Fiesta Mexicana Manzanillo

... making sure we weren't drifting to shore proceeded to rock and sway for the remainder of the night. Josh pulled an all nighter watching out for the large container ships which often come into Manzanillo as its one of the largest ports on the entire Pacific Coast. Without an engine and with no wind there was really nothing we could do but expect they would not hit us, haha. In the morning ...

... was fine though and we got into the lagoon easy enough. Like I said Barra reminded me a lot of home, big but small town. Everyone seemed to know eachother and said hi as they passed, surfshops, markets, cafes, and shops were all pretty centrally located. We all agreed that this is a place we could definetly spend a lot of time in.

We packed up "La Familia" (we started calling my truck this which is Spanish for The Family half way through the trip due to the fact we had my mom and my dad riding for two weeks with us) for the three hour drive to Barra De Navidad or Christmas Bar. We stopped in the Mismaloya area of Puerto Vallarta for lunch and head the best fish we had our entire trip. We got into Barra De Navidad on the weekend of the end of the holiday week and it was ...

... it was getting dark & I wasn't going to risk hitching & getting stranded in the dark, so I never went - still on the to do list! Another day I went to Manzanillito, the village at the opposite end of the bay & an expat favourite, with nice houses set in wooded slopes overlooking a pleasant bay. The mangroves feed into the bay there in wet season but don't rise above the beach but even so the huge resident crocodile population comes right up to the beach, no doubt ...

... American expat, the resort originally built in the 1960s belonged to the Atocha family. After the earthquake, "ejido people" occupied it. They reclaimed it as being theirs since it was originally built on "ejido land". Subsequently, the federal police took the land back. The town of San Patricio de Melaque then hired a firm from Kelowna, British Columbia to flatten the hotel complex to allow for its reconstruction. They were paid 30% of the ...

... chair. Reminds me bit of European beaches where people are cheek to jowl and where everyone has staked out their territory by renting a beach chair and umbrella for the day. The malecón in Barra de Navidad must be one of the shortest in Mexico but maybe the cutest as well. Malecóns exist at many beach towns in Mexico. Perhaps the most famous is the malecón in Puerto Vallarta where it is described as a wide boardwalk along the beach. We also ...

... result is that it is not overrun with non-Mexicans. In fact it was not even overrun with Mexicans as the streets were anything but crowded. However, my comments have to be taken in the context that we were there on January 4, 2009, which would be just past the holiday crowds that we experienced in Rincon de Guayabitos. If you read our comments about Rincon de Guayabitos you may remember that we ...

... etc. to produce a unique serendipitous experience. The problem with that approach is that it would be very time consuming but I think it would produce a great blog. Can I do it? No, I have too many other plans to pursue in the near and distant future that I can't wait to get started on. Getting back to Bob for a moment, since he was a man who seemed to have the look of experience imprinted on his face, I was determined to ...

... into town. It was only $4 roundtrip and they ran every 10 minutes. We felt more comfortable in this port because it was a lot smaller than Acapulco. There were very few street vendors or beggars, and there were good bargains to be found in some of the stores. Once again, we're glad we didn't get into the beach resort tours we wanted ...

... scheduled to meet Kelly (the other princess from the Princess Palace) on March 30. About 2/3rds of the way between Mazatlan and PV we left the main highway, and headed west to San Blas. At this point the landscape became lush, green and tropical, a nice change after the desert and barren landscape of much of the Baja. We stayed in San Blas for 2 nights, and then made our way further south about 3 hours to La Penita de Jaltempa, another small coastal town that is still ...