Cycling in the scorching heat and beach time! Mazatlan to Sayulita.

by nicholasgault

I´ve been spending the last week in a nice little surf town called Sayulita.  Although somewhat touristy it has a good vibe to it and has proven to be another excellent place to have some time off the bike.

The trip down from Mazatlan was interesting.  The first few days I was with Billy and we pushed some reasonable kilometres even though we experienced unusually high temperatures; always meaning to start early, we inevitably left later and were punished by the scorching midday sun.

Our first night we stayed in Escuinapa, a nice little town where everyone was exceptionally friendly.  This may be in part because they rarely get any tourists but also because bicycles are a major use of transport around town; so I think they took special appreciation to our trip.  Due to limited budgets for such a long journey, Billy took the initiative of asking to sleep in the town hall (although we initially thought it was a police station due to high police presence).  Tony and Carlos, who worked for the President of the town, took us out and very kindly bought us dinner.  I mainly sat there watching Billy talk Spanish to them; I think I managed to decipher one word every ten minutes.  We slept in the president´s boardroom.

The gold bicycle in the main plaza; a pivotal part of the community.

Moody and very hot; over 30 degrees C.  Tough going on some of the hills.

After Escuinapa, we pounded out a not-unreasonable 130km or so to Ruiz.  Exhausted and slightly feverish we found an exceptionally low budget hotel.  Badly in need of work, I´ll spare the details but this place was pretty filthy and by far the grimmest of the trip.  The town was interesting and again we were somewhat of a novelty since no tourists ever really go here which meant for some interesting conversations. It amused me to be there, only by bicycle would I ever have been in such a place.

The next night we stayed in San Blas and after that we stopped at a reasonably pleasant little beach full of beach restaurants called Platanos.

Platanos beach:  Billy and I paid 25 pesos (~$2 each) to camp in this run down building at the end of the beach.  Great view but the bugs proved a bit of an issue and I wouldn´t recommend camping there  (unless this was a bad year for some reason).  Tiny bugs that are small enough to crawl through the mesh of a mosquito net mean a poor night´s sleep.  Packing up in the morning was also somewhat tedious getting attacked by thousands of these little insects.  It was a relief to get back on the road where I said bye to Billy and headed to Sayulita where I´ve spent the last few days.

Camping on this beach just north of Sayulita

Breakfast: eggs and bacon, pancakes, yoghurt and fruit.

This place is a time sink; days just slip through your fingers without you noticing.Nicely shaded camping; good for getting out of the midday sun.

It´s been a great opportunity to reflect on how good things really are.

I guess I´ll leave Sayulita eventually.  The only thing I wish I had here is my surf board.  The sound of the ocean at night is loud and it can be relaxing but also thought provoking.  I have a neighbour on the beach who keeps reminding me we´re on the San Andreas faultline but any worries disappear almost as quickly as they’re said.  The occasional day I cycle the ´long´ 15 minutes to town to get supplies, the rest are spent studying Spanish and watching the rare person come onto the beach on foot or horseback.  There´s a spot marked off where some turtles have laid eggs, perhaps they’ll hatch when I´m here…

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