Mazatlan – Escuinapa – Rosamorada – Tepic – La Peñita de Jaltemba
5 days | 400 kilometers | 3266 meters elevation gain
Today we were planning to go cycling again, but Mexico has different plans with us. Jacko is feeling not too great and therefore we decide to stay put in the hostel we call home for these days. The Mexican food and hygiene has been hitting us hard and I’m wondering if at some point we will build up enough resistance and immunity to deal better with it. Time for me to explore this beach city while Jacko is taking it easy. I like exploring by myself, because I like to just sit somewhere and watch people. This time I’ve chosen to sit on a rock on the beach to watch a very cheerful crowd partying on the beach. It seems like a bachelor party of some sort. They drink and dance on the beach. I enjoy watching them. Then suddenly one of the party people sees me, comes up to me and demands me to join their circle of craziness. Now suddenly I’m the center of attention. They make me sit on the back of a guy on all fours, pretending to be a bull, and make me ride him. I only last for 2 seconds before I hit the sand. Everybody laughs. “Where are you from?”. “Hollanda!”. “Aaaaah, World Cup 2014! No era penal!“*. And then they all started screaming “No era penal, no era penal!”. Super funny.
Everywhere on the beaches there’s a mucha fiesta atmosphere. The sound of mariachi orchestras that are roaming the playas is everywhere, people drink and sit under the shade of their umbrellas, they take a dive in the lukewarm sea water when their bodies reach a too high temperature.
In the night they change their swimsuits for a neat dress or shirt and roam the boulevard. Party busses and taxis playing loud mariachi music blaze by with cheerful Mexicans screaming in the back. I go sit on a bench on the boulevard and enjoy the people and the scenery. It’s what I like to do best. I get offered to come join the people that are sitting next to me. Girls my age. We have a good night and I get to improve my Spanish a lot. At midnight it’s time to get back to the hostel, but it starts raining and I seek shelter. I’ve never seen rain like this in my life. The rain comes pouring down from the sky like there’s no end to it. I wait for 30 minutes. One hour. There seems to be no end to it. Streets start to fill up quickly now. The walk home will take me 30 minutes and I figure I’ll get wet anyway, so I decide to start walking. I’m dragging my feet through the water that rises to my knees. When cars pass by they create waves that make my shorts wet. I’m wondering if it would be faster if I would swim home. The water is dirty and therefore I cannot see where I’m walking. I’m afraid I will trip or sprain my ankle. The thunder that has been on the background all this time suddenly seems close. I count two seconds between thunder and lightning. Then some strikes later it seems like it hit a tree very, very close to me. Fuck. I make it home safely. I take off my clothes and wring them out. They won’t dry for the next three days.
* During the World Cup football in 2014 we played Mexico during the round of 16. It was 1-1 and deep in injury time Arjen Robben got slightly touched in the box. He went down; penalty. In minute 90+4 Huntelaar scored the penalty and we advanced to the Quarter-Finals, to the disappointment of many Mexican football fans.


So apparently the rain yesterday was a forerunner from a hurricane that’s soon arriving on mainland Mexico. Her name is Orlene. The complete staff of the hostel we’re staying at is in an uproar. Barricading doors, tying up everything that’s loose. That morning everybody is talking about it. The hurricane is supposed to hit late in the afternoon or early the next morning. We decide to go cycling. Everybody thinks we’re crazy. We’ll see. A little bit of rain never killed anybody and the heavy wind gusts are not there yet. If it gets too bad on the road, we’ll just look for the nearest hotel.
All day there are dramatic formations of dark clouds above us. But in the end nothing terrible happens.
Yes we get wet and yes there is some wind. But no crazy hurricane pushing us off the road, meaning we made a good decision.
Escuinapa is a city with nothing to see for tourists and therefore they are missing. We are gawked at and waved at a lot on the streets. We check into a hotel and look at the evolving situation, it looks like the eye of the hurricane will pass 50 kilometers north of us tomorrow morning. We walk around town and see that the supermarket is absolutely packed. They expect the shops to close tomorrow, and even the rest of the week so they are hoarding. We hear that last time a hurricane hit this part of Mexico it was really bad, so we do understand the fear of these people.



When we wake up we finally get some real hurricane vibes. The hotel we’re staying at is filled with temporary refugees from nearby coast villages. They are all evacuated from their houses and supposed to shelter in nearby schools and bunkers, but the people that can spare some money get themselves into hotels inland. The palm trees that we can see from the hallway of the hotel is shaking heavily left to right. The complete city is blacked out. We wait and wait together with the other guests of the hotel. Around noon the situation seems to be better and we see on our phones that the eye has passed us. We decide to go cycling.
After five minutes we’re already complete soaked from the first heavy rains that fall upon us. It turns out not to be the last of rains that has set its target on us today.
We get rained upon heavily like five times. It doesn’t matter because we’re already soaked anyway. I’m so glad this is not Canada. In Canada being wet meant being incredibly cold and no chance of drying up. Here being wet just means being wet. The temperature is still pleasant, even more pleasant than the humid climate of the past days.
We think we see flamingo’s on our way. At least they are pink crane birds, but we doubt if they’re really flamingos. We see a lot of mango trees as well. And a lot of mango thieves, guys on little scooters that we see on the edge of the plantations snitching a bag of mangos. We’re cycling right through the jungle. Dense, lush green vegetation and you can almost taste the drops of water in the air. We stay put at Rosamorada, another not so touristy town.

