May 11th, 2016
The coastal highway is fun for us, winding it’s way along with a fresh breeze all the time, and the odd hill thrown in the mix. Today we headed towards Mazunte, a pueblo magico, and had the highway to ourselves for much of it.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico
Destination: Mazunte, Oaxaca, Mexico
72.3 km trip, 5:18 time, 50.8 km/h maximum speed, 13.6 km/h average speed
Route Description
This day includes undulating hills up and down reaching no more than 200 meters in elevation. Traffic includes a four lane road (two lanes in either direction) with no shoulder. The first 30 Kilometres has a shoulder and then it disappears. After that for 17 kilometres we were able to ride on the road that was under construction for making of the next 4 lane road with shoulder. After the 17K of construction it is two lanes (one in either direction) with no shoulder and again traffic was okay. There are a few restaurants and stores along the way to buy food and water. We turned off the main highway toward Mazunte.
Accommodations:
There are many hotels and this town is a Pueblo Magico. We found one offered for 150 per night and opted to negotiate with another place for 200 per night with a private bath. We ended up staying for 3 nights. We stayed at La Luciernaga / Firefly.
What happened…
Andrew writes: Jim was on his way to the airport to make his way to the US of A today, and he left early, so that meant that we left early too! He’s a cool cat that Jim. Hopefully everything works out for him in the future. So there we were, on the quiet streets of Puerto Escondido just as the sun was coming up. We even ran into Robert on his scooter just as we passed Punta, and he recommended we check out another spot down the coast called Barra de la Cruz. While we were in Punta, I met with a local who sold me some boogie board fins. So now I’m all set!
Ahhh yes, back on the coastal roads; lots of PUDs (pointless ups and downs), not a lot of width, but not a lot of traffic either. The wind was coming at us from across our right shoulder for much of the ride, but it wasn’t very strong. The government is working on widening the highway from two to four lanes between Puerto Escondido and Pochutla, so they are almost finished…but not quite finished enough that they’ve opened up the new lanes to traffic yet. So iIt was also nice that for a good section of the ride today, we had a whole highway all to ourselves.
We reached Mazunte by around 1400hrs but what with one thing or another ended up putzing about until 1600hrs trying to find somewhere to sleep. Mazunte itself is actually pretty small as far as a beach goes, and the waves aren’t very good. Yet Mazunte is a “Pueblo Magico” and has yoga retreats, and plenty of bars and restaurants and hotels too. The first place we checked out was a hotel/restaurant right on the beach, and Jorge offered us a ground floor room for only $150MX ($11.50 CDN) pesos a night. We went down a second street, actually in the hopes of maybe finding a place to wild camp, but it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, we found a dodgy looking posada/campground for $100MX a night, but I just had a creepy feeling about it. We rode down the road to the next town, San Agustinillo, which is more popular for surfing. The prices there though are way out of our price range! This is strange, because the town is nothing at all like Mazunte, as it is just hotels and houses, with everything crowding up against the waters edge. I thought about riding a bit further to Zipolite which is supposed to be some sort of nudist colony but in the end we went back to Mazunte, where Amanda found us a really nice hospedaje for $200MX/night. It had WiFi, a powerful fan, and lots of mosquito netting; oh right, the coast is chock full of bugs too! I had forgotten!
We walked to San Agustinillo, about 15 minutes away, and I surfed the waves while Amanda sat on the beach playing guitar until the sun went down and the bugs came out. Again I found myself having bitten off more than I could chew in the wave department, as they were somewhere between 8 and 10 feet high. Absolutely huge, with wicked currents playing havoc under the surface. After about two hours I counted myself lucky to a) have caught one wave and b) still be alive. As I wrapped it up, one of the other boarders came to me on the beach and tried giving me some tips, along with a stern warning not to mess around and wind up dead. Duly noted sir, duly noted.
Amanda writes:
Mazunte seems like a nice little place and after having arrived we quickly decided we would stay for at least two nights. I tried my hand at negotiating a rate, which is something neither of us often do because it’s not natural for us; but I had great success. And so we settled into our nice room which I think would almost be romantic with the canopy bed if it weren’t for the fact that the netting was a necessity as the bugs were horrible! And the bugs like my blood way more than they like Andrew’s.