We left Mazatlan and headed to another beach community that apparently has great waves. Before leaving the big city, we stopped for water at a local purification site listed on iOverlander. As we drove up and asked if they could fill our tank, the said they did not have a hose to fill it. I went back to the truck to find another place, but the owner pulled out a garden hose and tried to affix it to the fill line. I said I had a hose if he wanted to use it, and they proceeded to take the filler valve off of the line so we could hook up. Wow, so nice. It cost $60 pesos to fill us up, which I think was about 100L. I left them a tip for going out of their way. Such nice people.
Then I tried to get some more pesos at the Banamex but for some reason it was rejecting my account. So instead we filled up with diesel at the next Pemex station and then headed to the Autopista to get further south into Mexico. This was our first real toll road, and HOLY COWS, Mexico charges a bunch for their roads (which are not as smooth as we’d expect). I think on this stretch before we got off, we paid $870 pesos to drive about 120 miles ($50). Plus, on a highway here there are three lanes; one that straddles the white line with one wheel on the shoulder, the same on the other lane, and then the suicide passing lane that straddles the middle line (which does not matter if it is dashed or solid, apparently).
We were running out of sunlight [since getting laundry done at the last campground took us until 12:30 to finish, and then all of the chores before leaving Mazatlan. I think we got out about 2PM, which should have put us in San Blas at about 5:30 PM, just before sunset] as we exited to a secondary road. There was a pin for industrial camping at the exit, but there were tons of cars, activity, and little place to park so we pushed onward. By that time the GPS had us arriving at 6:15, about 30 minutes past sundown, the second time driving after dark.
The road was curvy and descended down to the coast. San Blas looked like a really neat town as we drove in to find the campground. But when we got there, the campground was closed and had a for sale sign on it, so we went forward to a city parking lot that others said was free and quiet. It looked pretty good, so we backed in to a spot and let the pups out before taking them on a walk. I found the Banjercito (military bank/ATM) to get some money; which by the way is the best deal for withdrawls since they only charge $18 pesos and just then regular exchange rate.
Back at the truck, we settled in, took the pups for a walk and had a snack for dinner as we had been on the road for about 7 hours at that point. We had just sat down to watch a bit of a show and some local showed up around 8, opened the back of their ford SUV and started blasting music into a bank of speakers they had in the cargo area. We quickly shut the door. They stayed about 10 minutes and then headed off. But that did not last long as we had settled into bed around 10pm and they showed up 30 minutes later, this time right across from us at the front of Howie, louder than before as it was rattling the camper. We tried to ignore it but neither of us could sleep, so I got dressed, went out to the truck and moved us down to the other end of the parking lot. They left about 11PM, but where we were there was no place close for them to relocate to. In the morning I got up and moved us back to the original spot, which was easier for the pups to get in and out.
We made some breakfast and then took the pups for a walk along the beach. This beach had super fine sand, which the pups enjoyed. It was hot and muggy here and I was reading about the issue with sand flies (no-see-ums) that are in this area. I decided this was not the place to stay, as there was not a good place to camp and it was just hot and muggy. So Kathy and I packed up the beast and headed into the main part of San Blas to look around at the old town. It was not a quaint as we had seen the previous night, and only walked a few blocks before heading up to the cooler mountains.