Melaque

It was a short and pleasant ride along the coast through some small seaside villages and for some reason I liked the name Melaque, sounds like 'me lucky', and maybe I would be! It was a medium size town with the usual main square and a swagger of shops selling beach paraphernalia along the main drag, roadside food stalls, and lots of hotels. For the number of hotels it didn’t seem too busy but I could pick the ex-pats, mostly Canadian as it turned out, but Melaque had the essence of a nice Mexican town. As I often do, I ride by intuition when it comes to finding a place to stay. I don’t really know how it works, but it always does eventually if I listen and trust.

I followed the road out of the Centro area and in about one kilometre it came to a loop to the left because of a river outlet to the ocean. More cobbled roads as I idled along at walking pace past about six beachfront restaurants in a row. I turned a corner and stopped beneath a shady tree. This part of town had a really nice relaxed feel to it and when I looked to the left I had stopped outside this bright, well-maintained hotel that looked inviting. I walked in and asked about prices, 300 Pesos a night. Bang on budget.

After camping I wasn’t the most well groomed I have been and I probably stunk a bit. I was looking forward to a hot shower and comfy bed, all of which Hotel Bahia delivered. The owners were kind enough to let me park in front of their car in the locked courtyard so Ziggy was out of sight. I decided to stay for three nights and booked in. It was midday Friday and I needed to get an oil change in Guadalajara but as it was Friday, I assumed the weekend wasn’t a good time to visit a BMW dealer so I stayed.

Once again my intuition had given me what I wanted. Thanks universe! This was the sort of place you could reach and simply stay forever, and over the weekend I met a few Canadians who had done just that! The difference between here and Puerto Vallarta, apart from the size, is that the Canadians who came here were looking for their little part of coastal Mexico to live the relaxed, beachfront lifestyle and had no interest in making it look like a mini Vancouver.

Again, Melaque was a relatively well to do area with Mexican families enjoying the beach in extended family gatherings, the shops were modern, clean and well stocked; the kids had newish, clean clothes and were mostly supervised. Even the dogs appeared well fed and I didn’t see any begging at all, but no shortage of mobile stalls and vendors with arms full of goods ranging from peeled mangoes on a stick to clothing, jewellery and coconuts. The hotel owners had been here for over twenty years running the place, building on more rooms every couple of years and maintaining repeat customers, some who had been coming since the 1990s.

I indulged in relaxation on the beach, sitting in several restaurants with fruit juice and the occasional meal watching the world go by; daily long beach walks and walks into Centro to check out the shops, eat more food and drink more juices. I wasn’t alone. I met up with a number of people, just about all Canadians, because we whiteys really are easy to pick out of the crowd. Everyone was here for the same reason to get out of the rat-race or just have a warm place to be for winter.

As is the nature of my journey, I tend to spend a lot of time saying farewell to people, giving them a link to my blog and Facebook, and sometimes wondering what percentage actually give it another thought. It’s funny travelling alone in that way. Most of the people I meet I will never see or hear from again yet every person has a contribution to my journey. I find people open up to me quite quickly and I learn about their lives, sometimes their issues; some will stand and deliver their whole life story! I think I’m becoming more of a listener as my journey progresses, unless of course they are into motorcycles and travelling themselves, then the conversation delves into gear and equipment and technical discussions and you can’t shut me up.

Of course I love a good philosophical discussion too and find people asking me similar questions about how I can travel alone, what fears I have, how I keep a smile on my face, don’t I get lonely. Probably the most common question is, ‘Are you retired?’

‘No, just practicing. So far I like it a lot.’

I have met a number of people who are at crossroads in their lives, maybe through the ending of a relationship, not knowing how to fulfil their dreams, feeling ‘stuck’ at the place they are at in their life. I have had my share of crossroads, adversity and unfulfilled dreams, and I find they are open to my story and hopefully in some way I can inspire them to just follow their dreams and believe that anything is possible if you want it enough. Unfortunately for the Londoner at San Blas, I was too focused on my own stuff and getting back on the road to do much inspiring.

At a local drag queen show I was at a table with a Canadian guy named Darren. He told me he had been coming here for fourteen years, but this year was different. It came out that this was the first time without his wife due to separation and he drank at least eight beers in the hour or so we were there. He didn’t really want to say much and he had also been caught out in the tropical sun and was getting redder in the time he was there. He will be a sore boy tomorrow. Some people are in such crisis that nothing you can say is going to help at that stage.

