Mexico 2012 RV Trip - Day 48 - February 12, 2012 Huatulco - Zipolite Beach camp site

The area where we have been, Huatulco, is fairly new. Fonatur, the Mexican government’s tourism agency, began developing the area in the 1990’s in the hopes it would become Mexico’s next Cancun. The roads are good and there are quite a few resort hotels and golf courses in the area. Our campground, Tangolunda, is flanked by the Quinta Real Hotel and the Barceló, an all-inclusive resort. There were some vendors on the beach, but it wasn’t too bad.

Several bays that make up the area around Huatulco and Tangolunda is the second largest. Santa Cruz Huatulco Playa is in the heart of the town where the cruise ships come in. It was a busy place and we noticed that it is definitely geared for the cruise ship trade – prices were high and many of the locals spoke some English. 

Because our campsite was between two resorts, we didn’t get much sleep last night. Their discos had music going until the wee hours and it wasn’t a soothing lullaby. Ugh. This morning we decided to finish some last minute shopping for fruits and vegetables and get out  of town before the cruise ship docked and was overrun with tourists.

We drove the RV from Tangolunda to Santa Maria Huatulco then took a collectivo taxi to Pluma Hidalgo to see the coffee farms. A collectivo “collects” as many people as they can fit in before they take off for your destination. We had a driver and six passengers in a small taxi! We were really glad we didn’t try to take the RV. The 16 KM road was narrow and winding, but the real problem would have been arriving in town and not having any place to turn around!

We ran into Dave & Joyce, Jack & Michelle, Paul, Bernadette, and their kids when we arrived as they were heading back to Tangolunda. We said our goodbyes and hope to run into them on another trip.

Some of you who know us know that Tobey is always up for an adventure, so we hunted down Filadelfo Ordaz. We heard that he takes people on tours of the coffee fincas (farms) from which his store buys coffee beans. We followed the directions from the Moon Guides and found his store. His son spoke English and arranged our “tour.” 

We climbed into the back of his truck along with some of the workers from the fincas, and a woman and her grandson, for a 2 hour tour. We then held on for dear life!  Standing in the back of the truck, we bounced along a rutted gravel road and arrived at the first finca where we dropped off one of the workers.

Filadelfo showed us the coffee plants, cabanas they rent to tourists, and even the tilapia fish which they raise in the small river that runs through the farm.
In addition to coffee, they raise bananas, mamey, guonabana and deer!

We continued on to a second finca where we dropped off Johann (six years old) and his grandmother and had a rest break. His grandfather who was also on the truck loaded up three large bags of coffee that were going back to Filadelfo’s store while his grandmother served us as lemonade. It was made with water running from a pipe from the river – we hope we don’t get sick!As we were getting ready to leave, Johann’s grandmother gave us a large bag of bananas as a gift. Talk about generous people! This is her home on the finca.

Okay, so the coffee is loaded and we are ready to head back to town. On the return trip Tobey sat on a crate while I got to sit on a bag of coffee instead of standing up the entire way!

We passed through areas where there were lots of bamboo trees, both green and yellow. The green is the one they eat, the yellow are used for houses.

We bounced along for a while, then the truck stalled. The young worker with us jumped out and placed a couple of big rocks behind our back wheels while Filadelfo tried to get the truck started! At this point I was getting pretty nervous. The truck rolled backwards and I was sure we were going off the road and over the edge of the mountain! The engine finally engaged and we chugged along straining up the hills. There were several times when the truck sputtered and I wasn’t sure if his old truck would make it back to town, but we did.

After the tour we caught a collectivo back to Santa Maria Huatulco and the RV and headed on to Puerto Angel and our campsite for the night. We are at Cabanas de Habana, a funky spot on Zipolite Beach. We are paying $100 pesos ($8USD) for the spot. We had a great sunset and will check more of the beach area out tomorrow.

On a side note – the birds we saw at our campground at Tangolunda are called kiskadees. http://fireflyforest.net/firefly/2006/06/26/great-kiskadee/
GPS 15.66305°N, 96.52626°W, Elevation 64’