La Cruz and Sayulita

The main purpose of our trip to La Cruz was to see off our friends Jo and Rob on Blue Moon. They are off to the Marquesas and will spend the summer in the south Pacific before returning to their home in New Zealand. After spending a couple of days here in La Cruz with them, we decided to take a trip together to the nearby surfing resort of Sayulita. The bus ride from Bucerias to Sayulita was impressively quick, the driver at times behaving more like he was at the wheel of a Maserati. I was standing at the back of the bus and had no illusions about where I would end up if we had to stop suddenly at these speeds. Still it was only $1 for a 25 km bus ride and we all arrived unscathed.

In Sayulita, the road bridge was washed out in a flood and as you can see from the picture below, so were other facilities. Jo from Blue Moon is to the right, Rani in the middle, and first time cruiser, Cathy on the left. On the plus side there was no one there to collect the normal 5 peso (40 cent) fee...

Line up for the washroom

We all went swimming and body surfing. In the picture below, Rob is coming out for a break while Cathy's husband Lindsey and I get ready to catch a wave. You can see how successful we were in the following picture.

Ready to catch the wave

The wave caught us instead

There is an iguana sanctuary in Sayulita and we were able to get up close and personal with the big fellow shown in the picture below. This iguana was at least 5 feet long including a three foot tail.

We ate our mid-afternoon comida at a little sidewalk restaurant, enjoying huevos rancheros and tasty vegetarian sandwiches with fruit juice for a very reasonable 50 pesos each ($4). After comida we went back to the beach for more swimming and surfing before catching the bus home. It was nice for a change to get away to an area where there were not so many sailors!

When we arrived back at the marina, we just had time for beer and a snack before watching a performance of folk dancing. The performers were young girls mostly between 12 and 16. They performed a wide range of dances, many of them involving tapping intricate rhythms with their shoes. Some of the dances were performed in costumes as old men with white bearded masks and canes. The young girls did a remarkable impersonation of wobbly legged bent backed old creatures and I could not help but think they might regard the majority of us cruisers as such!

We will be here in La Cruz or a few more days before re-crossing to La Paz.