Lo de Marcos and San Pancho

Had a cool weekend. It was Benito Juarez´birthday so we had monday off as well. I found a babysitting job for spring break, but it is Lo de Marcos, a town north of here that I have never been to, so we decided to go explore it this weekend. Turns out its quite a bit further than I thought. But the bus ride was gorgeous, it goes through pure jungle. We arrived at Lo de Marcos in the late afternoon. We found a sparse little hotel a bit off the beach, plopped our stuff down and went to walk the beach. However, I was still hurting from twisting my ankle two days before, so it was more of a hobble than a stroll. The most exciting part was when we came across a huge boulder on the sand. When we got closer, we smelled and saw that it was a huge sea turtle rotting on the beach. The waves would come up and spin it around and ALMOST take it back out, but not quite. I took lots of pictures, intrigued by the fact that you could actually see the skin dissolving from the muscle dissolving from the bone. Turtle foot bones are very interesting! As we kept walking, the sun began to set, and we hit the end of the beach with surfers riding huge sunset waves against a backdrop of black volcanic rock outcrops. On the way back to our place, some renegade cowboys were racing their horses up and down the sand. I think they were training them for something, because one of them made his horse moonwalk to some reggaeton. Not normal. For dinner, we got some very disappointing chinese food. We were misled by an actual chinese person running the restaurant. But it was just for looks. 

The next day we got up, had some breakfast, and attempted to make our way to the town of San Pancho, about 10 miles south. We were told busses and taxis frequently passed on the main road, but after waiting abut 20 minutes in the blazing sun, all taxis ignoring us and no busses in sight, and with a failed hitch hiking sign, we were getting irritated. Finally a tour bus stopped for us, charging us $20 pesos each (it should be around 4.....). We got to San Pancho, a very pretty little town. We were greeted by the snack stand owner at the entrance to town, who was incredibly friendly, and gave us a map of the place not that we would need it. We went into town towards the beach, set up shop and enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon there. The sea however was not for swimming. I was tentative to do anything than wade with my sore foot, but Jon went in. By the time he got past the first wave, he had been carried about half a mile down shore. He decided against trying to battle the sea anymore and came in. There were some rocky cliffs we decided to go explore. They were made up of boulders that had fallen down and gotten wedged precariously together. You could be standing on an outcrop and then look down and realized you were 30 feet above roiling sea with nothing below you. Pretty impressive.

When we finally decided to go home, we had a little bit more bus trouble. We caught a bus fairly easily, and were happily riding it into what we thought would be town, when it stopped not in town, but twenty miles outside of town, at the airport. Ok, we thought, well, we will just catch a little bus into town. We get onto a bus headed to town, but five minutes later, it veers off course and starts going completely opposite of town. Next bus, slowest driver in the history of the world, and when we get to the very very very edge of town, he announces that he is going no further. Thanks. At that point we were very irritated, and decided to just walk the mile and a half home. We go a block and find that the streets are crowded with tourists come to see the show set up for Benito Juarez´birthday. Jon had had enough and pushed his way through and headed home, but I was optimistic about the presence of fireworks, and so stuck it out for a minute. The mexican navy sang ABBA, and then the pirate ship shot up its fireworks for us. So yes, it was, in the end, worth it. 

AND NOW LAURA IS COMING!!!!! WOOOOOO