XAMETLA

In the morning after catching up with some blogging that seems to fall behind regularly, I headed south again. I was quickly out of the cobblestones and the road hugged the coast for some time along the cliffs with lots of winding roads. Unfortunately there were a couple of slow buses and trucks, not to mention the now very frequent speed humps (topes) that kept Ziggy’s suspension working. Eventually I moved away from the traffic and congestion as the road wound inland and higher into the hills, the heat intensified to mid thirties and I enjoyed some nice easy riding.

 It was good to see some small Mexican towns again and I stopped a few times for a juice, water, some fruit, whatever was on offer that I could either eat there or would be handy later. Bananas work well. Unhusked coconuts don’t.

 The road moved back towards the coast after a hundred or so kilometres and I started looking out for some nice beachside place to stay, preferably camp. One such road presented itself with an inviting name that didn’t sound like a big American resort. I rode the one kilometre of dirt before coming to an office and some interesting looking cabanas right on the beach. There was some nice green grass, freshly watered and cut and they looked like perfect campsites to me.

‘No camping here’ was the reply when I made myself understood what I was looking for.

‘How much are the cabanas then?’

‘Beginning at 750 Pesos’.

Shame, it looked nice, but the guy did tell me that there was a camping area only about five or six kilometres away, right on the beach.

 I followed his directions and found a hand-written sign with a name and ‘Campo’ on it, and a small dirt road to the right heading towards the beach. 

Hello XAMETLA. 

I still don’t know exactly what this place is or whether the couple here own it or just care-take, but it was exactly what I was looking for.

 

Right on the beach on an acre or two of sand is a collection of structures with frond-thatched roofs, ranging from the bar with swinging beds to tables for two, to a range of camping spots with their own table and fireplace. It is so Mexican and in many ways like things were in the 1960s and 1970s in Australia or even Bali. Nothing remotely complies with OH&S standards, what electricity there is – energy efficient lights – is hand-wired, the toilets are non-flushing, just scoop water from the bucket outside. Perfect!

Near the entrance there were three open boats with outboards. The ocean was an enclosed bay with no surf to speak of, but six or more islands off the coast just sitting like sentries, with the boats there taking anyone willing. 

A local couple arrived and said they were heading to an island about a kilometre away with a beach and a cabana. They invited me to come to the island with them to stay overnight because they had beer and food, but eventually I declined as the place I was in was perfect for me and I was the only camper at the moment.

 Alfie the boat owner, asked if I wanted to come for the ride while he dropped the couple off to the island. I said yes straight away and we launched the boat off the beach and powered across the water for about ten minutes. 

A beautiful beach with a large cabana in a very sheltered east-facing bay opened up before us. 

I helped unload their things and we left them standing on the beach, the island to themselves. Alfie brought the boat back to the beach by waiting a couple of minutes for the right wave, then full throttle we powered towards the beach, riding the wave that broke onto the shore, pushing us high above the waterline.

 I set up my hammock at the bar and gathered some firewood for the evening and cooked myself a meal from my supplies for such an occasion. 

The wind became quite strong onshore as the afternoon went on but as it became darker the wind dropped. A stunning, long-lasting sunset topped off a great day and as the light faded, I lit my fire and enjoyed the moon reflecting off the water and the waves lapping against the shore. I felt a real sense of tranquility and connection with Mother Earth.

In the morning it was already light when I woke and I could see Alfie’s boat on the water with at least fifty birds including pelicans, circling and sitting on the bow. They were pulling in a fishing net and later I was shown about fifty kilograms of fish that he had caught. 

A vehicle came and collected the catch, owners of a local restaurant possibly or local wholesalers, 

but before they left Alfie gave me a 30cm fish for my dinner. 

Afterwards he picked up the couple from the island and they gave me their left over water and a can of carnation milk, so I was set for the day and decided I would stay another evening.

I did a bit more blogging in the new office

And after work I had a rest

I love camping and this place ticks all the boxes. I could stay here for a week but Cuba is calling and there’s still a lot of Mexico to see!

Puerto Vallarta

It was a nice ride south from San Blas with the road once again winding up into a small range and the temperature rising again into the high thirties. There were a couple of small towns along the way and also a small crocodile farm. I stopped in for lunch and met the young guy working there. They had only been opened for four months and it was quite a good setup for the crocs, each with their own enclosure and concrete pool.

Salvador explained that they take crocodiles that are either a pest or injured in the wild. The civil security guys catch them and this place was set up as a place to keep local crocs. They come from a large coastal marshland nearby. One small one had a damaged front leg and has been nursed back to health. I really like what they were doing and for fifteen Pesos it’s worth a look. Salvador and I had lunch together under a big shady tree and I shared some bananas and muesli bars with him.

