Antique & Vintage Postcards

Perched dramatically on a jungle-draped headland above "Las Estacas" beach, the Camino Real Hotel in Puerto Vallarta rises like a modernist monolith against the Sierra Madre foothills — its concrete tower contrasting with the golden thatch of the palapa bar and beach umbrellas below, where a pristine arc of white sand curves into the turquoise Pacific. This Vistacolor chrome card from Impresos Permacolor (Guadalajara) documents the hotel in its early years, likely shortly after its 1969 opening, when Puerto Vallarta was completing its transformation from the sleepy fishing village where John Huston filmed Night of the Iguana (1963) into an international resort destination. The elevated aerial perspective — probably shot from the hillside tramway visible at right — gives the image an almost architectural grandeur, the palapa structures in the foreground anchoring the composition with warmth against the cool blue bay beyond. The "25" penciled in the stamp box confirms the original retail price of 25 centavos.