March 7th, 2016
Cycling up and out of Sayulita, taking the “long way” towards Punta de Mita and Bucieras. In Bucieras, the road splits into a collector lane on the right, and “express” lanes on the left. Choose wisely!
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Sayulita, Jalisco, Mexico
Destination: Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico
62.2 km trip, 4:17 time, 43.9 km/h maximum speed, 14.5 km/h average speed
Route Description:
There are rolling hills for the first half that include climbs up to about 100 meters. Traffic gets heavey when you rejoin the main Highway 200. When you arrive into Puerto Vallarta there is also lots of traffic, which is the same as any big city.
Accommodations:
There are many hotels options however we are unaware of prices as we stayed with a warm showers host. It is a tourist community so prices may be a bit higher than smaller communities.
What happened…
Andrew writes: It rained today. Now for those of you back home in Vancouver, this probably isn’t earth-shattering news, but it’s the first rain I’ve seen since November. It’s also un-seasonably cold/rainy here in Sayulita for this time of year. People are blaming El Nino or Yo Mama, I dunno who the personification of Mother Nature is right now. In any event, it delayed our departure by a few hours this morning because just as we were all packed up to leave, it started to rain….for two hours. It’s all good! We’re with friends! So we eventually said our goodbyes and made our way along the backroads to Punta De Mita.
Our map showed a climb from sea level up to 500m to get to Punta de Mita, but in truth Amanda said we topped out at about 190m. It was just a slow, steady slog, cycling past hostels, and hotels, and tourismo getaways. The sky was overcast, and the weather forecast was calling for more rain later in the day. When we finally reached the turnoff at the top of the hill, we skirted around PdM, and ate lunch at a trendy looking surf-shop style cafe. The food was worth the wait, but Amanda was a little pissed at me because she didn’t want to get caught in the rain and another hour sitting inside the cafe was another hour we’d be cycling towards Puerto Vallarta.
I had thought/hoped that by taking this back way that we would avoid the super-narrow, busy road that runs between Sayulita and Bucieras. Instead, we ended up on a super-narrow, busy road between Punta de Mita and Bucieras. Ugh. It wasn’t really very pleasant until we got into Bucieras proper and could take up our own lane on the busy highway that runs to PV. The nice thing was that despite the ever-darkening clouds in front of us, the wind was at our back and we made great time. I had mapped our route to take us right to our Warmshowers host for the night, Emilio, and it was right near the cruise ship terminal and the strip of hotels. So we got to “see” a bit of the city as we cycled through it.
Right away when we got to Emilio’s house, he and I got into talking about his upcoming bicycle trip north along the Pacific Coast to Alaska this summer. Emilio is new to bike touring and so he was really eager to learn new things and ask lots of questions. Then for some reason I ended up staying up until 0200hrs just sitting and talking with the two of them about whatever came up, while the wind and rain howled outside. I did end up getting a little bit wet though, because as soon as I went to bed, water started to drip-drip-drip onto my head from a leak in the ceiling. I also realized that I had left a couple of things in Sayulita, which is a bad habit I have, although it makes my load lighter, so it’s a good thing, right? Ahh well, it’s not the end of the world, just the end of the day!
Amanda writes: Our lifestyle is pretty relaxed from the perspective that we change our plans often; some might even suggest regularly. Therefore on days like today when a storm blows in we weren’t too fazed by it. If we needed to stay another day, so be it. My only concern was getting in the way of our B-Team hosts. Being from Vancouver rain is no big deal to ride in, however here it rains so infrequently that the roads are downright dangerous when it does rain. So we pulled out the guitar again and sat back and played songs and chatted more with our friends. The rain was kind of refreshing and it made for a nice ride.
As Andrew mentioned I was concerned about getting caught in the afternoon section of the storm, but we made it inside with a couple of hours to spare. Being welcomed with such warmth and friendliness by Paty and Emilio was awesome. We really are so lucky to meet so many wonderful people along the way.
When we were at their place we had access to the Internet, which appears to be getting a bit more intermittent. Andrew was reading me a comment from one of our biggest fans; Margaret McCallum. We receive comments from our readers and we read every single one of them and cherish them. In case anyone is every wondering, some days they keep us pedaling … and smiling with the quit wit of some like Marylou. While we are enjoying the world and take great pleasure in writing about it, it is very rewarding and inspiring to know that we have friends and family reading our blog. Please keep those comments coming because we feel like you’re traveling along with us and we look forward to receiving them.