I was getting closer to Puerto Vallarta and it became apparent there was some serious American money here. About ten or fifteen kilometres before reaching the town, I made a turnoff to a small peninsular that looked appealing on the map. The road became four lanes wide with tall central streetlights, the kind I had not seen in Mexico. A large wall and monitored gates enclosed some impressively large and extensive buildings, possibly condos, sitting on the top of the headland. There was a golf course and a gang of Mexicans literally raking rocks from the centre strip of the road.

 I wound down to the coast and found myself in a very touristic area with all the souvenir shops and vendors selling trinkets and t-shirts along the cobbled road. This type of area blatantly aimed at the tourist market never appeals to me so I kept going. I thought there might be some nice beach camping somewhere but without the sandflies, but as I came closer to Puerto Vallarta, it became apparent that this was a major tourist destination and all of the beachfronts were lined with large resort-like buildings and very little access to the beach.

 I rode into an area called Nuevo Puerto Vallarta and wound through a labyrinth of manicured streets before coming to a large shopping mall complete with Starbucks, Subway and McDonalds. I felt like I had landed back in the USA. A nice coffee at Starbucks did appeal and use of free wifi was a must. I needed to try to find something that would be reasonably priced here.

 Ironically I paid more for the coffee than I had for my camping fees last night so I took a seat and started searching. An American lady, Melissa, struck up a conversation with me and immediately picked that I was Australian and asked about what I was doing. She sells apartment ‘fractions’ here where you can buy in to part of an apartment and use it for a given period of time each year, similar to time share. We talked for a while and I explained I was just after somewhere to camp near the beach and she started doing some Google searching for me.

 Melissa told me she was meeting with her ex-husband to discuss seeing his children more regularly…the type of conversation that happens to me a lot! Maybe I am just a good listener but people tend to open up to me with their personal stories quite quickly and unfortunately for Melissa, I was mostly focused on the time of day and my need to find somewhere to stay before dark. She found an RV park by the beach that was backtracking quite a few kilometres and it seemed quite expensive and a bit fiddly to find for what it was. I shouldn’t expect anything else here.

 I thanked her for her help and said I must get going, although afterwards I thought I should have been more forward and asked if there were any empty units I could stay for the night. Missed opportunity? Maybe not.

 I appreciate her help but I didn’t take her suggestion, opting to head into the old centre of town and find a cheap hotel. Centro Puerto Vallarta is made up of one-way roads made from rocks cemented together. This is quite common in Mexico and I am starting to wonder whose idea it originally was to shake everyone’s bones to pieces and destroy vehicle suspension. With the fading light it was harder to see the sunken inspection points and missing rocks, the traffic was busy and slow, and eventually I just had to stop and ask for a price at a modest looking hotel.

 ‘Nine hundred Pesos is a bit more than I had planned to pay. I’m looking for something more around three hundred.’

The kind English-speaking hotelier pointed me to another part of town not far away over the bridge, so I remounted and rattled my way to where I was directed. Here I found about four quaint looking hotels, none of which had parking other than in the street, so I picked one and they had a room for 250 Pesos. I parked Ziggy right out the front and they did offer me to park in the foyer, the first time this had happened, but with the cobbled roads as a run up to a six-inch gutter, followed by a hallway that ran downhill into the hotel, it had all the makings of a disaster to try and get out in the morning. I parked outside the front door.

 In search of food, I did a loop of the nearby streets and opted for tacos from a street vendor after seeing high prices in the restaurants. Aware that the beach was only a few blocks away, I walked that direction to check it out. It felt like I had walked into a movie set or back to beachside California. There were crowds of people milling along the coastal walkway with a background of tourist shops, upmarket restaurants, little sitting areas around giant sculptures, with a sprinkling of poor Mexican street vendors selling artwork, jewellery and handicrafts to etch out a living.

 There were numerous bars also and I tuned into some of the conversations and most were in American English. Now this was an irony for me. In the US I was told by almost every American I met to ‘be careful’ in Mexico, and now here I was in Mexico, surrounded by American holiday-makers. I knew Cancun was a big destination for Americans but I didn’t know it was here also. I walked and observed and for an hour and a half and forgot I was in Mexico. It felt like the USA. I joined the irony and bought a gelato then walked back to my hotel room, forgetting the idea I had about maybe staying an extra day to have a good look around. I enjoy being in Mexico and I have really enjoyed meeting Mexican people, and I wanted to stay in that realm. I didn't bother taking photos.