The Michoacan Coast from Melaque to Playa Azul - 250 miles

We are now headed deeper into Mexico's Pacific Coast line. After leaving Melaque our first stop was going to be in La Placita at a supposedly beautiful upscale rv park owned by Norteamericanos. After driving through amazing countryside with coconut & mango groves, the road twisting and turning through beach towns and rocky headlands (think Highway 1) and going through more militia checkpoints (more on those in my next blog), we arrived at our destination..only to find it closed! We were told that the owners had had problems with the local indigenous people (Mayan/Indians) who considered this was their land and not for sale. After threats the owners had departed for the US, to try and sort it out. The caretaker who told us this news could see we were upset and a little frantic. There are not many places with rv facilites on this stretch of coastline and he told us in no uncertain terms that it was definitely not safe to drive at night - the roads, the indian reservation territory that you pass through and problems on the road. As Tom chatted to the caretaker, we pondered on our options. The caretaker said we could stay on the rv property (no security), I quickly vetoed that. They (the people who considered this land theirs) had already shot at and threatened the owners (I don't want to desecrate or use any property that is indigenous..plus I don't want to get hurt), or we could stay on his property (hmm, better) or head back to La Placita and stay in a hotel. I grabbed our Mexican camping book to see what else there was. Voila! Completely and utterly by accident, we had the good fortune to stay in La Ticla (131 miles from Melaque). Described in the book as an alternate spot it was wonderful. Only about 5 miles further on Mex 200 this is primarily a camping and cabana camp ground with fantastic surf! Upon arrival, the managers quickly got us settled in front of a large palapa hut, with water and power all for less than $8.00 per night. This is apparently a well known surfing spot and as such was filled with the 20 - 30 year old age group, a mixture of Mexicans and Americans. I loved it and Tom loved it. So much so that we stayed for 3 nights. Our next stop on the coast was 49 mile away in the village of Zapote Tizupan. This rv park is new and still in the process of being constructed. Nevertheless, it has a small restaurant, great swimming pool and full hook ups. It fronted the beach and Winston made a new friend in Chocolate (a dog of dubious mexican heritage and.. you've guessed it, brown in color). Again we loved the simplicity of the place and stayed there for 2 nights. The downside to both these places was no internet and I was conscious of the fact that I needed to stay in touch. Our final stop on the Michoacan coast was Playa Azul (49 mile from Tizupan). Here we stayed at the Playa Azul Hotel which has an rv park right in it's center, literally. There is the hotel and a pool in the front and a pool and beach access in the back and slap dab in the middle is hookups for about 15 rvs. A strange setup but it worked for us. The beach had a couple of good palapa restaurants and the hotel pools were wonderful. Catering to a Mexican clientele, it was quite busy considering school is in and it's mid week. Winston was a little bummed out. He misses his friend but he is definitely feeling much better than a couple of weeks ago and is still on antibiotics. We hung out for 2 more days at the hotel, mostly by the pool with Winston lying on grass in the shade before heading to the state of Guerrero and Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo & Acapulco.