The coast is heating up and the rainy season is just around the corner, so we thought it might be a good time to head inland to the mountains.
The boys haven’t spent more than six weeks away from the beach in the past four years, so this is going to be a whole new experience for them.
We plan to return to the Oaxacan coast later in the year when the rains taper off…in about four months.
Well, we might have another night or two on the coast before then. Barring anything unforeseen, we’ve got two probable destinations today.
The first, is Nexpa, a surfer’s hangout three hours down the Michoacan coast.
If that doesn’t work out? Well, then we turn left and it’s another 4-5 hours to Uruapan in the central highlands.
The latter option is a lot of driving for us, especially considering we haven’t done a driving day like that since we crossed into Mexico.
And eight-hour driving days in Mexico aren’t like eight-hour driving days in the U.S. No rest areas, no easy pitstops, and I don’t dare use cruise control in Mexico. That’s just asking for trouble.
Oh, and did I mention that Uruapan is at 5,300 feet above sea level (we’re at sea level now).
We’ll see how this day unfolds.
I unhook and pack things up at Rancho B. while the boys busy themselves with saying their goodbyes to Sandy, Brenda and Patrick, the dogs, and of the course, the kitten.
Speaking of the kitten…
Another reason not to skip the final walk-around before pulling out.
The route doesn’t get much more straightforward than today. Head to the end of the driveway and take a right onto Highway 200.
Sandy likens this morning’s drive (which he has done countless times) to California’s Highway 1. Highway 1 of course is spectacularly gorgeous, and a fun drive. But not something I’d look forward to doing in a Class C motorhome. At least I know Highway 1 has guardrails. Experience has taught me that most coastal highways in Mexico do not. If Sandy’s right, this should be fun.
Our first views of the Pacific heading south. Narrow lanes and no guardrails, but at least no other big vehicles. Nobody else is that stupid.
They occasionally have these “Dangerous Curve” signs posted. Expecting the worst, there’s usually very little to differentiate one of these curves from the 50 unsigned curves preceding it.
I really wanted to be able to stop and check out a couple of the better known coves. The pictures I’ve seen are pretty amazing. But few if any of them had appealing-looking road access. In the Montero, no problem. In the Winnie, no thanks. So we contented ourselves to admiring them from afar. Next time.
We made sure to leave Rancho B. as early as possible to avoid traffic on the highway (which ended up being 8:45am—about as early of a start as we’ve ever managed). I’m happy to say it paid off.
I was able to take the dozens upon dozens of curves at my own pace without worrying about a backup, and no one got sick. Whatever happens today, we’ll always have that.
Just shy of four hours after leaving Rancho B. (yep, I took this morning’s drive at a fairly leisurely pace, and am quite happy about that), we roll into Nexpa, heading straight for Nexpa Camping.
I thought we might grab some lunch at the well-reviewed restaurant there, take a stroll around and see if it’s a place we might want to stay a night or two.
It took a few minutes of Lori wandering around the area at the end of town to find the place. When we rolled in, we were immediately directed to a big grassy field.
I then maneuvered the RV backwards through a palm grove, slotting in between the Partridge Family’s bus on one side and the banks of a big muddy river on the other.
That was the extent of setting up I was willing to do until we did some investigating. I already felt pressured into pulling into the RV section before we’d had a look around and was looking forward to having a good meal.
The first thing I noticed when I got out was that it was hot and sticky. Rancho B. had a nice breeze high up on a bluff facing the open ocean. This place, on the other hand, had no moving air to speak of and was much more humid.
Not the end of the world, I thought. I dispatched Lori to find out what the electricity situation is hoping they had a 30-amp pedestal somewhere. 30 amps = air-conditioning. But I knew they wouldn’t.
Sure enough, Lori returned to confirm my fears. Okay, how about water? There’s a garden hose we can fill up at on the far end of the property. Hmm. How about sewage? Haha, that’s a good one.
Despite having read that they have hookups here, in reality this place is all dry camping. If we were here to surf and it wasn’t steamy early June, we might be able to justify it. However, continuing on for five more hours was sounding more enjoyable.
Okay, okay. Let’s cut our losses, go have lunch, and continue on. But Lori had more bad news. The restaurant was closed today. Don’t worry, they told us. It’ll be open tomorrow.
PB&J it is.
After lunch, it’s back on the road. Looks like we’re saying goodbye to the coast today.
Our last few miles hugging the ocean before peeling away from Highway 200 and onto 37D at Lazaro Cardenas bound for the mountains.
Uruapan, here we come! Well, almost.
