This was my first ever solo journey from the highway entrance of the Monte Cruz trail to Playa Cacaluta. The trail is reasonably safe but it is always better to enter the jungle with friends. Things can happen and there is no cellphone coverage.
Travelling from downtown Crucecita in the direction of Pochutla for about 2 kms, you'll find this roadside sign indicating the entrance. Other than the sign, which motorists could easily miss, it is rather discreet.
Make sure the traffic is clear before crossing. This is the highway and some drivers are in an awful hurry to get to the beach.
Not far from the entrance, you will come to this gate. It's there to stop motorized traffic. Just pull your bike through one of the gaps.
Most of the trail is a smooth dirt road with a few rough spots where the rain has dug runnels.
The advantage of taking the highway route is that it is a gradual climb from downtown and the trail is mostly downhill freewheeling. But keep both hands on the handlebars, near the break and don't accelerate too much. There are lots of surprises and a few sharp bends.
This is the park rangers station. I didn't see anyone that morning but the sun was barely up when I arrived and hadn't penetrated the trees yet.
There's a good reason to wear a helmet. Duck.
At this intersection, turning left takes you back to town and the right leads to Playa Cacaluta.
This feels more like a trail at this point. You might squeeze an ATV through here but parts of it are extremely narrow.
On this part in particular, the trail hugs the embankment of the dry riverbed and there's no room to get off and walk beside your walk. You have to push it in front of you.
Cross the river here.
Follow other people's bike tracks and you'll rejoin the trail here.
On this route, it is easy to pass right on by the sign because you're facing the wrong way. Take a look back at every fork you pass so you don't miss it.
This road takes you the rest of the way, getting sandier and sandier the closer you get to the beach until you need to hop off your bike and push.
I haven't been to Cacaluta for a few years. It isn't the quickest and easiest beach to get to when I feel the need to swim but it's worth the trip on special occasions like Rowena's birthday. I don't know how old she is but she's still quite young.
There's a sign at the trailhead with dos and don'ts, some of which shouldn't be necessary, like don't leave your trash behind, but you'd be surprised. One of them is a recommendation to only enter the woods in a group. While you probably wouldn't be attacked, there are wild animals in there and a lone person is much more tempting prey. I've come across packs of wild dogs myself. They didn't attack or even growl but it might have been a different story if I'd been alone. There are snakes, crocodiles (or alligators, I'm not sure) several species of snakes and wildcats.
A few years back, I came across a young couple, tired, hot, dehydrated and completely shaken, stumbling along the road from the trail. There were on vacation from Mexico City and had wanted to visit the site of "Y tu mama tambien". They hadn't packed enough water. However much you think you're going to need, double it. This unfortunate pair hadn't even made it to the beach when they'd been chased by an aggressive giant snake, probably a python. They can grow to an intimidating size, length and width.
After a 25 minute hike through the forest, the beach is always a welcome sight.
A friend had told me that morning that the beach had been steep on the previous day but that had been on the other end. It couldn't have been much better on Saturday for us.
Life doesn't really get much better than this.
Here's our birthday girl, sitting with Lupita.
These two daredevils decided to jump off the rocks. I declined.
Just so nobody puts this on their to-do list, look at how close they came to hitting rocks beneath the surface. It's also worth mentioning that you can't get a cellphone signal at Cacaluta and the beach is usually deserted. Your best option, if you suffer a debilitating injury, would be to wait for a tour boat and signal for help. Wave your arms and scream loudly.
Will, Romeo and I took the big swim to the rock island. It was Romeo's idea and I didn't jump at the idea at first. I was concerned about cross currents but a passing tour boat operator who knew what he was talking about, convinced us that the currents ran deep below and wouldn't affect us unless we were diving.
You have to approach the rock beach with caution. The only way to do it is to crab walk backwards. When a wave comes, plunk your bum down and hang on tight. Move in between the waves. Don't try to stand on the wet rocks and move slowly on the dry ones because they're not stable.
The waves make a beautiful cracking sound when they shake the rocks but it sounds a bit sinister, like breaking bones, when you're trying to move on or off the beach. Will gives a good demonstration of how to do it on the video.
