ODO: 315,043
We woke up to a handful of cars parked near us. It turns out we had camped at the top of a set of stairs to a fairly popular secluded beach. We didn’t make it down onto the beach because there always seemed to be between one and seven dogs running around down there. We packed up and headed back into town for some breakfast. Lo de Marcos was a sleepy version of Sayulita, filled with beautiful flowers. After breakfast we made a beeline through Puerto Vallarta towards the area south of Faro de Cabo Corrientes. Just south of Puerto Vallarta we saw our first giant iguana sitting in the road! Everyone was very excited. When we got to the general Faro (Spanish for lighthouse) area, we tried a couple different places before finding our winner. The first was a campground near a hotel. It was lovely and had good amenities, but was aggressively expensive so we moved on. The second was a bit of beach that was very exposed, and we weren’t entirely sure how to get from the road down to the beach. The third spot was perfect (we hoped. We still hadn’t really seen it). And thank goodness because, like always, it was almost dark. We made a quick pasta dinner and settled in as night fell.
The next morning we woke to a long stretch of empty white sand beach being pounded by the Pacific. It was a very angry ocean, so there was not only no swimming, but no wandering near the water. About a quarter mile to the north there was a rock outcropping that looked interesting, so we decided to wander over and check it out. The rocks formed a bit of a wall around a small section of beach. We debated moving the truck into this new spot, but after watching how high the water came up the beach, decided this was a bad idea. We would be trapped by the rocks with no speedy exit if things went wrong, and very few vehicles would be able to rescue us if we needed it. That evening we had the idea to try and film the ocean for an hour, make some nice ambience for a future night when we’re somewhere less lovely. We set up a camera (this was gonna be great, catch the sunset any everything!) and a microphone some 50 yards away and proceeded to make dinner. Dinner was it’s own adventure, we thought we were going to have a steak, but it turns out we accidentally bought some weird taco meat. When we retrieved our camera, we discovered the water had come up and over the berm, and the legs of the tripod were wet. When we played back the audio, we learned we recorded the relaxing sounds of us making dinner, and that great video? Wrong camera settings, we got nothing. Chalk this night up to some solid learning experiences, and we’ll give nature ambience video a try again later.
In the morning the wind started to pick up (beaches sure seem to be windy), so we decided to relocate next to the rocks hoping they would provide some amount of windbreak. The sand was very soft so we crossed our fingers (and everything else) that we wouldn’t get stuck. Once we were successfully relocated we got a message that would turn our adventure life upside down. Berne got an offer for seven weeks of work that should set us up for another year on the road. The only catch is we need to be in the Bay Area in four days. While we waited for negotiations to finish and contracts to be signed, Berne had his first sunburn of the trip bloom. That’s pretty solid for someone that’s been running around shirtless in the sun for six months. We decided we would wait until the morning to start our sprint so we could enjoy our last night (for a while, at least) on this amazing beach.
Today we hit the ground running. First order of business, hustle back into Puerto Vallarta and look for storage for the truck. At this point we were still debating where we should fly out of, Puerto Vallarta just happened to be closest, so we went to check there first. On our way back towards town we needed to stop for gas because the closest town to where we were camped was out on our way to camp. It was still out of gas three days later, so we ended up buying “jug gas”, which is exactly what it sounds like, gas out of a 2.5 gallon water jug, to make it back to a working gas station.
Once we were back in town, it was time to tour every single storage place we could find, which was three. The first one didn’t exist. The second one was really nice, but didn’t have any spaces the truck would fit into. The third one was great! They had an entire area for vehicles like ours, and judging by what people had left hanging off their boats, was pretty safe. This took a huge load off our minds, leaving our house behind is a pretty scary endeavor. Next we booked our flights while we finished running errands. Then we found a hotel and went out on the town to celebrate this coming opportunity! We started at Senor Frogs, where we had killer margaritas and made a clown sad. He made us balloon hats, but we hadn’t been to an ATM in a while, so we had no money to tip him with. After that we did a food tour before heading back to check into our hotel. They put us on the top floor with an amazing view, even at night, over the bay.
Next morning, after a very rough sleep (our room did not have AC, just the worlds loudest fan), we continued getting ready to leave by dropping off our laundry. While our laundry was being done, we headed to Home Depot to buy some locks and cables to secure everything, and some desiccant to hopefully keep everything dry. After we returned to our hotel and had a little relax, we took Berne for his first ever pedicure. He was very concerned when the grinder came out. Afterwards he was confused by how soft his feet were. We did another small walking tour of Puerto Vallarta, checking out a couple breweries (and shutting one of them down), before turning in for the night.
We slept late the following morning thanks to the night before. When we finally made it out of the hotel we ventured to a tiny hole in the wall for breakfast. Cafe Luso did not disappoint, and gave us the energy to start The Great Pack/Purge. We spent the next few hours packing our bags, cleaning the camper and generally getting everything in order. It was a sad, weird day. On the upside, we gave the contents of our fridge to the hotel staff. They seemed happy about it, and we were happy to not throw away all that stuff. We went for one last walk about town to try and cheer up. We walked to the church, we had been seeing the bell tower and decided to see the rest of it. It looked recently renovated, and was mid service so we didn’t go inside. On our way to the Malecon for dinner we walked through the town square and it was packed! There was music playing and lots of people dancing, we thought it must be live music somewhere, but no! Just a guy with a turntable and big speakers making everyone’s Sunday evening more fun.
Travel day….We were up early to finish any last minute things before putting the truck in storage, which turned out to juts be removing the Starlink from the roof. Once we arrived at the storage place and got the truck tucked into its spot, we set to work disabling it, and removing the chair, shovel, and surfboard from the roof. We forgot to empty our water tank, so its anybody’s guess what we’re going to return to, hopefully it’s nothing a little bleach cant fix. A taxi was called for us, and we made our way to the airport. We had packed several things we weren’t sure would make it through airport security, but luckily Mexico doesn’t really have airport security so it was no problem. We hopped our short flight to DFW airport, and (unsurprisingly) went through security again, where they confiscated our peanut butter. Our second flight had a bit of a delay, so we didn’t end up touching down in SFO until 11:30pm. Then it was into an Uber and off to our temporary home for the next seven weeks.
