Stage 18:  Taxco, Guerrero – Playa Ventura, Guerrero
June 1-2, 2013
5.5 hours, Cuota MX$485.00

The Estados Unidos de Mexico (United States of Mexico) is a very large country, consisting of 32 states, spread across 761,610 square miles. While the official language of the nearly 132 million citizens is Spanish, there are 68 officially recognized indigenous languages. Mexico has a very rich history, dating back to 8,000 BC. Mesoamerica was considered one of the cradles of civilization, followed by the Spanish Conquest and colonization, and the Mexican War of Independence of 1810 – 1821 which established Mexico as a sovereign nation.

For comparisons sake, the United States of America contains 50 states plus the District of Columbia (plus a fine occupied territories) spread across nearly 3.8 million square miles containing more than 340 million citizens. The only official language is English. While I’m sure the indigenous history dates back millennia as well, the colonialists did all they could to wipe away every trace. While Europeans began exploring and colonizing America in the 1500s, we all know that the USA did not exist as its own country until 1776, but the west coast wasn’t settled by American colonists until the mid-1800s.

What I’m really trying to say here, is that Mexico is very big and very diverse and it takes forever to drive from place to place. Therefore, I have numerous interesting lay-over stories, and this is one of them.

After holing up in Taxco for three days, alternatively challenging my legs on the steep stairs and roads and hanging in my room watching CSI reruns and trying to recover from my recurring bad butt, I was ready to head back to the beach. I wanted to get to Playa Zipolite, but that is a nearly 13 hours of driving, way more hours than I’m prepared to drive. So I broke the trip into three legs.

The first pit stop was Playa Ventura in Guerrero, a funky little town with a beautiful beach and a surprising number of dead, abandoned, and crumbling homes. We enjoyed our little pit stop, but we hit the road early, after a lovely sunrise stroll on the beach and a quick breakfast.