. In fact, we saw humpback whales on every single day of our trip (often very close to shore). From our 119-meter-high vantage on Cerro de la Cruz, we could see two different groups of whales blowing in the bay far below. In this photo, one of those “blows” is faintly visible just to the left of the obvious sailboat. 🐳 Having broken a decent sweat on the hike up the steep stairs, we therefore enjoyed a long rest atop the hill and watched the whales below intently.

The obligatory On Top summit selfie (mouse over to see the equally obligatory “silly faces” selfie). 🤪 Obviously, Lilly is still working on the latter…

While Brianne and I could have sat atop the mirador for hours whale-watching, the kids eventually grew restless and we decided to descend so that we could find somewhere to buy them “special drinks” as a reward for their (relatively) good behavior on the hike up.

LEFT: Brianne points out (yet another) whale while also attempting 🤞 to keep our clutziest child from injuring herself on the steep staircase down.
RIGHT: An unusual (but colorful) scene discovered somewhere near the base of the Cerro. While our kids would have been happy to enjoy a cold soft drink from any nearby OXXO, Brianne and I had grander plans for “special drinks” (which of course involved pushing our luck and making our kids walk an unnecessary 25-minutes out of the way on a hot afternoon).

THIS is what Brianne and I meant when we suggested “special drinks!” Pints (for us) and juices for the kids at PV’s “Los Muertos” Brewery. 🍻 By the time that we arrived at the brewery, however, there was only 25 minutes to go until we were supposed to meet Brianne’s family at another restaurant downtown (a restaurant that was halfway back up Cerro de la Cruz). 🤨 Fortunately, we were all thirsty after our hot hike so it didn’t take long for our “Los Muertos” drinks to disappear! 🤷

After setting the Mexican record for fastest family beer/juice-chugging, we caught a taxi 🚕 and made it to the magnificent “Si Senor” Garden restaurant (back by Cerro de la Cruz 😂) just in time for our 6:00 reservation.

LEFT and RIGHT: A sampling of the magnificent fare on the menu at “Si Senor”: a mango margarita and a crab-stuffed chille relleno? Si Senor! 😋

Enjoying the sunset with Brianne’s family from the restaurant’s spectacular garden terrace.

LEFT and RIGHT: Our “ninas” (now full of refried beans, but at least sand-free) exploring the restaurant’s garden surroundings.

LEFT: While I’m certain that the dessert at “Si Senor” would have been amazing, we had something else in mind for our “postre.” Since we hadn’t walked enough already, we wandered about downtown until we were able to locate some suitably fresh churros (thanks Papa)! As you can see, the chocolate dipping sauce was a hit – so much so, in fact, that Penny appears to be in a churro-coma… 😂
RIGHT: A satisfying, sand-free end to the day’s adventures: watching random fireworks 🎆 from a plaza in beautiful Puerto Vallarta! The next day, we had to pack our bags and return to the “Great White North.” 🍁🌨️ Back home, we arrived just in time to “enjoy” a 3-week-long stretch of minus 20 to minus 30 degree weather. 🥶 Ooof. At least there was no more sand… 🤣