19 January 2010 After leaving San Patricio-Malaque this morning, we found our way south to a little village alongside Hwy 200 called Maruata, Michoacán. Our coordinances for using Google Earth to find us are: 18.26950N, 103.34748W. Before getting there we were treated to some of the most winding and twisting narrow 2 lane roads yet.
If it wasn’t for the tall trees and brush that push you so far into the center of the road, it might not be so bad. When the roads did open up, we were treated to some wonderful views of the Pacific beaches far below,
and the mountainsides filled with orchards of bananas, papaya groves, coconut plantations, and other “tropical” crops.
The books tell us that this is a sleepy little beach front community of Maruata, survives mostly on fishing and they have some beautiful rock outcroppings that sit picture perfect just off shore. It seems that the vultures have found the wonders of Maruata as well…it must be the right place.
We had to wind our way along the beach and through a mass of pangas that spent their day out fishing the close-in waters. It was evident that fishing is still good here in Maruata with all the fish being carried away by those that dropped a line in the clear waters around us.
When we dropped off Hwy 200, we found our way to the beach by following a cobblestoned roadway through the village and then onto the tire tracks dug deep in the hard sand. Once at the beach we were amazed at the amount of palapa roofed structures that lined the shore. Some were obviously beach side restaurants, but others seemed to have been converted into small homes with a covered palapa patio in-between.
It’s just one of the small homes with the covered patio that we found ourselves parked for the night. We weren’t the only “campers” here. I would guess that over the area along the water’s edge, there were 2 dozen tent campers. These campers found their way here by bus or hitchhiking, but they’re here. A few years ago these people would have been called “hippies”. Once we found the right spot, I approached the young man who was swinging in his hammock, and asked if we could park for the night…Si, $20 pesos each ($3.20 total). Well we don’t have any hook-ups but we’ll do just fine. We took the patio chairs out to the beach and enjoyed the last moments of the sun while having a cerveza and a coke and enjoyed people watching as they prepared the boats for tomorrow morning and/or bragging about the days catch with each other. When we first pulled onto the beach we noticed quite a number of young people sitting in a circle in front of their tents. Being Mr. and Mrs. Social we made our way over to see if we could converse with them. As it turned out, in this group of 12, there were 5 different countries represented. And in this group of 12, all were in their late teens to early 20’s and all were enjoying a weed. Now they weren’t bashful about it, in fact they invited us to join in with them… (Did we or didn’t we???). After the sun had set and we hadn’t made a move to see were or if we would be able to find a place to eat, we wondered down the beach looking for a place where the lights were on and the tables were set. Unfortunately we were out of luck. The only one that came close was one that was already pulling up the table clothes and heading home (the lived there too). Well we didn’t go hungry after all. During our search we found ourselves following another couple that wasn’t going to give up on finding that certain little restaurant. Fortunately for us, this young lady was from Mexico City and not only felt she could find all of us a restaurant, she was diligent… We found the only place that was “almost open”
and they agreed to feed all four of us even if they were closed for the night.