Maruata

We slept for almost ten hours! Obviously needed some catching up in the sleep department! Felt much better, and we got under way around 8:15am. We only had 47 kms (29 miles) to our next destination at Maruata, but that could take hours on these roads…

The road was very twisty windy, but in generally good condition. There was only one obstacle we had to watch out for…spiders! Now, when you can see a spider on the road from the front seat of the motorhome, you know the spider must be pretty big, right? Yes, they were tarantulas…we saw four of them crossing the road at different times. Too bad there was nowhere to pull over to grab a photo. We made it to Maruata around 9:30am. You cannot plan on getting anywhere fast in Mexico!

Maruata is a beautiful little Mexican beach community that is also another protected turtle area. There is also good surfing here, and a lot of young people from Guadalajara area come here on weekends. The military have a base here, and there is an old airstrip that runs beside part of the beach. Two years ago when we were here, we had parked on the airstrip for free across from the military base, but now there were some structures built there and even though we could have parked there, it wasn’t ideal.

Our friends Paula and Jerry from Nova Scotia (who we had met traveling Mexico two years ago and have stayed in touch with) had emailed us asking if we would stop in and say hello to their friends Chon and Lety who have a palapa tenting area and restaurant on the beach in Maruata. I rode my bike from the airstrip to find Chon and Lety to see if the parking area would be suitable for Sherman, and it was…so that’s where we are parked for 100 pesos ($8.40) per night. (GPS N18.27014 W103.34692)

There is no cell service here, but there is an internet café so I went over and used that for a couple of hours. It’s a bit slow, but I was able to get the blog from yesterday uploaded, and will do the same tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Ruth and Whiskey were set up in the shade reading and staring at the ocean. When I arrived back, she was talking to three teenage boys who had driven here from Lazero Cardenias for a couple of days. The boys spent almost all afternoon with us, and we had a lot of Spanish practice! One of them was very talkative, but the other two were a little shy. They were very impressed with our binoculars…looking out for girls on the beach!

We went for a late afternoon walk down the beach and saw a lot of turtle tracks in the sand. This was the beach where we saw a turtle laying her eggs two years ago, so we’ll try and go for a walk before sunrise tomorrow and maybe we’ll see some more.