Mexico 2012 RV Trip - Day 45 - February 9, 2012 San Cristobal - Playa Chipehua

It continued to rain off and on all night but the sun started to poke its head out as we were getting ready to leave San Cristobal. We took the alternate route from Rancho San Nicolas and had NO PROBLEMS! YES! We then took the toll road from San Cristobal to Tuxtla Gutierrez. It doesn’t show up on our map, but it was a great road and it only took 45 minutes even though we drove through lots of fog and low-lying clouds, it was well worth the $75 peso toll. ($6 USD)

We had originally planned to stop at Tuxtla for a boat tour of Sumidero Canyon, but changed our minds. The weather was still cool and cloudy and we were both anxious to get to the coast! The bridge through town crossed the river and we caught a glimpse of the canyon.

Our route isn’t exactly right on our map. We ended up on a couple of toll roads that aren’t on Streets & Trips, but it is close. The red line just left of the arrows is an approximate route of the toll road we took from La Ventosa to the coast. We paid $154 pesos ($12.50USD) in tolls, Tobey isn’t sure it was worth it. 

From Niltpec to La Ventosa – almost 30 miles across and marked between the red arrows - is an area where the wind blows upwards of 50 mph. There were huge wind farms for the entire way – it reminded us of the area around Palm Springs! We can only imagine that there were over 2000 wind turbines. It wasn’t blowing 50 mph, but Tobey did keep both hands on the wheel and we were buffeted sideways several times.

We decided to look for a beach area to camp when we camp saw a sign for Playa Chipehua, so we turned off MEX 200 and found this spot. It was 2.1 miles from the highway, of which 1.1 miles was gravel. We had dinner at this family’s little restaurant and we are camping here for free. 

While we were waiting for our fish dinner to be prepared, we noticed one of their eight dogs sleeping outside the restaurant. He was really tired! We also had fun practicing our Spanish with one of the girls in the family. She told us there are six kids, four girls, two boys, Dinner was a whole fish (corbina) asado, salad, and tortillas for $70 pesos ($5.60USD). It was a little saltier than we are used to, but quite tasty and we were stuffed!

Sunset is over the land, not the water, because we are in a bay. It seems really strange, but I guess the bonus will be seeing the sunrise over the water! It was a long driving day, 257 miles, but it is warm again and we can hear the waves crashing onto the beach.

16.04993°N, 95.37752°W, Elevation 48.88’