And the trip turns south...Literally!

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  Playa Azul, Mexico
Sunday, July 6, 2008

Leaving Puerto Vallarta felt a little sad but exciting at the same time. It is such a cool town and I could have stayed there for another week but we don't have that kind of time. Plus we have new adventures ahead! Riding out of the city was again so extremely beautiful, since it had been raining everything was damp which kept us nice and cool as well and it smelled so fresh! What a bonus, first time on this trip we are not sweating like crazy!
 
It was a long day and again I'm sure Jess will fill you in on more detail regarding the road/bike etc.  but for while on our way down south we were driving on this small but amazing jungle  road. We are riding higher and higher and again it felt as we were riding into the clouds, and of course it started raining. But it wasn't like this morning's drizzle, this was so much worse; the sky turned black and there was so much rain it felt as if the clouds reached the ground and we were stuck in this thunder storm with lightning and everything! I was scared again, I have to admit. I'm pretty used to driving a car in rain and know how easy it is to hydroplane so when I see that we are riding in more than an inch of water downhill on this small  windy road I was sure the back tire was going to give out, we'd be off the cliff and no one would ever find us....again : )
 
But of course that did not happen and we both felt pretty ecstatic once it stopped raining hard and we reached  our destination just fine. It was a long day though. The town looked really cool with these huge waves rolling in since the storm was still kind of lingering. We found a super cheap hotel which at first glance looked clean.  I'll let Jess tell you about my night from HELL, I'm still feeling it so I don't want to write about it but I can tell you that it has something to do with bad shrimp and spending the night running from the bed to the toilet...oh and a power outage!
 
Wow!  Jess here...what an intro, huh?  First off...the road from Puerto Vallarta to Plaza Azul was amazing...there are no big interstate freeways here... so you just have to hop on a small windy road, go through all of the towns with topes (speed bumps), chickens, donkeys, piglets..etc,  and hope that you can belt out 400 miles before your bum hurts too bad or the sun goes down.  Literally, a world away from your normal road trip in the States...but different!  Yeah!
 
Today's ride took us 10 hours (yes, 10 hours) on a tight twisty jungle road as we averaged about 40 miles an hour - we climbed to 2000 feet where the jungle gave way to a pine tree rain forest! We then dropped down to the Jalisco coast and it was simply gorgeous...huge Pacific waves, dark blue water, and turquoise waves with frothy white edges...very picturesque!
 
Wait, did we already mention that it rained on us almost the entire time?  Just a drizzle at first, but compounded with all of the rain from two days ago, the soil was soft and entire trees were slumping over onto the road...rocks and boulders where strewn behind nearly every curve and inside the helmet it felt like we were watching a theme park ride unfold in front of our eyes!
 
We had Plan A - Playa Azul, Plan B - Callete Campos, and Plan C (I can't remember the name, but we needed to have the necessary intelligence on more than one destination, just in case weather and/or road conditions were going to throw a wrench into things.  As we reached each rain-soaked option, Malin and I made a "go, no-go" decision, and each time we opted to carry on with Plan A, Playa Azul on the Michoacán coast - simply beautiful.
 
Finally, Playa Azul!  We are soaked!...and tired, and yes the bums hurt!  The town looks like a graveyard, just like San Blas, missing about 1000 gringo tourists during the high season, but we found a hotel called  Hotel Andrea, which had gold painted doors, so of course we were inquisitive...what lay behind the gilded door?  At first nothing but a cheap bed ($25) and a shower...but later we discovered rat poop is what lies behind the gilded door!
 
From here, the story turns south...literally...poor First Lieutenant  Malin...she has been such a trooper this entire trip, but a combination of an iffy stomach and some iffy shrimp tostados made her a bit green around her mermaid gills.  Oh well we thought, let's turn in early for the night and plod our way through the rain in the morning....but then about 9:30 in the evening...the power went out...now our little rat poop room was turning into a sauna!  Then, just when I thought we would make it through the night...Malin's stomach rumbled...and she hopped out of bed quicker than a Mexican jumping bean!...but wait...no lights!  So she  grabbed a lighter, and like the little match girl, she tried to find the commode in complete and utter darkness, save for the Mini-Bic lighter which was now burning her little fingers!  The dark silence was then broken with unspeakable noises as she began blasting 12 gauge buck-shot out of both barrels...I was caught in the cross-fire and ended up pinned down (in bed) during the battle. 
 
Poor Malin...this process of going from the bed to the toilet, back to the bed, during the power outage and the sauna-like conditions was nearly unbearable...but like the little Hulk-a-maniac she is, she never complained...and when morning broke, she just lied lifeless in bed...unable to move....the rain continued throughout the night...we waited until 12pm check-out time...and she said - "we need to leave, I don't care how much it hurts, this place has too many bad vibes...we have to continue!"  So we suited up for the rain, and left the barf/rat-poop palace behind us...although I wasn't quite sure Malin was ship-shape for the ride...so I decided that if she could do 10 jumping jacks without incident, that she would deem herself ready to ride.  Obviously she didn't fall for my little ploy, but it made her laugh, which was good, and off we went, down the rain soaked road to nowhere, but better than here.
 
 

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desolate beach at Playa Azul

Malin before dinner...still similing

our palace for the night.

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