Happy New Year!!

Hello Everybody!

Well, first things first...sorry it´s been so long since our last entry. Just haven´t been able to pull ourselves into an internet cafe...too many beaches, too many waves, too many interesting people.

Where did we leave you...oh yes, we were on our way up to La Paz to catch the ferry to mainland Mexico. The actual voyage was uneventful, but the process of purchasing tickets and boarding both the car and us was an experience (remember our spanish is still touch and go). Apparently, the couple weeks before Christmas are a major period in Mexico. Hence, the ferry company was no longer taking reservations due to the crowds. The only way to get the van on the ferry was stand-by style. Luckily, we were able to get aboard the ferry before Christmas...only catch was that we had to be at the terminal at 8am. Keep in mind that the ferry didn´t sail until 3pm for a 6 hour journey. It was a long day, but we finally made it to mainland. We both agreed that we really felt like we were gone once we were off baja.

From Los Mochis (the port where the ferry arrived) we booked it down to Mazatlan. It was amazing...we were able to take the toll road. It was like the Hilton of highways. Fully paved, no cows on the road, no missing parts of the road, AND 120kph as opposed to 60kph at best on any other Mexican highway.

We stayed one night in Mazatlan (nice city, but too crowded) and headed down to San Blas. We had high hopes that this town could be our home for Christmas. No such luck. Besides the fact that the Baja Peninsula blocked the winter north swells (no surf), there were human flesh eating sand flies. These things are far worse than mosquitoes. Before you know it, you´re COVERED in itchy bumps and the spots don´t go down for a week. Brandon and I both looked like we had chicken pox. Needless to say, the beloved sand flies promptly motivated us to continue south.

From San Blas we headed toward the town of Sayulita. Yet again hopeful that we´d be able to stop driving until after Christmas. We had heard so many great things about this town. We arrived to a sea of foreign tourists. The town was overrun with vacationers and also on the expensive end. We hung around for lunch and that was that. Further south we went. Side note: good thing we bailed because further down the road we found out that there is a major problem with raw sewage off of Sayulita.

We found ourselves in the town of Melaque for the evening. Once again arriving in the dark we hadn´t a clue of what was around us. We awoke in the morning to find that Melaque was the Canadian retiree capital of the world. Ocean water aerobics included. It seemed to be nice...we´ll probably return...in 50 years.

So further south we went. Both of us were a bit discouraged. Were we ever going to find a nice place to spend Christmas? We had our sights on the Michoacan coast. We stopped in Manzanillo to stock up on camping provisions on the chance that we were to stumble upon our Christmas paradise. On the way out of Manzanillo the strangest thing happened...

We found ourselves stuck behind a slow moving train just before the south end of the city. As anybody can relate, waiting for a train to pass in 90 degree heat on an uphill grade in a manual transmission can be a bit discouraging. We were passing the time looking at the map trying to figure out which beach to head for when suddenly Dave appeared at the driver´s window.

Long story short, Dave is an ex-pat from the west coast. He had noticed our California license plates and walked over to chat. He told us that he´s been living in a town called San Juan de Alima for the past 5 years. This mythical town has a right point break (many other great surf breaks are close), warm water, cool people, and a coconut palm grove just big enough for a Vanagon. To top it all off, the holiday crowds somehow missed this spot.

We had been looking, driving, and looking some more when the stars finally aligned and presented Dave and San Juan de Alima. We almost spent an entire week camped out on this beach. We met some really great, interesting people while there. Coco and Johnny from Switzerland, Italy, and presently the Dominican Republic (avid kite surfers), Rob from Alaska (big time outdoors man), and Mike from Colorado (he´s got a great life story...you´ll have to wait for it in the bookstores). We had a great Christmas dinner up at Mike´s house and spent the rest of our time there talking stories and chasing waves.

We finally pulled ourselves away from San Juan because if we were to stay any longer, it would´ve been the end of our travels. Before we headed south, we took a turn inland to check out Mexico´s active Volcan de Fuego. Pretty nice change of scene from the beach. Beautiful mountain landscape and some quaint colonial towns. The coolest part was the ash falling from the sky.

Okay, next stop south was Zihuatenajo. We only spent one night there (too packed) and moved on to Playa Ventura. Here, we stumbled upon a beautiful estate and ultra warm Mexican family. We found ourselves EXTRA lucky when Hernan informed us that there was an opportunity to see an endangered turtle lay her eggs on the beach in front of their property that night.

This experience was AMAZING!! This turtle weighed approximately 1500 pounds and was about 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. Hernan guessed that she was about 80 years old. Unfortunately, we weren´t able to see he lay the eggs because she was spooked by all the people gathering. We still felt lucky to see such a rare and majestic creature.

We pryed ourselves away from Playa Ventura because we had our sights set on spending New Year´s in Puerto Escondido. Here we are in the internet cafe on New Year´s Eve. It´s time to party!!

FELIZ ANO NUEVO A TODOS!!

ps. we´ve added pictures to the album