Wednesday, May 20, 2009

North along the Mexican Pacific Coast.

May 20, 2009

We left Puerto Escondido Monday morning after saying goodbye to Maclovia. She is the housekeeper at Bill and Mel's house in PE where we stayed. She took very good care of us and it was sad to leave her. Pat would fix all 3 of us breakfast each morning and Mac would help Pat with her Spanish while we enjoyed the meal out at the pool.

Our goal was to make it to Puerto Vallarta ASAP since we had already traveled that part of highway 200. It took us 2 days of hard driving to go the 850 miles to Vallarta. Other than the very curvy or "sinuouso" road the only real problem was going through Acapulco. What a mess! Even with our street level GPS we got off track. After a 30 minute detour we were finally on our way.






Almost all Mexican pueblos have a central iglesia and they are the most beautiful buildings in town.



That first day we made it to Zihuatanejo just before dark and stayed in a great little hotel, Hotel Rosalinda. Well worth the $400 pesos after a 11 hour, 400 mile drive.


The next morning we were up early and on our way on the 450 mile drive to Bucerias. This town is just north of Vallarta. We easily made our way through the bustling town of Puerto Vallarta using the tunnel route which avoids the seaside road which is always a nightmare late in the day. My buddy, Jay, had showed me the way through a few years ago on a golf trip to PV. Thanks, bud.

In Bucerias we stayed at the small Hotel Cactus Inn. Bucerias has a fair-sized Gringo community and the prices reflect it. It seems the closer we get to the USA the higher the prices are.

Now we can take it a little easier on the remaing 1,000 miles to the border.


Sayulita beach.
This morning we drove through the seaside towns of Punta Mita and Sayulita. Pat and I had spent a few days in Sayulita a few years ago and it has definitely grown since then. It's not the quaint town that we once knew and after spending 30 minutes walking around the city center we were ready to move on.








Cattle rustlers slowed us down a little...pero es no problema.


We drove the 50 or so miles to San Blas, Nayarit where we found a nice room at the Hotelita Casa de las Cocadas. It is very hot and humid here so an air conditioned room was "necessitamos". We also met a beach restaurant owner, Armando, and decided to have dinner at his place on the beach. His dining room was open air palapa with sand floor and chairs, tables and hammocks. Great meal of garlic shrimp and fish tacos. Pat had a michelado and I had my usual 12 peso Corona.
The best garlic shrimp ever!




The bummer is the basketball game is not on the cable here tonight. But we'll make do.


Bruce and his new friend.

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