We decided to head back to the coast and headed towards a camping spot about half way we saw on iOverlander where there was a nice river and some more caves. After a few hours of driving we turned off of the main highway and were in a small village that appeared to be quite poor. We needed some groceries for the evening and drove around looking for a tienda.

The streets were dusty and the local health authorities had painted signs on the side of buildings with information on different health issues….things like, how to avoid hepatitis…hmmm…

We were having trouble finding a place to buy some supplies, and the people of the town did not seem really happy to see us. Then I looked at the information on our mapping software. We had about 40 kilometres left to drive and it estimated it would take us two hours. “How rough is the road going to be?”  Okay, new plan.

Instead we went back to the highway and continued on towards the coast. The drive took us up into a beautiful mountain range, where we were sometimes driving on a paved road on the top of a ridge, the land dropping away into pine forest on either side for at least 350m to terraces and ridges below. The road was constantly twisting and turning, rising and falling, making it difficult to pass if you got behind a slower vehicle, but the views when they were available were amazing.  Some day I will upload a dash cam video for you to see.

We had hoped to camp in the parking lot of a restaurant and some cabanas that we had seen on iOverlander, but when we got there they told us that they no longer allowed vehicles to overnight there, as they had limited parking available. All of the towns we had driven through in the last hours had pretty much consisted of rows of houses and stores along the highway with no side roads, so parking in the area in general was limited. We decided to treat ourselves to a cabin for the night.

The room had a fireplace and a hot shower and a little deck area overlooking the valley. The cost was 600 pesos, which at first we balked at, having become accustomed to paying much less for camping. Then we did the math….600 pesos, add another 50 pesos for the dog, and our cute little cabin in the mountains cost about $43 Canadian.

We showered, had dinner at the restaurant, and then Derek made a fire for us. We later learned that the area is famous for its mushrooms….not the kind that were in the soup that we had at the restaurant, but “magic” mushrooms, known for their hallucinogenic properties. A woman I met a few days later knew the cabins and told me that the Beatles had once stayed there in order to experiment with the mushrooms.

The view from our little deck.

The neighbouring cabin.

Piper diggin’ the fire!