The garden has a multitude of features, such as this suspension bridge leading to one of the many trails…
These stairs that remind me of ruined pyramids…
A ‘garden of memories’…
And then there are the plants. This is just a tiny selection of the ones that caught my attention, such as this Little Boy Plant (Anthurium).
I love the name of this tree: the ‘Tourist Tree’ (peeling on top and slightly green underneath).
These are amazing-looking pink bananas but are they edible?
For me the feature plant at the Botanical Garden is the bromeliad. This is a true blue Mexican (and points south) plant.
This bench points out another Mexican highlight – orchids – of which the Vanilla orchid is the most desirable, especially if you’re a foodie!
Another foodie delight that originated in Mexico – chocolate – these are cacao pods with precious-tasting cargo inside. There’s a restaurant in the garden that serves up Mexican food – you might find some chocolate there.

Nitty-gritty

A map of the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Garden and its many trails.
The Jaguar Trail leads to the river where you can swim or just wade to cool off (as long as you don’t mind jaguars eyeing you as a potential snack!) Actually, you are in way more danger of being bitten by No-See-Ums, tiny flying teeth. Bring insect repellent with you and reapply after swimming/wading – I didn’t and ended up with 20 plus bites per leg.
To get to the Botanical Garden you can take the grey bus from the nearest local bus stop (ask around). The bus has El Tuito or Botanical Gardens written on it, runs roughly every half hour and costs about 22 pesos. When you come home the stop is across the road and just up the hill from the garden entrance.