February 29th, 2016
The cuota, as always delivers the goods. While you can take the libre directly west out of Ruiz, backtracking to the cuota will save your sanity in the long-term. The top of the main climb for the day is at about 25km, and there is food available at the top if you need. Once you turn off onto Hwy#76 (?) you’ll pass through towns like Navarette which have lots of food options too. The road will climb and descend throughout the rest of the day, with spectacular valley views around every corner.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: Ruiz, Nayarit, Mexico
Destination: San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
74.9 km trip, 5:45 time, 47.5 km/h maximum speed, 13.0 km/h average speed
Route Description
The first part of this day is on the cuota highway again. There are a couple of climbs on this day, the highest being 188 meters. After 33 kilometers there is the turnoff the cuota to San Blas. Here you will find food. 3 kilometers after the turn off is the town of Cinco de Mayo where again you will find food. At the 46 kilometer mark there is another town with food. At the 53 kilometer mark and the sign that says San Blas 18K, there are lots of places on the right to camp amongst mango trees. Once you arrive in San Blas there are dozens of hotels to choose from.
Accomodations
We stayed in San Blas on the beach at Stoners Surf Camp. We paid 100 pesos to put our tent up in a secured area. We had access to the showers, washrooms and communal kitchen. The sand fleas were terrible but if you can ignore these, it’s a nice spot. In San Blas there are dozens of hotels and we found one as little as 200 pesos for two people. On our next days travel out of San Blas towards Puerto Vallarta we also found many options. Therefore if you don’t want to go directly into San Blas you can just follow the signs to Puerto Vallarta and there are hotels and places to wild camp within 5 kilometers of the turn.
What happened…
Andrew writes:
I think we mentally over prepared ourselves, if that’s a thing. Our online maps suggested that we had a 500m climb on the cuota, before we turned onto a secondary highway for San Blas. So when we got to the top of the “big climb” and the highway exit, I was a little disappointed that we were only at 188m in elevation. Fortunately there was a restaurant at the top, so I was able to drown my dismay with Coca-Cola.
Today was great from the aspect that we kept ourselves really well hydrated, sugared, and fed. We had our daily electrolyte drink at lunch, with leftover chicken from yesterday, and we also had bananas, apples, and oranges to snack on throughout the day too. So it was nice for a change to finally reach San Blas and not be in a panic to find food, especially since most everything is closed for half of each afternoon, from two until four.
I had tried to setup a Couchsurfing stay in San Blas, but the CS’er was out of town working as a Peace Corp. volunteer. She had suggested that I check out Stoner’s Surf Camp, down by the water, as they would let us camp really cheap on the beach. Passing through town, we asked at one hotel and though it seemed nice, and the price was only $200MX, it seemed like it was far from the water. Now camping on the beach is technically free, but Stoner’s will let us use a kitchen, washroom, and showers. There are also a few restaurants right on the beach. It took a bit of finding, but finally we did and for $100MX we setup our tent beside one of the restaurants. Stoner’s also offers cabanas for $300MX, but that was out of our price range.
I had hoped that the “hostel” atmosphere at Stoner’s Surf Camp would lend itself to us meeting new people, possibly even other cyclists. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I did meet Guillermo, who is the boyfriend of the Couchsurf host, and he and I chatted for awhile which was nice. The surf season here doesn’t start until May, and so the surf wasn’t the best. Still, Amanda and I got out in the water to play for about an hour. Just the look in Amanda’s eyes as she smiles at me while we play in the surf is enough to make me want to spend every day with her there.
After a spectacular sunset, the bugs came out. Bugs and San Blas go together like mashed potatoes and gravy. There were mosquitos, there were “no-see-ums” and worst of all were the sand flies. We tried putting on pants and long-sleeved shirts but that didn’t save us from the assault, and so we retired to the tent. Of course having our tent staked into the sand meant that some of the bugs got in one way or another, and the first few hours of sleep were a little….uneasy.
It was hot, so at some point, I removed half of the rain fly, which brought the temperature down too. Amanda was a little uneasy about our bikes or equipment being stolen, and so every little noise had her wake up and shine a light on everything. This woke me up too. Did I mention the bugs? The terrorization of the sand flies can not be understated. Finally, we both settled down and drifted off into dreamland, with another beautiful day behind us, and many more beautiful days ahead.
Amanda writes: As Andrew mentioned today’s ride was easier than we had anticipated which is always a great bonus. We got to ride on the cuota for the first part which I really enjoy. The big shoulder is in good shape and is awesome. After leaving the cuota it wasn’t too bad. Traffic was not as heavy as it was near Mazatlan and everyone seemed happy to slow their roll for us. As we approached San Blas the surroundings became more lush and I said to Andrew it seemed like crocodile terrain. Sure enough as we were about 5 kilometres out of San Blas there was a sign indicating this was a good spot to view them. Overall I enjoyed today’s ride and it was great to be back on the ocean; this pond seems to draw us in.