Despite American travel warnings not to travel to Guerrero and Michoacan, and some Mexican friends telling us these were really dangerous States due to the drug cartels, we decided to give it a crack. Mainly because Glen really wanted to check out the hidden surf spots along this part of the Pacific coast.

Its a bit like Mexico’s throughly undeserved reputation as a dangerous country. If you keep your wits about you, and don’t go looking for trouble it is a really safe and relaxed place.  The people are friendly, kind and fun loving.

We followed the coast road – Highway 200 and there were many other surfers from America and all over the world doing the same so we felt safe and had a great time.

We drove to the wee sleepy surf village of Nexpa and set up camp under the palapas next to 3 other travelling surfers. After a couple of days the swell picked up and Glen was surfing three times a day with good waves and a handful of other surfers.

After 5 days of surf, swimming, beach walks, yoga, and camping with good people, we decided to amble on south past “the ranch” surf spot (it was flat) to Saladita for the night. We found a lovely uncrowded campsite thanks to the Jeanette and Larry from Nexpa. When we drove in we met Bill, a long time resident from Texas. Bill was in his 60s and had been coming here for over 30 years, we had a good yarn about the old times and the new developments over a few beers.

The next morning after a quick surf we mosied on south through Troncones which is a lovely small town with a good point break. The surf is punchy and shallow, but watch out for the sea urchins! Glen limped off with a dozen in his foot and spent the next 4 days digging them out… Outch! We travelled on south staying at Playa Ropa.

We spent 3 days at La Barrita camping at a place right on the beach owned by a Canadian couple, Mark and Lorraine. There was good fishing and surfing here. Glen got lots of hits on his fishing rod, but nothing for the frypan. About 400m offshore was a sunken reef/rock. We decided to take our snorkelling gear and swim out there on a couple of bodyboards. The snorkelling was good, but on the way back it got really interesting. We were about 50m from shore when Glen said to Jeanette “stop paddling, there is a crocodile just ahead, and I need you to be really still…..Shite!! About 10m in front of us was a 5-6ft crocodile swimming along in the sea. He kept swimming along across in front of us and we not so slowly swam the other way…phew!. Glen has always wanted to see crocodiles in the wild – be careful what you wish for eh?!

Acapulco has a old reputation as THE tourist stop on the Pacific Coast, however these days it is considered pretty dangerous, and has the dubious title of “Mexicos Murder Capital”. The cliff divers are still doing their thing and it is still a big tourist town, mainly for Mexicans. We stayed on the beach just south of the main area. The surfing was really good, people friendly, fresh grilled fish delicious, and accommodation clean and funky.

 

The next stop south was a turtle scanturary at Juan Alvarez. We spent two days here fishing, snorkelling, swimming, and watching the turtles being released. Glen finally caught a needle fish for dinner which tasted delicious, and speared some fish with his new found friend from Alaska Mike.

Our last stop on the Guerrero coast was at Chacahua. It was a hour long drive on a super corrugated dirt road which shook the s#$t out of our van and everything inside of it including us! The beaches were nice, the surf was flat, and we drove out the next day never to return! We would recommend going to the next beach south (Playa Cerro Hermoso) and getting a boat to Chacahua.

On the drive south we stopped in to a small fishing village with a lovely beach called Roca Blanca to check of there was any surf – there wasn’t.

We drove on south to Puerto Escondido, finally entering into Oaxaca and out of the “danger zone”.