Every place I visit is different and unique in its own way but this one is kind of strange and hard to put my finger on.
Denise met me at my Hotel El Mexicano while I packed up my bike. We hugged goodbye and I was heading south with a rough plan to stay near San Juan de Alima.
The ride was beautiful and I stopped to ride through La Manzinilla because I heard it was a cute, beach town.
Once I got off my bike and looked around a little I remembered that this is the place my friend Cisco and I stopped at for lunch years ago after leaving Puerto Vallarta over five years earlier.
Continuing south after leaving the sleepy beach town of La Manzinilla I rode south passing through the town of Barra de Navidad. Cisco and I had stayed at a hotel here but I couldn’t locate it. Riding south I stepped into the large port city of Manzanillo. I wanted to get an idea whether there would be accommodation here and get a feel for the city. I rode through downtown, took this pic of a large, cement fish and rode through the center. I didn’t get a good vibe from this city so I left and continued south on highway 200.
I arrived in San Juan de Alima. There is really one main street into town and a few smaller ones. Coming up the main street I made a left towards more hotels. Some were abandoned, some were just closed and the few that were open were mostly empty. It seemed this entire town catered to tourists and there were none. Granted, I did see some families at some of the open hotels. But it seemed maybe only a few rooms were occupied. I was definitely the only gringo here and this town was tiny. There were no traffic lights or stop signs and most of the main road that ran north and south was either cobblestones and in some places dirt. If you had made a right coming into town off the highway the cobblestone almost immediately turned to dirt and the road back north was rutted and deeper sand in parts. I played on it for days because my planned one night stay turned into five.
My hotel, “El Oceano”, on the main north to south road through town. One could say that my hotel was at the heart of it all, if there was such a thing here. I’m the only guest at my hotel and the one next door. The white car belongs to the guy that owns the adjoining hotel (barely visible to the right with orange). My bike is in front of my room, barely visible to the right of center.
This is the abandoned el centro, the zocalo and the heart of the town. For some reason the zocalo was completely maintained with landscaping but there are no buildings surrounding this center of town life. There’s just undeveloped jungle surrounding it and an abandoned soccer field and then the main road through town in the distance. I’ve never seen anything like it.
So, here’s another weird thing about San Juan de Alima I had the entire beach to myself. One day I saw about four kids show up on the beach further down and then they were gone within an hour. Then another day I saw two dogs playing on the beach. And then there would be these two guys that walked the beach separately trying to sell tourist trinkets that were strapped to their clothes and adorned and weighted down their arms . Yet it was just me and the beach. Why did their job exist and how depressing would that be to sell trinkets to tourists that are never there. An empty beach.
Looking left from my beach spot…
And looking right…
And the two dogs playing…
And this guy.
My view from the ocean at low tide.
Those first couple of days were spent just being in the ocean again after so many years. Since my promised wifi didn’t really reach my room, it forced me to get out into the heart of town (our corner) and sit at the old woman’s red painted, cement tables on the sidewalk in front of her house which faced the hotel her family I owned and I resided.
Every night it was the same, comfortable routine. After driving up the road to the highway, I would resupply at OXXO and plant myself and my laptop on the corner. The old woman and her family would sit across the street on some wood benches in front of the archway that led to the back of the motel and the rooms that faced the ocean. Her friends would stop by and chat and every once in a while someone would walk up the road or ride by on a dirtbike.
We had some visitors over those five days I was there and it was interesting. I’ll leave it at that. Crazy place. I left Alima to head south again towards Zihuatenango.