Jackson's Journeys: Ocozocoautla to Puerto Escondido Nov 26

Not exactly bright and early but close enough, we left Hogar Infantil at 9:00

We were interested in the new toll road but decided to carry on directly west from the town rather than back track, thinking that we would be able to get on a bit further south. In any case we had taken this road before and remembered it as a nice drive and not too difficult though a bit twisty and hilly. Also we needed to turn west for the more direct route, though the long way was all toll roads and may have been faster.

Several kilometers later, 30 or so at a rough guess, we came to where the roads crossed. There appeared to be an exit from the toll road to the libre but no access from the libre to the toll road. Oh well. We carried on and enjoyed the drive and the scenery.

In the photo on the right you can see the toll road ahead and below as the libre curves off to the left. We followed this rig a few kilometers but were eventually able to get past safely as so far there was lots of flat countryside with nice straight bits to the road.

But that didn't last.

Into the afternoon the terrain flattened out as we crossed the narrowest part of Mexico. This area is know for strong winds, often up to 80 K/H and the Mexican Government is taking advantage of that.

Near Ventosa (“Windy”) we missed the 185 D (toll road) which bypassed the towns and ended up driving through Zaragoza where we again missed the turn off at Tehuantepec back to the toll road and so soon found ourselves driving through the city of Salina Cruz!

By now it was getting well onto if not past lunch time so once we were north bound on the 200 (the highway that runs up the west coast to Puerta Vallarta and beyond) we stopped for a lunch break, about 100 kilometers south of Huatulco, which would be our stop for the night.

Forty minutes later at 2:50 we were rolling again The last 100 kilometers taking us almost 2 hours, we arrived at Tangolunda RV Park at 4:40.

A leisurely start Sunday morning for the short run up to Puerto Escondido, just over 100 kilometers away. Once back northbound on the highway 200 we came across signs of new road construction. It appears that this section of the 200 is in line for some very welcome major upgrades. Many of the hard corners are being removed and the road widened. This continued on and off all the way to Puerto Escondido where the approaches from the south of town were being done when we last passed this way three years ago.

We stayed at Hotel Villa Las Brisas, a new park for us. We were first told to park in the parking lot but it wasn't too level. Then we were told we could park in the field next door which actually had serviced RV sites, or had had at one time. They were pretty run down and there was a large burnt patch of grass in the middle which had obviously been where they burnt rubbish.

We had to look around for a reasonably level site (remember the jacks don't work!) and for an electrical outlet that worked and there was no water at the sites, the pipes were broken. The bathrooms and showers in the RV Park? We'll just let the photos say it all.

We stayed here two nights, using the facilities in the rig of course! The second day we borrowed a hose and by adding it to all the hoses we carry with us we were just able to reach a tap near the bar by the hotel pool. The second day a workman began trimming the grass and brush along the south wall where there were more spaces.

This could have been a very nice place. The hotel has a sushi restaurant (serves other food as well) and a nice pool which was pretty dirty after all the weekend traffic. The manager was quite annoyed as the water truck which he had arranged (to change the pool water) had not showed. Mañana. (It hadn't arrived by the time we left on Tuesday.)

Monday we backtracked in the Jeep to Puerto Angel to check out the RV Parks there and to once more check the access. We decided it could be done in our rig and the park looked quite pleasant too.

Near the RV park we stopped in a small village for lunch at a great little ocean front “drive in” restaurant. Each table over looked the beach and had it's own covered parking place. The right hand photo was taken from the front seat of the jeep.