During the early 1950s, the Hotel Playa Hermosa, in Nayarit, Mexico, was built and inaugurated in a grand ceremony by Mexican President Miguel Alemán Valdés, would become an exotic destination, a place for the wealthy and a planned beach resort for celebrities, and one of the first resorts of its kind in Mexico.
Writing “L.A. Woman”
The same luxury resort where Jim Morrison, Elizabeth Taylor, and Hollywood’s biggest stars spent their wild vacations is the same place that inspired the lead singer of The Doors to create the song “L.A. Woman” and his pseudonym Mr. Mojo Risin’.
It is said that he had a psychedelic vacation in 1969 in that Hotel, in which everything happened, and if things were as the rumors of the time told, the Poet of Chaos would have written that song for his partner Pamela Coulson in one of the 100 rooms of the hotel.
This couple was well known for the number of problems and violence they had, both physical and verbal. Some say Pamela left the room with what seemed to be some bruises or marks all over her body. She justified them by saying they were the result of her trying to get rid of the mosquitoes that flew over during her stay at the Hotel Playa Hermosa.
Tragedy ends with the Hotel
Morrison’s stay was the peak of Hollywood’s relationship with San Blas and the grand Playa Hermosa Hotel, and it wasn’t long before it began to deteriorate. Many blame the dreaded Jejenes (mosquitoes of the region) for causing the abandonment of luxury tourism in this historic port, driving away celebrities, so it ended up housing mostly expatriates during the 1970s and 1980s.
It has been claimed that at that time strange rituals took place that made the place “cursed,” as fewer and fewer people frequented it, a fact that led to its decline.
The truth is that in 2002, Hurricane Kenner wiped out the place, leaving nothing but ruins, whispers, and dark echoes of the luxury and extravagance to which it once gave shelter.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
