On Friday night, I left Guanajuato. I went out for a last meal with my program friends, which ended up being a noisy meal because there was a huge festival going on. After dinner, we went and sat on the theater steps for the last time together, as I tried not to cry and enjoy my last moments with these amazing people.
At 10, Andres and I left to catch our bus to Sayulita, a beach town in the state of Nayarit. The bus was around 10 hours, but we picked a nice company so it was probably as comfortable as a bus can be. I took my car sick medicine which helped me to pass out, though it didn´t help with the cramp in my neck when I woke up. From the bus station in Puerto Vallerta, we took a 30 minute cab to Sayulita, a funky little beach town that is known for surfing. Because we arrived really early and didn´t have hotel reservations (nobody responded to my emails requesting reservations), we didn´t have many options and had to settle on a hotel that was out of our budget range ($40). It was a really nice hotel, but our nights didn´t go too well there.
Hardly anywhere in Mexico has air conditioning, and this hotel wasn´t an exception. However, it also didn´t have screens on the windows and the bathroom had a little opening to the outside. So the first night we were absolutely eat alive by mosquitoes. We woke up several times throughout the night, basically hysterical, covered in bites and sweat. So the next morning we talked to the owner and go switched to another room. This room at least had glass on all the windows, so we closed them all and just left the fans on and slept wonderfully. The next night, we weren´t so lucky. Around 9 pm, the entire town lost electricity and remained off until the next day. So that meant we had no screens and no fans. First we tried to sleep with the windows closed, but of course it was sweltering, so we then switched to open windows, which left us at the mercy of those damn bugs.
Aside from our dramatic nights, we had a nice time at the beach. It wasn´t very good weather, so the ocean wasn´t exactly picturesque, but it was still relaxing. We ate a lot, including when Andres accidentally bought a huge drink filled with fruit and alcohol served inside a pineapple which he thought was 80 cents until he realized he had misunderstood and it was really 8 dollars. Still very good, but rum at 10 am has never really been my thing.
On Monday, we rented a motorcycle and drove it to some other beaches we had heard about. Being on the motorcycle, driving through this beautiful tropical area, was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. But it was fantastic. And as silly as it is, I have to admit I couldn´t help but gleefully feel a little connection to Che (or Gael Garcia Bernal) in The Motorcycle Diaries. The first beach we reached we arrived at by mistake. There were no signs anywhere, so we pulled off of the first dirt road that looked a little more traveled on than the rest we had seen. We ended up on massive beach, completely empty. The sand was endless and gorgeous and white, the ocean reaching out forever. There was no life in sight except for houses, from which we saw no people. I have to say, as stunning as this beach was, I felt a little uneasy there. Not one restaurant, no bathroom, no human life. Swimming in that ocean would feel like swimming in the absolute unknown.
After that beach, we headed up towards Punta Mita. It was a somewhat built up beach, though strangely the beach itself wasn´t what one would expect for a little Mexican resort town. The beach was very rocky with limited amounts of sand to hang out on. The water was also much colder and the whole area reminded me more of Maine than Mexico. After drinking a beer and taking some pictures, we left Punta Mita. Despite traveling down the wrong roads too many times and asking a million people for directions, we finally arrived in Punta Negra. This beach was much like the first one we went to, though we did see about 5 people way down the beach. We stayed at this beach for a few hours, just hanging out, sleeping, swimming, and getting a little sunburned. Eventually we left because it was getting dark and we could hear our stomachs rumbling.
That night, we ate burritos at a cute little restaurant that had live music. We originally chose the restaurant because Andres thought they were playing Venezuelan music, and although it turned out they weren´t, it was still a really nice dinner. And then the electricity went out!
So fast forward to the next morning. We decided that it was time to leave the beach and get back on the road. We took a bus to Guadalajara, where we now are. We are staying with my sister´s friend from college and her husband, who live here in a nice house with INTERNET! I am actually using the internet right now not worrying if I have enough pesos to cover my time, and I have to say it´s fantastic. Definitely something I won´t miss about Mexico.
So my trip really is almost over now. I fly out early Friday morning and will meet my parents in the airport, as they are also returning from a trip at the same time. Writing this now makes me very excited to come home, as I know I have been missing a lot of things for a long time now. But there will be so much I am leaving behind that I am not ready to face yet. It still has not hit me that I may never seen my Guanajuato friends ever again. One more post before I leave. See you all soon!
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