Sayulita 2022: Saturday 2/5 | |
A festive street in Sayulita. Notice Rubens Restaurant way on the left. That is where we eventually ate. | |
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SAYULITA!
Now, this is more like it. We finally spent a full day exploring. But first, we walked to the ATM machine to try out the travel-blog trick. This time I declined the offered exchange rate. The machine whirled and whined for 10 seconds and then begrudgingly gave me my pesos. I logged into my bank account - I have online banking set up on my iPhone. Sure enough, I must have gotten the full 20.5 pesos per dollar because after the debit card fees I calculated my net exchange rate to be 19.9 pesos per dollar. This was at least 1 1/2 pesos per dollar more than my last transaction. Thanks, bloggers.
From the ATM, we got on the Compostela bus to Sayulita. One comes by just about every 10 minutes, so it wasn’t a long wait. The fare was 28 pesos each ($1.35 US).
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Sayulita’s bus station is served by the Compostela bus line. This station is only about three years old. The old station was an empty lot. | |
The bus station waiting room. | |
The bathroom at the bus station. 5 pesos will rotate the entrance, letting you in. | |
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Sayulita is a designated “Magic Town” 20 miles north of Bucerias. It is considered the “funky-hippie” beach town. The waves are usually quite heavy here. Several surfboard schools operate in Sayulita. The atmosphere is both frenetic and laidback at the same time. For a small town, it is crowded with activity everywhere. Yet the activity is somehow slow. No one is in a hurry. The idea is to find a nice spot to drink, eat, sunbathe, etc.
We have been here several times and we always find something new to discover. This time, we were looking for a hidden beach that I just read about. Playa Sayulita is the large main beach that sits in front of the town. It is the obvious beach peppered with cabanas, umbrellas, and chairs. This is the beach where the surfers flock to. We saw a couple dozen surfers in the water. Funny, most were just paddling their boards around in circles with only the rare surfer actually surfing.
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Scenes around colorful funky Sayulita. Notice the free-form architecture. | |
The street food vendors serve thousands of meals. The street food in Sayulita is high quality. | |
The wiring on this corner looks a little like the mess of wires in Thailand or India. | |
Nothing beats fresh squeezed Mexican orange juice - it is the sweetest tastiest OJ anywhere. | |
Rotisserie chicken is big in Mexico. | |
Subway? In the land of incredible food? | |
Just about all restaurants provide sidewalk and street seating. | |
This is a tiny mom’n’pop tortilla factory. They are made by hand. A pack of 20 or so fresh tortillas cost around 14 pesos ($.68 US) and are infinitely better than store-bought. | |
Great sand, good surf, wonderful weather….can’t ask for much more. | |
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Two years ago we discovered Playa Malpaso, a large expanse of remote sand at the end of an arduous trek through a thick jungle and over a steep jagged hill. This hidden beach is north of Sayulita.
Playa los Muertos, or beach of the dead, is south of town. We never knew about it before. I only found out about it a month ago while reading a travel blog. Here’s the thing. The coastal street that heads south from downtown Sayulita seems to end at an exclusive hotel complex. We always thought that the complex was the end of the line. Not so. Ah-ha, the street that pushes through the hotel gate is still a public street. It is only disguised as a private driveway.
As the street winds past the hotel complex, it turns primitive and leads to a unique above-ground cemetery. Grave vaults are decorated and festive. The cemetery gives the beach across the road its name - Beach of the Dead.
Playa los Muertos is small and compact. A cabana bar guards the entrance. Weird jagged granite that resembles newly solidified magma borders both sides of the beach. The sand is grey, which is unusual for a Riviera Nayarit beach. Being remote, the beach is advertised as quiet and uncrowded. It was quiet, but although not crowded, there were more people than I expected. Nonetheless, it was a nice find.
