So after our morning walk, I had mapped out how to get to the forest camp. The first two routes were back up and over to the toll roads and then back down. I figured we could do the secondary roads so I excluded paid routes from the map. It said it would take us 90 minutes. HA.
We worked our way through the mangroves, which are really cool to drive through and had missed those on the the night drive into San Blas. The route ran us along the coast through storm damaged homes and businesses, some of which had been repaired, some were in the process of repair, but many had Su Vende signs on them and were for sale. The road turned inland a bit and routed us to what looked like a one-way road with a No big trucks sign. I’m not that big (I said to myself). And we worked our way down a small path on the edge of the ocean that opened to a small town called Aticama where we drove past tons of seaside restaurants and decided to stop for lunch.
First, we need to learn more Spanish. These restaurants are not on the tourist route and there were no English menus, nor servers that knew English. Our first real test and we both failed. So we tried to google things, but it was not working well. We ended up ordering a shrimp (camarones) tostada and tried to tell the lady we did not want it spicy. Spicy is Picante while Hot is Caliente. We said “no caliente, per favor”, and were surprised when we got ceviche de camarone, but knew our mistake. It was delicious, but was a bit much on the raw side for Kathy, although she did eat quite a bit. I managed to figure out breaded (epanizado) for the fish, and both of us enjoyed that dish.
We took a bit of a walk through town and noticed every place was hacking at oysters to prepare them for an incoming crowd. We found the local town sign and took a picture, and of course a friendly bottle of tequila reached out and asked Kathy for a selfie. There wern’t any souvenir shops, only bars, juice stands and restaurants. We headed back to the truck to get on our way to the forest campground. Soon we turned on a road that headed upwards and was paved but after passing through a little town, it turned to dirt. At first it started out pretty nice, but it took us several hours to wind our way up and over the ridges. The road is apparently a link between three small towns and connects the banana, coffee, mango, and other crop fields. I had to engage 4 high at some of the steeper sections. There were some great views, and some tight corners.
The road turned to cobblestone, not the cool brick types, but actual stones at this little town called El Cuarenteño. There is only a couple of roads in this town and they are steep no matter which way you go. The people seemed friendly as we drove by and waved. I am sure they don’t see a lot of truck campers through their town. We continued upward, passed many more vehicles that were bringing supplied to the town, and then got close to the forest camp. I found a road that was pretty wide, well traveled, and went down to the left. I pulled off and walked the road to an dirt quarry. It looked like a good place to camp, so I got the truck and family down there.
We spent two nights at this lovely spot. It was away from the road, flat, in a nice open space for the solar to charge and the internet to connect, and it was quiet; so quiet that you could hear nothing after dark except the crickets and birds chirping in the forest. We are about 5000 foot elevation so it is so much cooler up here. The nights got down to 45F or so and the days didn’t get much above 70F. We did a little hiking in the area and found the actual forest campground. It is on the ridge above us, has about 4 sites, and has a building with two drop toilets. I think the camp is part of or related to Rancho la Noria, which has a restaurant and a race park for rails. We will travel through that on our way out toward a town called Tepic. It looks like a neat little city to visit and is supposedly safe for travelers. We will see about staying the night there before heading towards Guadalajara and on to Guanajuato.