November 6th Guadalajara to La Manzanilla

November 6th- Guadalajara to La Manzanilla

After getting a little lost we got out of Guadalajara and made our way to Mexico’s route 80, the beautiful winding mountain road that would take us to La Manzanilla and the pacific coast.  We were both giddy with D’s motorcycle fix and riding along the tight switch backs was a little like skiing.  The curves went on and on.  We stopped for lunch in Autlan de Navarro and found another taco stand that was outstanding.  It’s interesting, but by far some of the best meals that we’ve had have come from these taco stands.  The ladies there all have an amazing assortment of awesome salsas and toppings and it is so GOOD.  There is one salsa in particular, a soupy mixture of avocado/guacamole and lime that I could live on alone.  In some cases the taco is simply the vehicle for this amazing concoction.   

 As we got back on the road we found the way was even slower going and that there were indications that the road had been impassible not too long ago.  The further along we went, the more we saw signs of road devastation.  There was mud, gravel and sand on the road and obvious signs of landslides.  As we passed many a roadside shrine (as you do nearly everywhere we’ve ridden in Mexico) and the switch backs were getting a little more interesting with missing pieces of asphalt and road and sheer drops with nothing between the edge of the broken road and air, I began to wonder if D had any specific wishes for his ashes.  We’ve never really talked about it.  As we got closer to the coast, we came upon men working on shoring up parts of the road that were clinging to the side of the mountain and some small sections that had lost the battle to water and gravity and were simply gone.  It made me wonder what the engineering solution was.  How do you build a road on air?  Bridges, obviously, but it was just as clear that such construction feats were not in store for highway 80 any time soon.  As we were about halfway along this section of road, it dawned on me that this devastation must have been wrought by the recent hurricane, about a month past.  The amount of water that must have been released when the storm hit the mountains would have been incredible.  We saw further evidence of the strength of nature when we descended from the cool mountains into the oppressive heat of the lowlands and saw where a river of water had carved out a huge long section next to the road.  I found myself very glad that we hadn’t been around earlier to witness the storm’s arrival.  

When we hit the lowlands, we turned north onto highway 200, the coastal road that runs all the way to Guatemala.  Highway 200 took us directly into the small coastal town of La Manzanilla, just an hour or so north of Manzanillo.  There we found an interesting community of Mexicans and Gringos.  The town is small and though many expats have made it their winter home, it is obviously still very much a small Mexican village.  We stayed at Alegre Mar, a lovely little place right on the beach where the proprietress Kate lives above two very comfortable apartments, with a small studio above as well.  We shared our divided outdoor patio with Rosemary and Sam, an older couple from Vancouver (there are tons of Canadian tourists in Mexico) who are traveling companions.  They invited us for drinks one night and we discovered that between the two of them they have been just about everywhere in the world.   It’s very heartening to see people in their late 70’s and early 80’s who are still enthusiastic travelers- the kind that want to get into it rather than just vacation.  Rosemary entertained us with gritty travel stories while Sam, who was much more interested in comfort, regaled us with tales of driving the Autobahn in the good old days before it was ruined with traffic (Sam was originally from Belgium and had an interesting flare).

La Manzanilla was a wonderful and relaxing place but we wanted to move on to some place a little cheaper and different.  We decided to go down to the area of Zihuatanejo.  The trip there would take two days and would be through Michoacan, an area know to have heavy drug trafficking. 

We tried to get our large helmet heads as well as the amazing view in the picture- we weren't entirely successful.  D kept admonishing me to really smile, but with the helmet pads pushing on my cheeks, this was the best I could manage.

Unfortunately, the only place that we could safely pull off to try to capture the amazing mountains that we were riding through didn't really do the scenes that we were viewing justice.  Here you can see the road cut into the mountain.

We arrived at La Manzanilla just in time to relax, shower and take in the sunset from our beach side patio

The view south of our lodging.  You can see that the beach was a little ravaged from the storm.  La Manzanilla really dodged the hurricane well though, with most of the damage from the high seas.  The thatched roofs were all still intact.

The view from our cute patio, we've been enjoying hammock time.