Further down the Pacific coast

For more photos of the Pacific Coast click here

Leaving Mazatlan we entered into a different country than what we had grown used to the past month. No more severe desert beaches with little plant or animal life but now lush almost jungle atmosphere and rolling hills give us a fresh start and new pace. We biked through where several movies were filmed: the critically acclaimed "Predator", "Night of the Iguana" from the 70´s, and I think "9 1/2 weeks" as well. We were so refreshed and happy to enter into this new phase we quickly arrived in San Blas where we stayed for a few days and met Swen´s friend from Germany who will be travelling with us the next few weeks. San Blas was so nice, so refreshing, not to mention sooo much cheaper than Baja - we are living off half of what we spent daily in Baja to our huge relief! And we agreed that beaches are so much nicer with palm trees! We took a boat tour for bird watching for a few hours in the mangrove lagoon, rested and relaxed before setting off again. It only got better further south. Everything is so green and beautiful, the temperature is great (maybe a little hot sometimes), the cycling is going well - we don´t have to carry as much water because there are more towns where we can fill our bottles more frequently.
We had a nice Christmas eve and day on the beaches, staying in little beach towns called Mismaloya outside of Puerto Vallarta, then Punta Perula, then to La Manzanilla and finally here to Manzanillo. We are still about 10 days away from Acapulco where afterwards we will turn inland for the first time in a long while and head towards Oaxaca.

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We passed our first 1000 and 2000 kms in the last weeks but have had many opportunities to get off our bikes for a while - there has been great snorkeling and at Mismaloya we snorkeled around many different fish (baracudas!) and even a big swarm (pod? school?) of sting rays! We didn´t have as many experiences with the tiny, invisible, stinging jelly fish that we unfortunately came across often in Baja. We also got to see newly hatched baby turtles being released into the ocean from a turtle sanctuary.

We had some hard days too, though. The unbelievable quantity of garbage on the road, in the fields and everywhere started to get to us - it can be pretty depressing to be biking and camping in a huge land-fill - and then we passed through some villages where we didn´t find a friendly person at all. We once left a store with 5 women sitting out front and not one of them would respond when we said hello and wanted to buy groceries. Then there was the man who drove very close to Kat on a curve and spanked her, yelling ugly comments as they drove by. But fortunately after all this our opinions of this region were lifted by a very friendly couple and their children. Osvaldo and Susana were driving from Guadalajara when they passed us, waving from the car. Then a few kilometers up the road they had stopped and were standing on the road with oranges to give us. Then even further up, they were waiting again and asked us if we would like to camp at their beach apartment, have some dinner and showers. We gratefully accepted and followed them to their place. It was a holiday resort with mainly Mexican clientelle, no big tourist beaches, fortunately. Susana made us a huge dinner of quesadillas, Osvaldo made us some nice tequila and fruit juice drinks and we had a nice evening. The next day they both rode a bit with us on the bikes as some of us took turns in the car following along to the next beach.

With spirits lifted and faith in the kindness of strangers restored we felt energized and relaxed. That evening on the beach a big sea turtle crawled out to about 1 meter in front of our chairs and dug a hole, laid her eggs and went back to sea. Amazing. And things keep on getting better!