The hurricane is gone but left a lot of water in the air. After the first climb that we have to put some effort into we are already complete wet from sweat. It’s unbelievably humid. Yesterday wet from rain, today from sweat. Today the first 30 kilometers are relatively flat, but the last 40 kilometers are seriously up. It feels like we’re cycling under water, the oxygen molecules seem to be replaced by water molecules. It’s hard to breath. Even our shoes are soaked from the sweat that has been dripping down from our bodies.
Every stop we take I wring out my shirt. We smell like wet dog. After a while I see a truck stop next to the road, he hands us two bottles of Gatorade. I can cry.When we finally reach Tepic we meet our WarmShowers host at the local supermarket. His name is George, he is American but lives in Mexico for almost thirty years now with a Mexican wife and kids. He takes us out for some tacos and we can sleep in his youngest son’s bedroom.


We’re heading back to the coast today. Basically that means a total descent of 1000 meters and we all get them in the beginning of the day. I love descending. I love the thrill of it, the shots of adrenaline that rush through your body, the handling of the bike through corners. I feel like a formula one driver, trying to take a perfect line through any corner, hitting the best apex. I like to take a risk as well, it’s what I’m born with. I’m 33 now and still take these risks, so I guess I will never grow out of it. Without risks life is pretty boring. Let’s hope I’ll make it to Argentina without bruises.
In the meantime the road is crazy beautiful. It meanders through something I would call a jungle. We see huge jackfruits hanging on the trees, loads of bananas, palm trees everywhere. The road is not busy.
We forgot to take out some cash from the machines so our communal wallet is nearly empty. Also, we delayed our lunch today to far beyond lunch time so at kilometer 70 we try to find some food. No card accepted. We scrape our last pesos together for two bananas and two pastries.
Ten kilometer further we can get some cash at a bank. When I try to look for my wallet there’s no sign of it. I think I left it at our WarmShowers host in Tepic. I send him an email to ask if he can please check.
We arrive in La Peñita de Jaltemba. The city is just as cute as it sounds. We have a beer on the boulevard and we wait until we can get to our new WarmShowers host for the night. We agreed to meet around 6pm and it’s only 5pm, so we text him: “We’ve arrived! Having a beer on the boulevard, see you at 6pm”.
His name is Tom and he makes a legendary first expression by cycling past us while we’re still on the boulevard shouting: “Let’s go, you fucking hippies!”.
Tom is retired and has designed and built his own house in this cute little beach town. His house is right on the seaside boulevard and it’s beautiful! We get our own room and opening our balcony doors we can hear the waves crash on the beach. Tom treats us to chili and beer. We have a great conversation, a great night and we feel at ease and at home at his place.




In the meantime there is still this ‘wallet’ situation. George in Tepic is still not responding to any of my mails, texts and calls. So there is a little bit of uncertainty. We decide to stay another day in La Peñita. Finally a call from George with the confirmation that I indeed left my wallet at his place.
Tom brings me to the bus stop and I’ll travel back and forth to Tepic. It takes me all day, but hey I’m comfortably climbing hills while reading a book, without a drop of sweat! That evening Jacko cooks his famous shakshouka.






Hallo Marijn, een mooi stukje Mexico. Ik heb er de roadmap eens bijgepakt. Niet voor niets. Het is een stuk van Mexico dat er een jaar of zeven geleden hebben doorkruist met een auto. Je verhalen roepen bij ons ook weer van alles op. Ushuaia is nog ver maar je rijdt wel de zomer tegemoet. Veel plezier en….pas goed op jezelf. Lieve groetjes Ellen en Rini
Wat grappig Rini! Kans is natuurlijk groot dat jullie er ook zijn geweest, ouwe globetrotters!! 😉 Dankjewel!
Hey jou lucky boy met je portemonnee!!! Maar geluk dwing je af…. Dat is je deze keer weer gelukt!
Prachtig de omgeving die je beschrijft, de afdaling in een perfecte lijn. Alsof de wind hier langs mijn hoofd gaat! En ja, risico’s nemen zorgt voor adrenaline! Doet me denken aan een mooi boek met de titel: no risk, no live!! Boek van Ben Valks over zijn avontuur van Alaska tot Argentinië.
Een titel die zo bij jou past!
Dank je wel Marijn voor al dit prachtigs! Take care!
Liefs van ons, Ans en Kaat
Wat grappig, dat boek heb ik nog van mama gekregen vlak voor mijn vertrek! Wie weet resulteert dit alles ook in mijn eigen boek met dito titel!
Oh I am so glad to read the part that you reached your wallet in the end. It reminds me how you forgot your wallet on a bus seat in İstanbul 🙂 Some things never change, you like to take risks and you like to lose your wallet, both of these are what you were born with. 😄😘
Hahahaha Gamiz!!! Yes indeed you are absolutely right, some things never change and I love it! Glad to see you are reading my stories. Hope you are well, saw a very nice photo of you this week on Instagram 🙂
Hallo Marijn,
Wat een verhaal met die storm, ik zie het al helemaal voor me: tot je knieen in het water banjerend naar de hostel.
Veel succes met de rest van je reis en een “thumbs up” voor de 10k, die je al hebt afgelegd. Daar heb ik enkele jaren voor nodig, jij doet dat in enkele maanden. Respect.
Groeten, Roger
Dankjewel Roger 🙂