Melaque Mexico 2008
In end January 2008 the wife, I, brudder and his significant other went to Melaque Mexico for two weeks for some R&R. We definitely got that and some. It is a very laid back place, no timeshare to be had, unless you really want that then head on over to Barra de Navidad, I am sure on could find it there somewhere. I think out of the two weeks we were approached by hawkers maybe twice and to them no meant no which was nice. Where we stayed was about a klick out of town, so the first few days just about did us in walking back and forth in the heat, being such fine shape that we were. After that tho it was actually a walk we looked forwards to. There are a lot of retirees there, most of them Canadian, felt like I was still in Canada, only with warmer weather. I haven't seen that many BC license plates in one place before other than BC.
The beach is not the best for swimming where we were, it was prone to undertows so swimmer beware and such. Some of the locals would swim and skim surf, which was pretty neat to see. The one weekend there was a skim surfing contest with people from all over the continent, unfortunately we missed it, seeing as how it was two blocks away from us, guess maybe we were a bit to laid back? We did manage to catch the awards tho, didn't make much sense seeing as how we didn't know one surfer from another. I did manage to get some pics of kids skim surfing the day before tho, quite fun to watch. We did manage to get in one day of touring with Ray's tours. Quite the character, the tour was definitely more personal in that you got a bit of some history on the way to our snorkel/boogie boarding sites in a suburban that has seen better days, I guess it is all just part of the adventure lol. The snorkeling we did was quite interesting and of course the underwater camera I took was one lying around the house so when I took my first picture in the water that was it, end of film. Good thing the wife had hers.
The boogie boarding was a blast too, other than I just about did myself in. The waves were maybe a couple feet high with the odd 4-5 footer thrown in for good measure. So after doing a couple of the small waves and becoming a semi-pro a boogie boarding those bigger waves were looking pretty good, yah right! The first one just about drowned me, flipped me all over and I had no idea of which way was up other than the little voice in my head saying just put your feet out straight. So in doing I touched bottom, stood up and was in about 2 1/2 to 3 feet of water, me I'm 6'3". So I just had to try that again, some people never learn, this time I had it all sussed out and figured it to the nth degree. I caught the wave or better yet it caught me, wripped the boogie board out of my hands and sucked it down, flipped me sideways, just in time to catch the board shooting up like a sam missle right into my rib cage. So again standing up 3 feet of water I kinda staggered back to shore and left the boogie boarding to the women, who seemed to be better adept at it than me. All in all tho the first 5 minutes were quite fun. Well enough of the adventuring, a good booked seemed a bit safer to me by that point.
Melaque offers lots of good eating places, just around the corner from us was the Salamandra, really good seafood and their margaritas at happy hour were quite large, we ate there quite a bit at happy hour. A good bar to go to was Ava's, had the best hamburger bar none in quite a long time and the beer was quite reasonable, 15 peso ($1.50). We ended up watching the Super Bowl there with a few others, fun to be had by all, the beer was even cheaper for the Super Bowl too, bonus! On friday nites there was a lady who sold her home made desserts on the main street, some pretty tasty stuff there. She usually sold out before nites end, quite a popular corner.
We did a day trip to Barra de Navidad. It is a bit more touristy and expensive there, but still worthwhile to see. Lots of good eating places and in the evening we happened to catch a dance put on by some musical club raising money for costumes. The dance represented some unrequited love by a man and women and the story behind it all. We took the local bus there for 4 pesos, pretty cheap travelling using the local transit, time schedules tend to vary but hey, you're on holidays.
I hope you enjoy the pics and narrative and if you want a place just to kick, along with about half of Canada, then Melaque is the place to go to.