Good times. It was the sort of day when you have so much fun, you don't even realize how busy you were until you feel your aching muscles the next day.
Finally, for those who have never seen Y Tu Mamá También ,
someone has posted the scene where they wake up and discover the beach they've been looking for for the first time.
I've been losing my pictures. Too many places to put them. I have no idea where they end up sometimes. All that has survived recently is the vid of four beaches I visited one Sunday. The plan was to go to every beach I could in one day. I think it's possible to visit every beach in Huatulco in one day if you just show up, take a picture and run off to the next but I walked each one, took a swim, read a bit of my novel and so on. I plan to visit the beaches systematically just for a lark. i wonder how long it's going to take. At least by the end, everyone will have a complete account of each one.
A lot of my Saturdays don't start until late and by the time I arrived at Playa Cacaluta this weekend, there wasn't a soul around, not even a boat. I didn't stay long.
Last time I went there, I didn't take the first turn and ended up going most of the way on a soft sandy arroyo and got stuck a couple of times. This is where I should have come out. This little road runs past the banana plantation and joins the arroyo at the far end.
The gate at the end of the tiny dirt road was shut when I returned but there was no trouble moving it I wanted to check out a road I spotted last time. It looked like it might actually go somewhere. Of course it did. Right back to the arroyo. I didn't go too far. It was a bit late in the day for exploring the middle of nowhere but I took the scooter down the arroyo a bit further. I didn't get stuck this time but I had to stop and push to get turned around. It felt like I was as far from civilization as I could get until I saw the cooking pot. It may have been swept there from miles away during rainy season but, when I turned off the motor, I heard people from somewhere not too far off. All would be revealed before I pulled in for the night.
I had a vague plan to go for a dip at Conejos or body surfing at La Bocana and I was heading that direction when I saw a car pull off on to a dirt road to the right. I knew there was a beach there but I had never tried it before. I drove past that exit without seeing it for almost 2 years. I like to concentrate on what's in front when I drive. This was the day. Excellent choice.
The couple in the car I'd followed told me it was Playa Arena. Very friendly people. We talked a bit and the man told me the arroyo eventually comes back to town in Sector something or other in Santa Cruz. I probably hadn't been too far from the exit when I turned around. It's a great beach, maybe even a new favorite.
Buzzards. Turkey buzzards. Vultures. Our end of Cacaluta was alive with them. When I first stepped out on the beach, a bunch of them stood sentinel on every post by the park sign. Sinister looking things. The colony was down by our end, surrounding a black swamp lake, probably living off whatever the alligators left behind. Mike swam out to a boat that dropped a couple off on shore and chatted with the pilot in Spanish. The pilot believed the swine flu epidemic was the will of God. He had some apocalyptic notions of retribution for sin. Dead is dead for whatever reason but the boatman took some twisted comfort from believing it was God’s decree.
I took a walk from our end of the beach to the other. It took much longer than I expected. Cacaluta must be quite a bit longer than Zipolite. You can see why developers would imagine this as a kickass place to have deluxe all-inclusive hotels. For now, I like it just the way it is.
A flat round fish with sharp looking fangs and fins had been tossed on to the high sand by a big wave with no hope in hell of getting back. I’m not usually over concerned with the welfare of animals. It gave me a despairing wave of a flipper to show he was still alive. I make it a point not to touch wild animals and I didn’t like the spiky look of his fins so I took my shirt off to scoop him up and drag him into the water. Those teeth latched on to the life line of polyester, delivered all the way across the globe from Korea, and held tight while I picked him up, ran to the water and heaved him almost past the breakers. It looked for a while as if the Pacific was going to toss him right back but he made it.
Around the bend was a dead puffer fish, long past saving. I’d done my good deed of the year. God’s will as the man in the boat would have said.
