Beach Hunting

Yesterday was one of those days when nothing goes right. It was no great drama - van life shock! horror! click bait! - but it was instead a series of small reverses that added up to an irritating time on the road. 

We left the truck stop south of Mazatlan early, around eight, to get a good start as we hoped find a beach spot to sit still for a few days. The toll road wasn’t busy on a Sunday and we bowled along at 55 to 60 listening to a Carl Hiassen novel (Chomp), a pleasant light memory of South Florida and home.

The toll road isn’t a normal freeway like you’d understand it. Long stretches in Nayarit State were two lanes only, though reasonably pot hole free. Short stretches  went through towns and villages as though a toll road were suddenly a four lane Main Street. It’s slightly weird but you get used to it. The other thing to know is there is an  expectation that slower vehicles will get out of the way and ride the shoulder if there is one.

On a two lane like this when passed you don’t take offense, you just pull aside. If oncoming traffic is passing you don’t play chicken, you just pull onto your own shoulder and keep going. Also when passing in an iffy area ( like the crest of a hill!) turn on your headlights. I was really getting into it and enjoying the flow until the voice of reason suggested she was getting a bit nervous at my Italian style of making progress. The van is a small home for us to live in and she is important to my welfare so I did as I was told. It was fun though driving like a Mexican and I really enjoy their no stress style. 

Turning off to take the highway to San Blas was lovely. The road wound down the mountain, perfectly smooth and full of gorgeous views between the mango groves. San Blas is known for its vicious insects that breed in the mangroves in the estuaries around the city. Long ago San Blas was a major shipbuilding center but the harbor silted in and trade moved to cities up the coast. San Blas never got over becoming a bug filled backwater. 

The lovely central square is all torn up and dusty. That was a disappointment. We sailed here twenty years ago and had fond memories of walking the town before retreating to the boat of an evening to avoid the infamous insect bites.

Our favorite ice creams, one dollar paletas de Michoacán, watermelon for Layne and strawberry for me. 

I used the wide angled setting on my phone to catch Rusty staring at the dogs on the roof. You can see the distortion that gives Rusty a barrel shaped look. A local sitting on his sidewalk engaged with me and started chatting about him. He’s fat he said. Well I wanted to say your dogs are underfed but I laughed and kept my opinions to myself. 

We had already stopped for lunch  when we arrived town. Dorado and grilled lobster and two sodas (“Coca lite”) and it was excellent but not inexpensive at $33. A friend asked it it was street food. Not at that price Bruce! 

Layne got a to go box from the van and we took some dorado for later. It’s nice traveling with your own fridge! Then she went shopping:
On the way out of town we stopped for “world famous” banana bread which looks very familiar and Layne who enjoys shopping the street stalls also got a pie. A sort of ricotta texture not too sweet and of undefinable flavor.
On the whole San Blas left us feeling disappointed. The town doesn’t seem to have enjoyed prosperity as one might have liked. It doesn’t have a very vibrant feel. We set off to find a campground on a beach an hour south as listed on iOverlander the invaluable app.
We followed the directions and took twenty minutes to cover less than two miles of rocky lumpy jerky dusty mess. We crawled and made our slow way past a private development. 
The van did well and the skid plate protected us from the rocks. It was like being at sea and hitting waves every few seconds, rocking side to side as we lurched. 

We got to the beach but the main area was closed as part of the private  development. A side road seemed to be the way to go with mangroves on the left and a barbed wire fence on the right bypassing the beach club. The track was narrow but we made it until an overhead branch threatened our roof. I stopped. We had to go back or cut the branch. I was ready to get the saw out but my common sense wife noted we were in full view of God and everybody and we didn’t know whose private property I wanted to vandalize. Sighing, and forgetting to take a picture I started backing up.

Somehow I avoided backing into a broken culvert and I avoided scraping the barbed wire. Or whacking the roof air conditioner.  A young couple in a Nissan Versa smiled after waiting patiently for my maneuvering before they turned down the lane to the restaurant and campground. They confirmed the privacy of the club we could see, and said the campground was down the track we couldn’t negotiate. We turned around.

The journey back was tough as we had failed. We made it back to pavement at which point We had 90 minutes till dark so we tried our second parking choice 15 minutes down the road. That was a bust as it was a large parking lot next to some loud restaurants and the whole area was filled with trash. Rusty would have been overwhelmed by the number of local dogs. This was a no go. We fell back on our last resort plan: a gas station on the edge of a nearby town called Las Varas (“the canes”) about an hour away.

We passed through a small town on the way, Zacualpan of which we had never heard. It was pretty enough but it was also a break from the many nasty potholes and topes (speed bumps) that littered Highway 16. 

The cratered nature of the main road wore on our last nerve but it also explained why Google estimated a 35 minute drive for 16 miles.

It was about a half hour before dark when we saw our destination. Two traffic cops were monitoring the highway but they ignored us. That was checkpoint number 13 since we entered Mexico. We have never been stopped, not once. So much for corrupt police. So much for dangerous Mexico. We drive as freely as we do in the States.

We put $66 of regular into the heroic GANNET2 and gave the attendant a dollar when he said we would be fine if we parked for the night. We sat and stared at our phones for a while wondering where we were going next. Then I walked Rusty and said hello to some people sitting out enjoying a Sunday evening. Good for your health he said to walk the dog. I agreed. Good for my mental health too.

He ate a huge dinner, we had salad and a beer and a slice of banana bread. I think we shall all sleep well. Monday we will try to find an oceanside berth near Punta Mita north of Puerto Vallarta. Fingers crossed.