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Views along the street running south of downtown along the beach. | |
This is the entrance to the exclusive Villa Amor. We always thought that the road was private from here. It is not. We ventured further and found a whole undiscovered, for us, world past Villa Amor. | |
There is one odd thing that happens fairly often in Mexico and this building is an example. Sometimes a building will get started and just quit, leaving a skeleton that rots away for years on end. My guess is the builder ran out of money or maybe ran away with the money. I am surprised that no one picks up the project for cheap and completes it. But that never seems to happen. | |
The cemetary that inspired the name of the nearby beach. | |
Our speculation is that a young child died and is buried here. | |
A great sign announcing the beach of the dead. | |
The bar at the entrance to the beach. | |
Playa los Muertos is a compact beach with grey sand. | |
These jagged rock formations that look like freshly laid basalt are actually granite. How did granite erode in such an odd way? | |
Next, we headed all the way north to the northern tip of Playa Sayulita. The surf was pounding. We toyed with the idea of taking a dip, but we had so much more poking around to do. Instead, we found some shade, laid out our beach towels, and snoozed for about 30 minutes in the perfect light warm breeze. | |
The nice shady spot where we laid down to snooze at the north end of Playa Sayulita. | |
Playa Sayulita seen from the extreme north end, far away from downtown Sayulita. | |
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Refreshed, we resumed poking around. A large ragged hill rises up to block off the northern end of Playa Sayulita. After climbing up the steep hill, we entered a thick jungle. The trail is rugged and difficult in many places, requiring a fair amount of careful climbing and descending. In the end, the trail leads to a gorgeous long expanse of bright yellow sand. This beach, Playa Malpaso, is both remote and lightly populated. There must have been only a dozen people scattered along a half-mile of golden sand.
We had discovered this beach two years ago. What we discovered on this trip was a new easy route back to Sayulita through the jungle. A single-lane dirt road snakes back behind the beach. That forks off to a trail that eventually leads to the very end of an actual street that leads back to downtown Sayulita. You miss the beautiful views overlooking the ocean on the other, more arduous route, but after a long day’s hike, the easier return walk is nice.
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Starting our hike up the jagged hill on our way to Playa Malpaso (also named Playa Norte Sayulita). | |
Is this mud nest a termite colony? | |
The jungle path can get rugged and steep. Check out Wanda’s fanny pack. It’s completely waterproof. She puts her iPhone and wallet in it and goes swimming in the tumbling surf. It’s great for not leaving valuables behind on the beach. I also have one. | |
The path emerges from the jungle to provide a stunning view of Playa Malpaso. Notice how empty of people it is. | |
Beautiful rock formations form the borders of the long beach. | |
The single-lane dirt road through the jungle that we discovered. A little stream crosses the road. | |
The road gives way to a path. | |
The path eventually merges onto a street, Avenue del Palmar, that leads to downtown Sayulita. The street parallels the ocean. | |
There are some gorgeous mansions along Avenue del Palmar. | |
Closer to town, Avenue del Palmar has a school, a kiddie playground, and a large street market area. This is the entrance to the kiddie park. | |
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Being suppertime, we hunted for a restaurant. There are so many to choose from. We have always enjoyed the outdoor restaurants in Sayulita and we wanted to add another to our collection of great outdoor meals.
We settled on Rubens, with its typical sidewalk seating. We ordered a plate of shrimp tacos, a grilled veggie burrito, a Pacifico, and a margarita. As our custom, we split both dishes. Everything was wonderfully delicious. When it comes to culinary delights, Mexico is A1.
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Our meal at Rubens. The margarita was pretty tiny, but it was delicious and powerful. | |
The shrimp taco was a work of art and incredible. | |
We bought some fresh figs from this guy. | |
These guys begged me to shoot their photo and then hammed it up. | |
The bus ride back was uneventful. Checking our Gaya GPS hiking app when we reached our front door, I noted that we clocked 8 1/2 miles of hiking and walking. We barely broke a sweat. We’re back baby! | | | | |