This second stretch of the beach is the longest and much longer than it looks as there is nothing to give a perspective of size to the rocks at the far end. I walked to the end by the rocks, remembering how, back in 2002, I had attempted to reach Playa Maguey by climbing around the craggy shore. There was the spot where I’d been forced to climb up into the bushes, a deep wet cleft requiring a two foot vertical leap for the next available handhold. The more I thought of it, the more I realized a cracked skull with one fatal slip on the slippery stone was almost a certainty whereas death by snake bite in the bushes was a fractional possibility. I chose the bogeyman over the real danger, fought my way through the bushes and came back out on to the rocks, with only minor cuts and scratches from thorns. Onward.
By luck that day, there were three young guys further ahead collecting oysters from the rocks. My first thought was the hope that they were cool because, if they weren’t, I could be in serious trouble where no one could hear my death struggle over the crash of the waves. They were great. As soon as they realized what I was trying to do, they got all excited and managed to explain by pantomime that the cracked skull I’d avoided so far was just a matter of time if i didn´t turn back. What I didn’t know was that the bends ahead just kept coming. If I had managed to avoid injury, I still would never have made my destination before nightfall. The whole spit of rock was one giant crooked finger that couldn’t be seen all at once.
They were ready to go and I was to go with them. Being much younger and more nimble than I was, they scampered lightly down the wet cleft with a drop. When I headed for my tried and tested bushwhacking route, they didn’t like it and warned me there could be snakes in there. I looked down the face of the cleft. Well, at least this time, there was someone to pull my remains out of the water. It wasn’t a problem. Two of the boys held their clasped hands together for me to step on and they lowered me to safety like an elevator.
Back at the beach, we searched for a hidden trailhead amongst the clumps of alders. One patch of sand with stunted trees looked the same as any other but eventually we found the shirt left behind as a landmark and were on our way through the jungle forest, stopping by a swampy lagoon where the boys pointed out some alligators. I couldn’t actually see them. Those things are almost impossible to spot. They look like rotten logs or part of the mud. When I finally saw them in Chiapas on the Canon Sumidero boat tour, it was like those strange 3D pictures in the 90s where you had to stare at a psychedelic design until, wham, they just leapt out at you. Alligators are like that. I could have sat on one before I even knew I was close. The boys knew what to look for and they could see them. Good enough for me. I was warned against going through there at night as it was especially dangerous then. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything like that.
The trail took us about 15 minutes. It wasn’t as clearly marked as the one I took last Tuesday and we had to stop and discuss different turning points; another reason I wouldn’t be exploring the wild by moonlight. We came out by the fork in the road between Maguey and Cacaluta and split up. I never saw them again. _____________________________________________________________________________
The tide was coming up quite high when I turned back to where I had started. More fish had been pounded on to shore and the buzzards were eating well. They went for the eyes first. The rest would have to ripen a bit more in the sun. There was even a land mammal that must have crawled too close to shore and drowned before being thrown back out. I think it was one of those raccoon/anteater/mutant rat hybrids but it was hard to tell. If there had been a snout, it had been the appetizer or maybe some flat round fish with sharp teeth like the one I’d rescued earlier had got to it first. Just the stripped skull and sun bloated torso remained.
Of course I got my camera. Matt and Mike had already taken off but not before moving all my belongings to a high and dry spot and throwing a bag over my water to keep it reasonably cool.
Everyone was gone, including the four people who showed up with a home made shelter. Just me. Not another soul on this big beautiful beach. Dang. It was eerie. Me and all those buzzards pecking away at the soft spots. If I got too close with the camera, they would back off to let me have the next bite. They weren’t up to fighting for their food except with each other and they seemed to have a definite set of rules amongst themselves about the order.
The tide was high. Some brown scum floated in from somewhere. Maybe the pounding of the water brought it up from the bottom. There was a strong smell of sulphur. I got ready to leave. Two very hopeful buzzards looked down on me from the rocks above, keeping a close eye on the state of my health.
Not a bad day for a Tuesday. It’s good to be alive.
Dang! Youtube disabled my chosen soundtrack for this video over the obvious copyright issue. Somehow I doubt the deceased Karen Carpenter would be too upset about being cheated out of her percentage of nothing. So, do yourselves a favor and play "(They Long to Be) Close to You" by the Carpenters while you watch.
