Tuesday September 29, 2015, 164 miles (264 km) – Total so far: 11,664 miles (18,771 km)
Three days 164 miles We took a break day Saturday and were at the Mexican Pipeline beach called Zicatela early to rent a longboard. After looking at the large and fast breaking Zicatela and talking with the rental shop we decided to take a 15 minute taxi to La Punta which is a smaller and slower left point break. On the right swell Zicatela can be 60 foot faces and break extremely fast on the beach. It is very popular with body boarders, shortboards, and very experienced longboarders. We had over 3 hours of water time sharing the one board. It was fun to be back in the beautiful Mexican water and shed dirt from the road. A salt rinsing does wonders to the soul. We then returned by taxi to Zicatela where we had a simple delicious lunch on the beach. The weather was quickly deteriorating due to Tropical Storm Marty that was headed to our last stop of Acapulco. So we took a taxi back to Jim’s apartment and reached it right when the heavy rain started. Taxis are great around here and anywhere can be reached for 30 pesos (about $1.80). The American dollar is very strong here, in fact the strongest in years. Can’t complain about that.
We rode out of Puerto Escondido Sunday noon after spending the morning eating a delicious omelet thanks to Jim and taking care of some bike business. After 24 miles south we saw advertising for restaurants at Playa Blanco about a kilometer down the road to the west. We cycled by several outside restaurants and chose the last one for a late lunch. These beach restaurants are totally outside under palapas which are open sided dwellings with a thatched roof made of palm fronds. While there we saw an abandoned restaurant next to us and figured that would be a good place to camp since it had a good cover and we had expected more rain from TS Marty. After eating we set up our tent then enjoyed the sea and a few more beers from where we ate. Since there is no power in this area all the businesses closed around 7. We turned in at 7:30 and were quickly asleep while listening to the surf. I woke up and few times and observed high tide came to within 15 feet of us.
The next morning we were up for the sunrise, heated some noodle soup and were on our way off the beach and back to Mex200 road. After climbing through a few mountains we found ourselves at Bahia de Conejos. While riding into town a very kind and excellent English speaking gentleman guided us to a hotel, ATM, and an excellent store where we stocked up on toiletries and dog snacks as we love to feed the many dogs we meet. We also found Jocelyn’s favorite crackers, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, and my favorite Planters Dry roasted peanuts. What a score! We bought a few beers and ordered a pizza delivered to our room. It was another good day.
On Tuesday we continued over the low coastal mountains with the major port city of Salina Cruz on our mind. It turned out to be a very long and hard day through the heat and hills. In fact it was my most difficult day so far in Mexico. The reason why we pushed so hard is that we want to head east to the Gulf of Mexico then continue south through the many Mayan ruins areas. In other words we are leaving the coast and heading inland for a change. This will increase our time in Mexico also. We arrived in Salina Cruz on the Gulf of Tehuantepec very late in the afternoon. We rode around and finally found a hotel in the central district in the dark and right into a parade! We spotted a Burger King nearby and decided to take a break from our typical Mexican fare. It was quite good and tasted just like America’s. Tomorrow we will start east with Belize and the Honduras maybe in our future. That’s what is great about a trip like this as we never know what is going to happen tomorrow!
