Hotel Paraiso Miramar

I was wide awake at 5:00 a.m. Not sure I really slept that much, but I must have since I had a set of really vivid dreams. I tried to get back to sleep but the music that kept thumping until nearly 4 in the morning was still rattling around my busy cranium. I laid quietly for a while then boiled up some water for tea and we were rolling down the dirt track as the sun crested the eastern horizon.

Back through the potholes and topes through a slightly quieter Escuinapa being early Sunday morning. I was patient and thrashed the RV as little as I possibly could finally arriving at the 15 south where the pavement was in better condition. You still had to be vigilant for the occasional pothole, but it was mostly smooth and quicker going. Groups of protesters were camped at the toll booths being a bit more aggressive today demanding money to pass. I handed the first booth the change from my basket, about 40 pesos. That seemed okay, not what they asked but it was something. The next booth wanted 100, I gave them 50 not having anything else less than 500 which I didn’t want to trust them to give change. Again, they were okay but the girl kept eying around inside the RV asking for a “gift”. I beat it out of there as quick as I could.

A half hour further down the road, everything came to a stop. An accident up ahead had the road closed. We all milled around outside our vehicles craning our necks to see if we could see what the hold up was. A big cloud of smoke was billowing on the breeze in blacks and grays moving to the west. I zoomed as far out as I could with the camera but it was all smoke and fire with no clear idea of the extent of the carnage.

About twenty minutes later, vehicles started coming from the other way. After they had all passed, we were allowed to go through hugging the left side of the highway. The burned out hulks of a semi truck and an SUV were smoldering in the flaming grass on the right side of the road. No idea of who was in what or how it happened but it didn’t look good.

A short drive more in the rainy afternoon and I was onto the exit to San Blas. They had completed the federal highway out to the coast and it was a beauty. Nice pavement with wide bridges and a tunnel through the mountain. No more pencil thin strip of pavement with trees growing halfway out into the lane scraping the paint off of your RV. The mango trees were flowering and the signs warned us to look out for jaguars as this is one of the few areas where the big cats are still known to exist. It was an easy commute and I was soon in Aticama where the road hit the beach with a big San Blas sign.

I turned left and continued through the small berg of Aticama and down the narrow road to Santa Cruz where I booked myself a spot at the Paraiso Miramar. Camped in the back area were Andrew and Cheryl parked up next to Alan, all three of whom I’d met in Celestino. It was cool to see them and we spent a couple of minutes catching up. Alan and I were going to try to find a taxi this afternoon to take us down to a hotel in Playa Coco that was featuring the Super Bowl.

I got in a nap then the hotel owners did their best to find us a taxi, but it was no use. The phone went unanswered. They only have t.v. in the rooms, so we offered to pay to rent a bungalow for the duration of the game. The lady in charge said just use it, no payment required. We were set up in a nice beachfront suite with a balcony overlooking the bay. We bought two orders of shrimp ceviche and Alan, Andrew and I watched the game in air conditioned comfort in room number four. Hotel Paraiso Miramar is pretty laid back with lots of green space, pools and fantastic ocean views. Caught up on my beauty rest as the rain moved in.