A cruise stop on Mexico's Pacific coast sounds like a straightforward beach holiday — Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, Cabo San Lucas, all palm trees and margaritas. Writer Clifford Roberts went looking for what sits behind the brochure version, and found a trip worth stretching well beyond the seven-day cruise itinerary from Los Angeles.

His base was the so-called Riviera region on the west coast, arriving by ship into Puerto Vallarta before dawn — sunrise over streetlamps, frigatebirds overhead, and hills of dense green pressing down on the town. From there, a local guide with a taste for dark humour took him off the tarmac and into the countryside. His verdict: the resorts are pleasant, but the real country reveals itself in the dusty inland villages, where the scrub and heat reminded him of parts of Limpopo.

The standout encounters were artisanal. In a quarry outside Malpica, he met two brickmakers — Hugo Gonzales and his 87-year-old father, also Hugo — who form each brick by hand from sand, cow manure, sawdust and water, then fire them in a small oven. Father and son work together despite the older man's cancer diagnosis, a partnership the son wouldn't trade. Elsewhere he watched a tile-maker using a press technique the Spanish brought over in the 16th century, and visited a courtyard bakery with a bulbous wood-fire oven.

Food is the thread throughout. Salsa heat, his guide explained, runs from one (essentially ketchup) to ten ('take-me-to-hospital-hot'). In Concordia, lunch at El Granero — a restaurant operating since 1881 — came with a welcome glass of suero, the salt-and-lime refresher that doubles as a tequila chaser. In Cabo San Lucas, by contrast, he bounced down the beach in a UTV, sand in his mouth, surrounded by the yacht-and-charter-boat bustle that makes the town feel, in his words, like a train station of activity.

The takeaway for travellers is simple: use the coastal towns as a launchpad, but book a guide and head inland. The colonial-era churches and Franco-Spanish architecture of old Mazatlán, the shaded plazas with juice stands and shoe-shiners, and regional dishes like mole offer far more than the high-street souvenir strip — which seasoned visitors recommend skipping anyway.

Practicalities for South Africans, who may be eyeing Mexico with the World Cup fixture in mind: a visa is required unless you hold a US visa, which exempts you. Puerto Vallarta's Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport handles international flights, and Norwegian Cruise Line runs a seven-day route from Los Angeles. Check current safety advice for specific regions before travelling, and consider a local guide for rural excursions.