Beach Living

Driving south out of Mazatlan the scenery is completely different from what I’ve been seeing for the past month. Trees everywhere. You really don’t see any in Baja outside of a few in the town centers.

Arrived in San Blas and found a good campground/restaurant right on the beach. The weather is perfect as usual but there are a lot of bugs here. Fortunately 98% DEET keeps them off pretty well. The only problem was in the morning when the DEET had worn off and dozens of tiny no-see-ums had found me in the tent. These are the first bugs that are small enough to make it through the screening. I escaped unharmed, but there were a couple of guys who were sleeping in a thatch cabana on the beach side of the restaurant who were covered in red blotches, like the people in the third week of Survivor.

With the bugs at bay I decide to spend a second night here, it’s a perfect beach spot. I guess San Blas is well known for its bugs, there are not many tourists here. I did remember to bring the bug spray up into the tent so I didn’t have to bail out of the tent first thing in the morning.

Leaving the bugs of San Blas behind I continue down the coast to Sayulita. It’s a popular tourist beach town, and when I arrive on Saturday afternoon it’s a madhouse. Streets are all jammed and gridlocked with traffic, hundreds of tourists roaming around. It takes quite awhile to make it to the center of town, where I decide this is not for me, then another long while struggling through traffic on the way out of town.

I go a few miles back up the coast to the little beach town of San Francisco aka San Pancho. There is a basic campground right on the beach, with no apparent bugs. There is a pretty good sized wave just offshore so you just hear surf all night, no cars or barking dogs.

This little dog comes around every couple of hours looking for a head scratch and a handout.

There are several restaurants right on the beach where you can eat dinner with your toes in the sand and watch the sun set.

After sunset I walk up the main street and find Game 4 of the World Series. After awhile a couple of Americans sit down at the next table to watch the game, it turns out one of them is also from Chicago and used to own a Nissan dealership in Joliet. Small world.

Next evening after sunset on the beach I return to catch Game 5, which goes much better for the Cubs.This is a BBQ restaurant so I tried the house special, a big plate of barbecued meats: ribs, chicken, steak, sausage.

Moving down the coast to Puerto Vallarta. It’s been four days camping on the beach so time for something different. I get four nights at the Plaza Santa Maria, just off the beach, for $26US per night. It’s a very nice place with a huge pool, large suites with kitchen and balcony.

 

For some reason I didn’t take any pictures, I guess walking around town I thought “Oh I’ll bring the camera tomorrow” and never got around to it. I really liked Puerto Vallarta though, it’s a modern bustling town with a great old section.

Spent two nights at Garage Burger watching the last two games of the World Series. The garage part is bigger than the restaurant part with an interesting collection of cars. It was pretty calm here when the Cubs won