When you get too soft: Michoacan Coast

Full disclosure: I’m not tough. Never have been, really. Any really tough parts in my travel life were smoothed away, the sharp edges sanded by a shared camaraderie, friends made along the way, just…something.

And so, when I read the curiously depressing and dire warnings about travelling on the Michoacan Coast (actually the whole state is under a level 4 travel advisory, which…join the club with the 35 other Mexican states that are also? I mean, we just spent a few days in Colima and it was lovely), I was led down a path of suspicion and real fear.

I figured it was going to be rustic (to me, a spoiled Canadian, means straight up dirty and gross here, think a seething bathroom wall of ants), but I wasn’t really prepared for the level of weird, free-floating vague concern I felt the entire time. Now, in my defence, this 100% wasn’t helped by the curiously angsty and desperate vibe of the ratbag towns pretty much the entire way to the beach town of Maruata, where we planned to spend a day or two.

The towns – calling them such is perhaps generous – were populated by Halloween fright-mask wearing teenagers, some adults, who, upon seeing a car coming down the jungle highway, pulled a large rope across the road: effectively halting you. Sometimes at speed.

I immediately thought ok great, this is the big shakedown – it’s finally happening. But it wasn’t really, it was just an attempt by the townspeople to get some change tossed their way. An aggressive and frightening method, but maybe it works?

They didn’t give us any shit either. They just dropped the chains, and let us through every time. By the fourth time, it didn’t scare us but neither did it engender this area to me at ALL.

By the time we got to Maruata I didn’t want anything to do with this coast, this state, this town, this beach, the craphole accommodations, nothing. To be fair to Maruata, it had an astonishingly beautiful beach. Los arcos, wide expanses of furious sea, just stunning.

To be fair to me, it was absolutely crawling with probably 1500 Mexican holidaymakers, who were camping on the beach. The sheer number of people felt oppressive. The swarm.

We were shown a potential beach cabana up high and it was a one-room, tiled floor bed. Bathroom separate and the sink didn’t work at all. The windows opened up to a beautiful view… Of what apparently was a public balcony? Prison lighting, standard here. A liter of Modelo beer sat on a table and someone’s jeans swung in the breeze. Hard no from me.

I backed out immediately. I didn’t want this place, with ants, tarantulas (Ian saw one making it’s creepy ass way across the highway. It’s lucky I wasn’t driving!), too many people, and no services. No cell service for most of the jungle and coast highway and still this really creepy feeling of being ‘too seen’ and I really couldn’t let go of the tension I felt.

Yes I realized I’d gotten soft. Too soft? But sometimes it’s meant to be. We travelled on, staying at what is essentially a business hotel (ah, chain hotels. Remember those?) in nearby port town Lazaro Cardenas (nobody’s first choice for anything) and settled for a day trip to the popular Playa Azul, which I would have preferred to stay in, except it’s a holiday weekend so probably the worst timing ever!

Where the approximately 12-year-old lifeguards got on my case and yelled at me for swimming too far out. In water I could stand up in comfortably. Sheesh, good to see some things never change!!

I guess we ventured too far from gringo-town and it made me feel uncomfortable. I do think it’s important to examine the feelings behind this, but also to let it go. Be okay with changing plans.