Playa Bocana (Huatulco, day 18)

We were up well before 7:00am, but it was still almost 7:45am before we actually hopped on the bikes and went for a ride. Not sure why it takes us so long to get going sometimes!

Once again, it was a hilly bike ride. Had to get off and walk a couple of times…it seemed like we were either peddling hard uphill or whizzing fast downhill…no easy flat stretches here!

We made it to Playa Bocana and it looked like there was a decent overnight spot at the end of a dead end road just before the turnoff to the beach. We could also probably park in the main lot for Playa Bocana, but it’s a little small and it may get crowded during the afternoon. We then peddled a little further on to the Copalita Eco-Archealogical Park. This new archealogical park opened to the public about a year ago. They don’t have a huge parking area though, and the close the main gate at 5:00pm so they told us we can’t overnight there. But there is enough room to park Sherman while we visit the sites there, so we’ll return there tomorrow morning and pay the 50 pesos ($4.16) each admission fee to walk the trails and see what there is to see. Unfortunately no dogs allowed on the trails, so Whiskey will have to keep Sherman company.

Peddled back to Sherman, and we had enjoyed a nice morning workout on the bikes. Made it back there about 9:30am.

I was walking over to the shower building later in the afternoon and a couple of guys were coming towards their parked car in the same area. I saw what looked like a big snake around one guys neck so of course stopped to have a better look as they got closer. Sure enough, that’s what it was. An albino boa constrictor named Lilo. The two guys, Eric and Omar are from Mexico City and they decided that a good business would be to take Omar’s Boa to the beach areas and have tourists take photos for a price. So that’s what they do. Eric speaks English fairly well, so he’s the guy who deals with the English speaking tourists. We spoke to them for a few minutes when he asked if we would like a picture, no charge for us. I had the camera ready, and he got a good shot!

Then around 5:00pm we had emptied the tanks and filled with water. We said goodbye to our accordian playing camping friends Heinz and Solidad from Austria and the other Heinz from Alberta. It seemed strange to be heading out at 5:00pm, but we knew we were just going down the road and this way we didn’t have to pay for another overnight charge at the campground.

So we’re parked up for free for tonight, and if it goes well we’ll probably do two nights here. Quite a few dogs barking already and roosters crowing, so we only had to drive 7 kms to get back to the real Mexico!