Puerto Vallarta’s Mango Festival to Take Place on July 7th

The second annual Puerto Vallarta’s Mango Festival will take place Saturday, July 7, from 4:00pm – 10:00pm at Lázaro Cárdenas Park (located in the Romantic Zone, one block from Los Muertos beach). The event is open to the public with free entertainment and is the perfect opportunity to taste one of the sweetest fruits of the season, known as the “King of Tropical Fruit”.

Tickets will be sold for $25 MXN to sample your favorite dish or mango drink, provided by local restaurants and vendors. So far, participating establishments include: Bahia de Banderas, Bar La Playa, El Torito, Escondida’s Sports Bar, Gringo Loco, Horizonte de Paz, India Gate, La Sanderia, Los Muertos Brewing, Mama Sirena, Murphy’s Irish Pub, Nacho Daddy, PV Cup Cakes, R.I.S.E., Savvy & Well, The Green Place, Tomatlan and Vallarta Botanical Gardens. More are expected. Enjoy wings, pizza, cupcakes, baked goods, draft beer, popsicles with and without vodka, empanadas and chicken with mango.

Entertainment starts at 5:00pm with the Orquesta Escuela de Puerto Vallarta, followed by Hired Guns at 6:00pm, Da Crew at 7:00pm, Jose Carlos Olvera at 8:00pm and Alan Vallejo Garcia at 9:00pm.

If you are interested in participating or volunteering, visit www.jaysadlerproject.com and check out all the requirements.  

Did you know?

Mangos are indigenous to Asia, especially India, where they have been so basic a part of the diet for 4,000 years that the Sanskrit word for mango, am, means “provisions.” From India, the fruit spread throughout the Far East, and was first brought to Mexico in 1775 by the Spanish galleons that regularly crossed back and forth from the Philippines to Acapulco. A century later, they were introduced to the Gulf coast area from the British Antilles through the port of Veracruz, an area that is famous for the mango variety most prized by Mexicans, the manila. The word mango is an adaptation of the Tamil name for the fruit, mang-kay.

Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacan, Veracruz and Chiapas are Mexico’s most important mango growing and exporting states. Mexico has been the biggest exporter of mangos worldwide for several years, being only slightly edged out by China for some years. (India is the world’s largest producer of the fruit, but consumes a great deal of it nationally.)