feb. 2/09 going north.

Well, I'm behind a bit with blogging. Saturday, we spent a lovely day in San Sebastian, a colonial town dating back to the 1500's, high up in the mountains, with cobblestone streets and whitewashed houses with red rooftiles and loads of lime and avocado trees. There's a beautiful old church which has a bell that dings every 15 minutes. It was nice and quiet, not many tourists. The drive to this town is hair-raising at some points, through thick jungle, the road washed out in places and rockslides that pushed the driving to the edge of the road. Roadsigns warned to watch out for armadillos, wild boar and jaguar but we didn't see anything like that. (too bad!). The town is high in the mountains east of Puerto Vallarta. It used to be a silver mining town for the Spaniards, some mines are still further up in the mountains but we didn't walk there. We walked around town, our van just made it through some of the narrow one-way streets so we parked it in the townsquare. The doors of the little houses and villas are thick solid wood with big iron hinges, very cool and historic feel and the people very friendly.
We came back to Sayulita to find the beach supercrowded, loud families until late in the night partying and singing.
We found out Sunday that it's a long weekend, constitution holiday I believe it is. People from the hills (ie. Guadalajara and other towns inland) come to the beach for the weekend. We didn't mind the singing and such, it was quite nice to see large families all spread out on the beach singing together, then rolling out the extension chords (hooking up where..?) for all kinds of iPods, ghettoblasters and then the barbequeing etc. Hordes of people in the water, the rescue guys (some of the surfers from our campsite) had a busy weekend as several people got caught in the riptides.
So Sunday was our last day in Sayulita. It was sad to go, in a way this place felt like home. Megan is very excited about buying a place there with condos to rent out and living there part of the year and part of the year in Canada...she checks out the real estate offices when we walk into town and is on the internet real estate sites....we'll let her do her thing who knows? She may find something. Ryan was busy surfing, boogyboarding and playing around with friends. We got lots of emails and may visit their new friends on the way north again, they live near San Francisco where they have 80 acres and a herbal medicine school.
We said goodbyes to all and
Monday morning we left early, 6:45 we were on the road. Destination: Mazatlan.
We decided to take the tollroads the whole way making the trip possible in 6 hours. Then we'd be there by lunchtime.
3/4 of the way, driving through El Rosario for some gas and having spent $20 on tolls, we take the libre or free road the rest of the way into Mazatlan. Those tolls get to you after a while! But you can sure go fast and make good time on them. The free roads go through towns so you deal with bustraffic, topes (speedbumps) and other bothers but it is a little more adventurous.
We passed through fields of tobacco, corn, and some unidentified as of yet plants. I took a picture maybe someone can i.d. it for us.
Around 1 p.m. we arrived in Maz. and we drove around the old town to see if there was a good hotel to stay in. I'd found one on the internet, we checked it out, but we also checked out in the Zona Dorado a 'luxury' hotel. We opted for the luxury, a two bedroom, 2 bath with kitchenette and view of the ocean with 2 balconies. There are pools on the beach with waterfalls. And the beach is supernice with a gentle surf.....we booked 2 nights. Not cheap (over $100 USD) but oh did we sleep well - and our very own shower and potty!!!!!!!
The campground we stayed in on the way down is full by the way, lots of big rigs.
It is soooooo nice to sleep in an actual bed, make coffee and drink from a real cup in the morning (not our tin cups), watch some news (nothing too interesting really, mostly we watch nature shows or the weather).
One thing about staying in a nice hotel: the condo sales people are like vultures, waiting for you downstairs in the lobby and outside on the streets. You almost HAVE to be rude and just walk by without talking or answering, I really dislike that. You can't even make smalltalk. They offer free breakfast, listen to a 'talk' or salespitch for 90 minutes and then a free trip ie. snorkeling or a city tour or something, swinging by the condos for sale of course. Or they'll give you $100 cash instead and just come for the breakfast and the salespitch. And they don't give up easily! Very persistent. We talked it over with the kids, then decided we'll do our own thing and not sit in on the salestalk even if a 'free' trip is involved.
This morning we made a nice fruitshake with yoghurt in our little kitchen, we're slowly getting up and running after a wonderful sleep in a BED (yes we are really, really excited about that) and we look out over the ocean with the little boats and little islands offshore, the pool and some lazy tourists.
Oh yes we had a great dinner last night, 2 for one ribs, beer etc. shrimp, and a mariachi band with a wonderful singer. It looked to be one large family, moms dads kids everyone.
Very enjoyable.
Hasta Luego!