Sunshine - Coral Island 2022: 3/9 - 3/10 | |
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Monday, March 7, 2022
Three hours in the dentist chair. ‘Nough said.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
We spent much of the day getting things squared away for when my niece and grand-niece arrive on Friday. We also agreed to ride back to Wisconsin with Jeff, so we had to cancel our flight home. That ate up a good couple of hours. We are excited to drive through Mexico and see parts we haven’t seen yet.
Aside from that, we had a 3-hour WhatsApp phone call with my sister in Germany. They are understandably nervous about Putin’s war. Germany isn’t far from Ukraine. And Putin never liked giving up East Germany. Gas is $8 a gallon and is expected to hit $10.
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Sunshine Bar 2022: Wednesday, March 9
Jeff graciously let me horn in on his Sunshine Bar gig today. He picked me up at 1:15 pm to set up. The gig was from 3:30 to 6:30. Most Mexican gigs are three hours long.
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I believe that this is my first time playing at the Sunshine Bar. It was a tight squeeze but we fit with a smidgeon of room to spare. | |
The bar tender brought us shots. Notice how excited we got. | |
A salute after the gig. Myself, Jeff, and Teri. | |
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Doc, the guy who paid for our table’s bar tab at Jax bar a couple of nights ago, bought us a shot of very expensive tequila. It was smooth as silk.
The Canadian ex-pats down here love 60s music. Jeff has a game he plays with Doc. Jeff will play some obscure 60s tune and Doc has to name the tune and the band. The loser buys the shots.
So, we played a ton of 60s tunes including the ones we just learned. These include: Bus Stop (Hollies), Gimmie Good Lovin’ (Crazy Elephant), Get Together (Youngbloods), Kicks (Paul Revere), Incense and Peppermint (Strawberry Alarm Clock), All Right Now (Free), Bad Moon Rising (CCR), Hang On Sloopy (McCoys), Light My Fire and Love Me Two Times (Doors), Nights In White Satin (Moody Blues), No Matter What (Badfinger), We Gotta Get Outta This Place (Animals), and a whole slew of Beatles tunes. As I said, the Canadian ex-pats eat it up, and tip accordingly.
After the gig, we went to Toscana Mia Italian Restaurant for supper with Jeff and Teri. This is an authentic Italian eatery in the heart of Mexico. With a wood-fired oven, their pizza is scrumptious. After two down days, it was wonderful to get back out and moving. Tomorrow, we snorkel.
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Now that’s an oven. They call it a Mexican microwave. | |
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Coral Island 2022: Thursday, March 10
Guayabitos is the one place that Wanda and I differ on. I like it a lot and she is ho-hum. Anyway, Guayabitos is the center community in a string of three coastal towns north of Lo De Marcos. Guayabito’s claim to fame is Coral Island, a large rock of an island about a mile offshore. Coral Island’s beach, with a coral bed, is a snorkeling magnet. More on that later.
Two buses go to Guayabitos: Pacifico and Compostela. Pacifico is a regular Greyhound-like bus. It is older but comfortable. For all that comfort they charge a bit more - 125 pesos ($6.25 US). Compostela just started sending a few buses all the way to Guayabitos. These old beat-up Mercedes buses rattle-and-roll but at 86 pesos ($4.30 US) for the Bucerias-to-Guayabitos run, it is a steal.
I was struck by how many hotels are in Guayabitos. In fact, hotels and bungalows are pretty much all there is in town. Fortunately, these hotels have true old-tyme Mexican character and charm, many with charming courtyards. I would say that restaurants and trinket shops make up the remainder of the commercial business sector. I have never seen so many blow-up beach toys in my life.
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Guayabitos has tons of quaint hotels and bungalow rentals. | |
And street venders galore. | |
And trinket shops galore. | |
I have never seen so many blow-up beach toys. Every other shop in town stocks all these items. | |
More hotels and bungalow rentals. | |
Of course, Guaybitos has its share of requisite murals. | |
This park is in front of a hotel, thus doubling up as a courtyard for the hotel. | |
Rentals come in all sizes and shapes. | |
More blow-up beach toys for sale. Funny, I didn’t see many people using blow-up toys at the beach. | |
Exotic fruit packs - Mango, papaya, pineapple. | |
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The three coastal towns from north to south are La Peñita de Jaltemba, Ricón de Guayabitos, and Los Ayala. Colectivos run up and down connecting all three towns. For 12 pesos, just hail a colectivo and off you go.
Two years ago we came up to the area and explored all three towns. Jaltemba is the more Mexican of the bunch. It is less touristy. There was a huge downtown market setup when we were there, much like the Bucerias Sunday market. Both are more of a flea-market kind of affair.
Los Ayala is the smallest and poorest of the trio. The downtown and the beach are nice, but the rest is more rundown.
Guayabitos, in my estimation, is the gem. It is quaint, charming, and touristy in the good sense, if you can imagine that. The biggest negative, and the one that drives Wanda to lower her grade, is that occasionally you get a whiff of sewer. Wanda’s nose is far more sensitive than mine, so it bothered her more than me. I only caught the whiff two or three times.
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We took a colectivo up to Los Ayala. | |
I haven’t seen a foosball table in years. These were in front of an arcade. | |
Approaching the beach in Los Ayala. | |
This food vendor would trim his meat and feed the waiting pelicans his scraps. They patiently waited for each bit. | |
But, we were there for snorkeling. The first order of business was to find a water-taxi to Coral Island. That is easy, There is a water-taxi hustler scouring the beach looking for anyone even remotely looking for a ride to the island. At 250 pesos ($12.50 US) roundtrip it was a little pricey, but that was the going rate. | |
The water-taxi hustler. He spoke passable English, which was probably his most valuable skill to round up tourists. | |
Coral Island as scene from the beach at Guayabitos. | |
Playa Guayabitos was crawling with vendors. | |
This vendor is a Mango artist. | |
Like Lo De Marcos just down the road, Guayabitos is home to a handful of RV parks. A couple of the parks are right on the beach. | |
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On the ride out to the island, they through in a little tour of the bay and a visit to another tiny island crawling with crabs and populated with birds. I think it is called Crab Island. If not, it should be.
So how was the snorkeling on Coral Island? I loved it. The coral around the beach was in pretty bad shape, but it improved the farther you got away from the beach. The coral was jagged and purple with some other colors dotting the rocks.
But, it was the plethora of bright colorful fish that got me. Big fish, delicate fish, toothy fish, clouds of minnow-sized fish that you could swim through, bright florescent fish, Ukranian fish (yellow and blue), fish with buggy eyes…. It was an amazing aquarium. Sadly, I don’t have an underwater camera.
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Our boat getting ready to board. There isn’t a pier at this beach. | |
Now thats riding a Yamaha. | |
Crab Island (the small island) and Coral Island. | |
Crab Island was literally alive with crabs crawling over the rocks. | |
Approaching Coral Island. | |
The small beach on Coral Island. | |
The rocks are part of the coral sticking up above the waterline. Underwater is a world of coral rocks that house thousands of colorful fish of all sizes and shapes. | |
Coral Island does have a pier. | |
We bought these expensive face masks because we could put our prescription lenses in them. After our cataract surgery, we had to go back to the regular clear glass. | | | | |
