Ensenada Jaltemba

Cruisers refer to Ensenada Jaltemba as the Jaltemba anchorage. This is something I don’t quite get because the cove is lined with several small and distinct communities that does include Peñita de Jaltemba, however the anchorage is right in front of the very different community of Rincón de Guayabitas. It is a less visited anchorage as it is not very well protected (especially in winds from the north), but the winds had been so calm that it allowed us to try this anchorage that we had never been to before. We are so glad we got to experience this area. Guayabitas is a small fishing village turned Mexican tourist beach/expatriate home for many Canadians and Americans. It is a beautiful area with no shortage of beachfront restaurant bars.

Photo Bomb! But there are worse ways to be bombed by a bird...

The waters are very shallow at the southern corner of the beach where the fishing pangas come in.

And the sand sparkles with gold

One day while sitting at a restaurant at the southern corner of the beach enjoying fish tacos we watched as the fishing pangas filled with dorado and sierra were coming in and unloading their catch into the bed of a small pickup truck. We followed the truck around the corner to the fishing co-op where we promptly bought a fresh dorado and had it filleted to take back to the boat with us. We feasted on delicious ceviche that night and fried fish the next. It tasted all the better for not having to catch, clean, and filet it ourselves.

Off the beach, the town is lined with little shops selling beachwear and souvenirs. The painted trees made a nice and colorful addition.

We found the letters of Guayabitas and were taking our obligatory photos when a nice man offered to take a picture with all of us. It was very kind of him and he took several—all featuring his finger in front of the lens! And I thought I was the only one who could manage a finger in a pic from an iphone.

Have we mentioned how much we love street food? Unfortunately, you have to be up late in Mexico to enjoy much of it as many vendors don’t get started until 7PM or even 9PM (which happens to be called “cruiser’s midnight). So anytime we stumble upon street food in our morning or afternoon ramblings around town it is quite an exciting treat. Waffle with fresh toppings…yes please!

We enjoyed many wonderful sunsets while anchored here.

One day we ventured to the north out of Guayabitas to La Piñeta de Jaltemba (or just La Piñeta as the locals say). It was a town with a completely different vibe. It was more of a typical Mexican town without so much tourism. There are clearly some very artistic people living there who have made the town quite beautiful with many colorful murals throughout.

Yep, we found the “letters” too.

Wow, that’s pretty…wonder where it came from? Looked up and it turned out to be a nice picture.

We happened to be in La Piñeta on the day of the street market. It was an overwhelming display of regional arts and crafts (some of which we hadn’t seen the likes of before), artisanal foods, and more flea market type stalls with everything you can imagine. We had taken the collective bus to get here, but decided to walk back. There is a river that separates the two towns that we followed upstream until we found a place to cross. We found the crossing at “The Bridge of Life”. I wondered if it was named that because of the possibility that people may have been killed by crocodiles while crossing before there was a bridge (after all there are no shortage of crocodile farms in the region). I never found out if that was the case or not, but I can say that when we got to the opposite side there was a small gated in area right next to the bridge named Crocodile Bar. Anyway, the footbridge was pretty interesting. It was a pretty lengthy suspension bridge made of wood planks that was very difficult to walk across even with our well established “sea legs”.

Lily was properly tired out by the end of the day.

On another day we left the boat and headed south to take a hike to the cliffs above Playa del Toro. First stop, Playa del Besos (kissing beach)..oh no, the gate was locked! So we improvised.

As we headed uphill we got a good view of our boat at anchor.

It was a beautiful and tropical uphill hike with hints of the clear blue pacific beyond the trees.

This may be one of the coolest dragonflies we’ve ever seen.

We made it to the top, then hiked back down to Playa del Toro hoping for a someone selling cold beer under a palapa roof…no such luck.

On the way back from our hike we passed through another smaller, more laid-back Mexican tourist beach, Los Ayala. It was very colorful as well.

Before heading further south to Banderas Bay, we decided to pop out to anchor off the small island, Isla Del Coral for a few days. There isn’t much on the island, but they do boat over tourists to spend the day snorkeling, swimming, or playing on the very small beach. We got up early to check it out before anyone else was around.