A trip to Costa alegre and Puerto Vallarta.

A trip to Costa alegre and Puerto Vallarta.

On Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m., my friend Chuy, his lady Silvia and her girls, Rosa and Marie and two chihuahuas took off in my car for a drive to the ocean.  Chuy is an excellent driver and he likes to drive my car so he drove and I , with the help of my smartphone and Google Maps, figured out where we were and where we were going.

Our first stop was Cuyutlán.  I had a beer at the Hotel Fenix while Silvia and the girls went to check out the beach. Santa semana prices we're still in effect and the girls decided that the beach was too dangerous to swim in so we got back in the car and took off towards Barra de Navidad on the libre.  

We went on to Melaque and stopped at the first beach we saw.  It looked nice but the waves were still too big. I talked to a gringo sitting on the beach and asked him if there was a beach that had smaller waves and he recommended Cuastecomates located just north of Melaque.  So we drove up and over a hill to the Bahía de Cuastecomates.  There is only one road in and out to get to this beach. There were just a few houses but there were chairs and umbrellas on a very nice beach.  There were no restaurants and no abarrotes.  We had some food with us so we decided to rent a suite with a kitchen at the small hotel Lupita in Cuastecomates.

The next day we took off on Highway 200 North towards Puerto Vallarta.  We missed the turnoff to La Manzanillo and started to turn around but saw a sign for a beach called Boca De Iguanas and decided to check it out. We saw the Hotel Abandonado En Boca De Iguanas and a deserted but nice beach.  Chuy climbed a palm tree to get some coconuts but since we didn't have a machete we had no luck in knocking one down.

Continuing North on the highway 200, we encountered some road construction being done.  We stopped in  El Tuito at a roadside stand that sold birria tacos.

Our next stop was Boca De Tomatlan south of Puerto Vallarta.  It has a nice but busy beach with Puerto Vallarta prices so we only had pina coladas and then headed for Old Town Puerto Vallarta.

Chuy's son, Carlos has an apartment a block-and-a-half from the malecon in Old Town.  Those old farts that complain on the boards about the noise in Ajijic should try staying overnight near the malecon in Puerto Vallarta. The disco music from several bars carries for blocks and it goes on until about 9 o'clock in the morning.  We stayed at the apartment for 2 nights and then on Sunday at noon we took off using the toll road to Guadalajara because I've never been on that road before.  In the future, I will continue to go the free way via Mascota.