The highway does a bit of a funny thing here. It briefly dips into Guerrero before dipping back into Michoacan. It spooked us a bit considering we had no plans to head into Guerrero today, but found ourselves there anyway.
Though we’d like to visit Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo one of these days, the state doesn’t have the best reputation right now (in other words, not exactly a place you want to be driving an isolated coastal route by yourself), so we’re happy to defer our visit to the future.
If the welcome sign for Guerrero is any indication of what lies farther down the road, I think we made the right choice.
A handful of miles after the Zihuatanejo split, the highway crosses back into Michoacan (but there’s no sign alerting drivers to this). Lori studied the map to find the spot, and when we crossed it we both drew a sigh of relief.
Our final photo of the Pacific Ocean before making our lefthand turn for the central highlands.
Heading up into the mountains.
Autopista 37D is a pleasant highway to drive, even if they were actively doing construction on what seemed like every one of a dozen yellow steel bridges along the route.
It took us about three hours to cover the distance between Lazaro Cardenas and Uruapan. I kept an eye on the altimeter wondering when we might start to climb, but we just didn’t seem to be gaining any elevation.
An hour before we were due into Uruapan, I started to wonder if the altimeter might be broken. Moments later, we rounded and started the slow slog up a long incline. The needle finally sprang to life.
We would end up gaining around 4,000 feet in elevation in the last hour of the day’s journey.
Nine-and-a-half hours after leaving Rancho B., we finally roll into Uruapan and Hotel Pie de la Sierra, our pitstop for the next two nights.
I don’t recall the last time I was this exhausted from one day’s driving. All of us were just happy to be somewhere we could park the vehicle and lay low for a while.
That was the plan, at least.
We had high hopes for Hotel Pie de la Sierra, at one point thinking it might be a place we could park ourselves for a week or more and get some projects done.
But the RV gods had other plans for us.
The reviews we’d read alluded to full hookups here. I was hoping for 30 amp, but could already tell we probably wouldn’t need A/C at this elevation.
When we pull into a new place, I usually do a pretty good job not getting ahead of myself. I make it a point to test the outlets and water first before getting too comfortable with any one particular site.
This evening, however, was a different story. I just wanted to be done with it and grab some dinner. Lori suggested we test the utilities first. Yeah, okay.
Out of the eight or so pedestals, only two outlets had power. One had reverse polarity and neither was grounded. In smaller rigs and camper vans, plugging an extension cord connected to a small appliance may or may not pose a problem.
However, hooking up a motorhome on a metal chassis packed with 120 volt household wiring poses more of a risk, especially with barefoot kids milling about.
We looked around some more and found these strange looking outlets. 30-amp, perhaps? We asked the groundskeeper if he knew anything about them or had an adapter. He didn’t, but was able to track down the hotel electrician who, of course, seemed to know little about them and certainly did not have an adapter.
Turns out an adapter probably wouldn’t have helped us anyway as we later discovered these are 240 volt twist lock outlets. Oh well.
Even more disheartening, the one water spigot that actually worked only produced a trickle, and there were absolutely no sewage hookups. Whoever in the online reviews said this place had full RV hookups needs to have their head examined.
Okay, so this isn’t going to work for a week, but we can certainly make it work for a couple of nights. It’s cool, quiet, and Lori can use the hotel lobby wifi for early morning calls, so we can get by on battery power and propane.
After a short setup, we took a stroll around the sprawling hotel grounds which ultimately led us to the restaurant. Fortunately, this one was open.
The whole place felt deserted. Lori asked one of the staff if anyone else was staying here. “Oh yes,” they said. “There should be some arriving this evening.”
We certainly don’t mind peace and quiet, but it’s always nice to know we’re not the only ones here.
With happy bellies, we slowly made our way back to our lonely RV… Only to find it completely surrounded by a number of large shuttle vans spilling loads of loud teenagers into the RV lot and lobby.
Apparently, the hotel has been quiet for weeks, but as our luck would have it on this particular Tuesday, they were hosting a Christian high school from elsewhere in Michoacan.
Because that’s what you want after a nine-hour driving day in Mexico: Surprise dry camping and 50 teenagers hanging out, crushing cans, and doing parkour within feet of your 150-square-foot home.
If this had been any other driving day, I probably would have wanted to pack up the RV and head on to the next stop. But that’s not an option this evening.
I thought maybe we should just leave first thing in the morning, but Lori was adamant about getting our sightseeing day in Uruapan.
In the end, we stayed for the two nights and were very happy we did.
