Mexico 2016

---

Melaque

Sunday

Today we walked to Barra de Navidad, a small town down the coast. We started out on a main road in Melaque, then along the way we headed to the beach. Lots of dogs, many sleeping in the middle of the street, slowing down traffic. Passed an interesting shop selling vases made from carved tree trunks. Many homes and bungalos for rent with cement walls and gates, but when you look beyond the walls you see lots of flowers and foliage. Not at all expected.

The beach sand heading to Barra is very fine, nice for walking, no stones and only a few small shells. We passed through a hotel gate along the beach, and passed through an RV park. Most RV parking areas also had cars or bikes. The majority of the license plates were from Canada. Along the southern side of the park was a beautiful lagoon with lots of shore birds, mountains in the background. The RV park was surrounded by a fence, and we hoped there would be a gate at the end. Unfortunately, there was no gate, but there was a part of the fence that was bent down by previous hikers. We started to go over, but were yelled at by a security person, so we had to walk all the way back to get out and three feet over to the beach. We looked for hurricane damage, but this part of Mexico was pretty much spared from the storm.

We decided we wanted to stay in Barra a few days, so we found a hotel that was highly recommended online and very reasonable. We made reservations for a few days later and put down a deposit. It is by the town square so a very convenient location. We walked through town to the pier. The pier was being reconstructed, so we couldn't walk out to the end. Across from the pier is a very luxurious hotel, Isla Navidad. You reach it by boat from the Navidad pier. To cool off, we stopped for licuardos on the way back through town. There are so many jewelry stores and stalls here, I don't know how they can all stay in business. But it is a great place to get ideas for making jewelry from stones and shells.

We took the bus back to Melaque (14 pesos total, about 80 cents). We checked the schedule for buses to Manzanilla, a possible destination for a day trip tomorrow. Later in the day we checked with the staff for a good place for dinner. We couldn't find the place they suggested, but ended up at Mariscos Galeon de Archi, which has very good fish and shrimp. On our search for a restaurant, we passed one that said Elvis is there every Saturday at 7pm. Guess we missed him!

---