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.