Day 10 – San Blas to Mismaloya

Today is a short day, only about 130 miles, so although we were up a bit early(hard to sleep through those cool bells) we did bike maintenance, took pictures, and waited til 8AM for the opening of the dining room for breakfast. Very nice, most had a couple of eggs with bacon, mine was 2 eggs sunnyside and chorizo.

Leaving about 10AM, we worked our way back through San Blas, past all the vendors and outdoor smokeries with fish and other meats. Wonderful smells. We made our way out of town and followed the signs toward Puerto Vallarta on the very narrow two lane roads, slowing frequently in the villages, behind traffic, that had to make their way slowly over the topes.



Jim & Tom, finally catching up.. :-)




Wow1..!



Wow..2



This would be a good place to interject some of the Mexican road peculiarities, from an American perspective. Traffic enforcement: there is basically none. We've not seen any state type policia, as we have in the states, like CHP. Speed enforcement is done utilizing topes. Topes are basically speed bumps. They come in several different forms, but are inevitably placed at the beginning(from each direction) of any village, or town on the highway. They're also placed strategically within the town, all with the idea of slowing vehicles. Works well for 4 wheeled vehicles, but us wild bikers can slip over them with great gusto and use them as passing opportunities with slow traffic. Yellow lines in Mexico don't mean a thing. They're there, and positioned much more sensibly than in the U.S., where it seems lawyers are consulted for striping and anyplace that has the slightest risk, is double striped. Not so in Mexico, they use common sense and most double yellows, along with signage, designate areas that are actually dangerous for passing. The double yellows, however, are still just suggestions to all drivers, it seems, and if a passing opportunity presents itself that can be accomplished, the opportunity is taken. Slow traffic: there is a great diversity of traffic speed on most highways. Slow vehicles on major highways with room to the right, will generally pull to the right to allow passing. They will NOT stop and let faster traffic by as is more common in the U.S.. Truckers in that situation will pull to the right and signal with their left turn signal to indicate it is safe to pass. Weird, but effective. Basically Mexican drivers expect to be passed by faster traffic, wherever it is safe, and harbor no grudge toward those speeding by. Note, most of this goes out the window in the cities, where speed of action reigns. Still no ill will or middle finger salutes though. They seem to have an effective traffic flow system worked out that is very different from ours. That's all I can think of now, but more later as thoughts occur.

As we got closer to Puerta Vallarta(or PV), traffic increased and became slower and slower, with large trucks crawling over the many topes in some of the villages, stacking up 50-60 other vehicles behind.. Not much to be done except, when an opening, take it..

Into PV and onto 5-6 miles of cobblestones. Not fun on the bikes. We stopped for gas and Roger found the storefront for the zipline company he'd been hoping to find. Back on the bikes, we continued through the very narrow bumpy streets dodging the many buses and some aggressive drivers, past an unending line of shops built for turistas, past the solid line of cars parked on both sides of the road, til we got to fresh concrete. The road was just as narrow, but we were out of the business district and into the area of hotels and condos. After waiting several minutes for road construction lengthening the two lane concrete strip, we continued past some really impressive condos with walls of orange bougainvillea to our right, on the west side of the road. Beautiful, but to get there by car or from the airport(on the North side of PV), you have to go through that town and it ain't no fun.. I'd imagine for a vacation there, flying in and taking a bus South is the only sane option.

Passing by numerous beautiful buildings and landscaping, plus some abandoned, some under construction we arrived at the hotel Mar Serena around 2PM and disembarked the bikes to find our rooms. That presented a couple of problems. The floors of the hotel had been renumbered and the 2^nd floor was now the 1^st. Most room numbers were unmarked, so the clerk came down to direct the room hunt. The lobby is at the top and the hotel descends down the face of the cliff, with floors numbered in ascending value and the floors descended from the lobby. Makes an odd sort of sense.



Right on the highway, in front of a verrry steep drop..

 

Another Wow!



And again!!

We finally got settled and those wanting to do the zipline headed off to the zipline park, or whatever it's called. I was fried from going thru PV and wanted a shower, beer and a sit down to do some writing, so that's what I did. Motorcycles give me what I need, don't need no steenkin' zipline.. The guys all came back and talked more about the tropical menagerie of scorpions, tarantulas and boas than they did about the zip line. Jim's statement. “It was fun” (enunciating “fun” somewhat less than enthusiastically than “It was”).

Dinner was next, but no restaurant at the hotel, so all in the truck and off in search of a good meal. A couple hundred yards down the road was The Kliff Bar and Restaurant. An amazing place with thatch covered deck perched out over the cliff's edge with a full ocean view. I had a pork loin that was very nice, Roger and Ken went for the gusto and had a sea food platter that included lobster and deep fried calamari plus other goodies. As we were eating, several long nosed, long tailed critters came up from below and were begging food, Coatimundis! They're related to racoons and are known fondly as Mexican racoons. A pretty unusual experience for us Californians.



A Coati in "the wild"

That about did it for all of us. We piled in the truck and headed back to the Mar Serena for some Z's and another day.