Southern Mexican West Coast

 

Hi, Me again.......

 

Before I write this second of three updates I need to get through to get caught up, let me tell you where we are currently.  We're in the state of Chiapas at San Cristobal de las Casas which is wonderful.  We left the coast two days ago and are now at about 7,000 feet where it's cool and very different.  The coast was wonderful but this is a nice change.  We're further "down" in Mexico but have actually come a bit north of our last locations in Oaxaca at the beach.  We've come east mostly but a little north.  Our furthest point south was at 15 degrees 40 minutes North and we're now at 16 degrees 44 minutes North....though a ways West and certainly uphill!  For those of you who don't know, a degree of latitude is equal to 60 nautical miles. 

 

I'll write more about Chiapas and San Cristobal once I get caught up.  And there will be lots to say!  I'll bet you just can't wait!!!!!

 

So - back to the narration.  We headed for Puerto Escondito from Acapulco - we even left fairly early in the morning for us - around 8am I think.  But it was too far so we wound up pulling into a Pemex station and parking for the night.  Pemex is the only fuel corporation in Mexico and there are zillions of locations.  All nice and new and building more every day - amazing.  Anyway, they're sorta like truck stops in the states.  A good place to stop if you have just had enough!  And we had.  Anyway, that was a first but I expect it will happen again.  Sorta like the Wal Mart parking lots up north! 

 

Anyway, we got to Puerto Escondito and found this horrible campsite.  Actually, it was in a great location but was icky.  On the other hand, it was cheap!  You can't have everything.  We saw another one down the road but it looked hot and dusty and was right on the main highway so we opted for the icky one in the shade with the good location!  Mostly we don't use the facilities anyway - and we only stayed two nights so it was fine. 

 

P. E. is a great place and we enjoyed the town and the beach.  There's a really neat stone beach walk that goes along the shore and there are great old buildings and good shopping!   I was here years ago and was looking forward to having lobster but we wound up having pizza instead!  It's a long story but the pizza was very good.  And the lobster may have been non exsistant for all we knew.  Check out the Bill Clinton look alike in the photos!  I remember him from before at the cool hotel with the mural on the dining room wall.  (For you, Joyce).

 

Our next stop was Puerto Angel which is a wonderful little fishing village.  There aren't any campgrounds right in town but we managed to walk there from our campground at Playa Zipolite just north (or west, I guess, though it seems like it's north!) of town.  We had this wonderful lunch of a whole pargo (whatever that is - see photo).  It was really good, firm, white fish.  Yum. 

 

Our campground was near the beach at Zipolite which is sorta hippy like.  I don't know how else to describe it!  Very funky place.  Big waves were crashing as we were right on the open ocean.  And, boy, was it hot!  Have I mentioned that?  It's hot!

 

The iguana lived right behind our camper - he was very different looking from most we've seen.  More black.  I guess there was a skunk that lived there as well according to our neighbors but we never saw him or her.  Thank you very much!

 

On to Hualtulco........but first we take a three day "vacation" at our favorite place so far - St. Augustin or Sacrificios Bay depending on who you talk to.

 

 More coming - then I'm going to bed like Mike!  Tired!