As our nearly two weeks in Melaque wind down, there’s only one thing left on our list to do: A day trip to the beach village of Cuastecomates.
Playa Cuastecomates is just over the headland to the west of town, no more than two miles from the center of Melaque. Coming from where we’re staying adds another mile, and it doesn’t look like the narrow, winding highway over the hills is great for hiking. So, we’re taking a taxi today.
The beaches in Melaque have been too rough for swimming during our stay, so we’re excited about the prospect of being able to get back in the ocean in Cuastecomates.
The evening before, we climbed up to the top of a lookout tower in front of the resort associated with our RV park to catch the sunset. There’s usually someone who beats us to the punch, but not on this night. Tonight, we manage to snag the platform for ourselves.
The next morning, Playa Cuastecomates.
Playa Cuastecomates
Another sleepy beach town in paradise. We didn’t bring any provisions with us, so we’re hoping things aren’t too sleepy today.
Cuastecomates is known as being an “Inclusive Beach & Town” for people with disabilities. They’ve gone to great lengths to make the town accessible with braille signs, adapted beach buggies, lots of ramps, and boardwalks.
Given Lori’s line of work, she was particularly interested in finding all of the little hidden adaptive features in town.
The beach is small, but one of the nicest I’ve seen in a while. Fairly soft sand, lots of coconut trees, and decent visibility for swimming (but not for snorkeling on this day).
At the far end of the beach is a tidy, yet unassuming hotel, which I didn’t think much about until I looked it up on a map. Turns out it’s a relatively expensive all-inclusive. I wouldn’t have guessed by the look of it from the beach.
As we suspected might be the case, there isn’t a lot going on this particular morning—a few fishing boats in the cove and one or two restaurants out of a half dozen on the beach looking like they might be open for business.
We pick the one that looks the most functional, take a look at the menu, and make the quick decision to park ourselves there for the rest of the morning.
It turns out to be a good choice—albeit not exactly cheap. These basic beachside eateries rarely are in Mexico, but you do typically get a table, some chairs, and an umbrella for as long as you want to stick around.
Reviving an old mid-morning beach tradition going back to our Sayulita days, we order a Michelada. But not just any Michelada—their shrimp cocktail Michelada, which was muy rico.
For the next several hours, we split our time between swimming, beach bumming, eating, and beach combing. It almost feels like we were on vacation.
In the back of our minds, we know days like these will be fewer and fewer as rainy season creeps in and we consider a sharp turn left into the highlands for several months. We do our best to soak up each lazy hour.
No big waves here, just warm, calm water. We haven’t seen conditions like this since La Paz.
All in all, we were pretty happy with our Cuastecomates day trip. There’s a part of me that wishes we’d visited earlier in our time in Melaque. On the other hand, the day trip almost didn’t happen, which would have been a shame.
Back in Melaque
When we returned, the boys jumped right into their current obsession—cereal box “Air Hockey”.
In a couple of days we head south to the beaches of Michoacan. Will there be more high surf or little coves like Cuastecomates? We’re really not sure.
We’re also not sure where we’re headed after our next stop. Maybe continue on to Ixtapa, maybe time to head inland.
Melaque’s been a fun stop, but as with any overland journey, there comes a point when it’s time to roll on.
