Highway 200 - Caleta de Campos to Manzanillo, Colima
Posted by Zihrena

Monday, August 14, 2000 -- On Highway 200 from Caleta de Campos north to Manzanillo

It dawned clear and fresh over Caleta de Campos on Day 2 of our trip north. Got some great photos of the sun rising up behind Caleta's lighthouse from the balcony of our room, and shots of the waves bursting through the large blowhole in the rocks just below us.

We returned to Nexpa Point (about 10 minutes drive north of Caleta) to have breakfast on the beach, watch the surfers and visit brother Kyle's new home/guest house that he's building on a great piece of land along the river. The roof is up, they're working on interior woodwork and expect to be able to move in within the month to then finish off the last details.

We departed Nexpa at noon, headed north again up Highway 200. Although the coastal road has some pretty curvy spots, the condition of the road is very good. After the recent rains, the grasshoppers and cicadas were out in force, and as we drove we seemed assaulted on the curves by sound waves of their humming and whirring. Tons of butterflies of pastel orange, green, yellow, blue and white decorated the pavement and sides of the road as we approached Huahua point.

At Huahua we left the highway next to the town square and took the small track down along the river to the point. Had to wade through a bit of backwater to get to the beach and see what the surf was doing. Despite the rains, the river wasn't terribly swollen and the river mouth had still not been blown out. No surfers were in evidence.

Past Huahua the highway winds leisurely along the coast, then at Pichilinguillo begins to climb a bit, curving and curling along the coastline. Pichilinguillo consists of a group of seafood and oyster bars on a cliffside overlooking a cove and the sea where there is usually a good crowd of bus passengers and truck drivers stopped to take advantage of the food and the view.

We stopped often to take photos of the many shrines and crosses along the side of the road (these photos we'll be featuring on our surf-mexico.com site after we've finished this trip), as well as of the beaches and general countryside. Vegetation along the coastal highway in this area was mainly wild, interspersed with occasional corn fields climbing up the hillsides.

Our next stop was the beach at Maruata. To get to the beach, you turn in at the Turtle Sanctuary sign, cross the airstrip that runs along the highway, and follow a dirt road that ends up at a line of enramadas strung along the white sand toward the point. This beach, being more protected by the point and small rocky island that lies just offshore than many of the others we'd passed, had several locals and some apparent tourists playing soccer, swimming and basking in the aftersoon sun.

Past Maruata the highway straightens out again along Playa Colola - a stretch of sand along the open ocean that runs for about 2 miles. At Km. 173 of the highway we turned into El Faro de Bucerias beach. At El Faro, a steep-sided, white-sanded, curved beach demarcated by rocky outcroppings at either end, has some heavy shore break. The waves crash powerfully against the rocks at either end, flinging up curtains of spray, and in between them is a string of enramadas where you can camp out - though several signs are posted prohibiting the use of camp fires. The southern extremity of the beach, also protected by a small island topped with a palapa structure, looked like the only part that allows a bit of safe swimming.

We took a quick turn into El Zapote at approx. Km. 177 of the highway, just before reaching the La Ticla turnoff. At La Ticla (the entrance is marked by a large sign proclaiming it as an excellent surf spot), the access road is lined with fields of papaya and mangos. Near the mouth of the Rio Ostula, where again there is a series of enramadas as well as several newly-constructed and very nice-looking brick-and-wood beach homes, a number of surfers were taking advantage of the wave action.

Back on Highway 200 we headed into La Placita - the only place along the highway since Lazaro Cardenas/La Mira with a Pemex (gas) station, even though you can buy gas out of barrels at pretty well any intervening settlement. If you don't actually see a "Gasolina" sign, just ask. Gas won't be far away.

We carried along the road passing the Hotel Paraiso at Playa las Brisas, followed by the long stretch of Playa San Juan at around Km.210 of the highway. There are several small hotels along the roadside at Playa San Juan, and it was evident that we were getting into a more densely populated area. We were now in a lush, fertile valley approaching the Colima border, the roadside lined with banana plantations. We hit a military checkpoint at Km. 238 on the Michoacan side of the Rio Cuahuayana that marks the state border, and a second checkpoint on the Colima side, just the other side of the Cuahuayana bridge. From bananas the vegetation turned into citrus orchards, watered by large irrigation canals.

At Tecoman, the coastal highway joins up with the Manzanillo-Colima-Guadalajara super highway, an excellent divided road that's the only one we know of that sports signs such as "Armadillo Crossing", "Iguana Crossing" and "Don't hunt Raccoon" signs. As we headed toward Manzanillo, our overnighting destination, we turned off the highway into Cuyutlan which was advertised along the highway as the "Home of the Green Wave" and host to both a Turtle Sanctuary and a Salt Museum showing the gathering and processing of salt in the area. Cuyutlan is a quaint little town with treelined, cobbled streets, a number of small, inexpensive hotels along the strand, and a wide beach area strewn with beach chairs, umbrellas and restaurants.

Our most exciting discovery in Cuyutlan, though, was when we wandered down toward the old railyards in back of town, and found ourselves surrounded by old wooden warehouses of a type of construction we hadn't seen before. The warehouse doors were massive old wood with enormous rusted metal hinges and door slides. The texture of the aged wood and the unusual construction was a lot more fascinating to us than going through any museum.

We considered overnighting in Cuyutlan after spending that little bit of time there, but decided, finally, to carry on the Manzanillo, only a few miles up the coast past stretches of palms, black sand beaches and swamplands.

We got into town at sunset, found a small hotel along Playa Miramar, and hurried to get to our favorite restaurant on that coast: El Vaquero, right next to the glorieta that is the junction of the road in from town and the main drag along Playa Miramar on the way to Playa Santiago. El Vaquero is a meat-lovers restaurant, offering excellent steaks from northern-grown meats served on sizzling metal plates and accompanied by the best "frijoles charros" and grilled onions. Worth stopping for!

Tomorrow, we'll be going inland to Colima and Guadalajara....