We stayed a night in the small town of Punta Arista to break up the drive into the state of Chiapas. Someone had recommended a campground called Jose’s, so we had checked in to the campground and cabanas.  The owners’ were nice and welcoming but the campground had probably seen better days…maybe it had been hit hard by recent tropical storms? There was quite a bit of debris everywhere, many of the brick grilling stations were beat up and broken down and the cabins didn’t even come close to enticing us out of our little camper for the evening.  The showers and toilets were however well maintained and clean.

We headed out for a walk on the beach…maybe this was what was going to make us fall in love with the area. The beach was a few blocks away and the homes and businesses along the way also looked run down. The beach itself was okay, long and wide and easy to walk along, but it was nothing special, was windy and had a fair bit of litter strewn about. The restaurants lining the beach were basic with plastic chairs, and there were a lot of tables in each establishment, but most of them had the chairs tipped against the tables and were closed.

The proprietor of the campground later told Derek that the town used to be very busy with tourists, but that since the financial crisis in 2008 there hadn’t been near the crowds. With no inflowing pesos, the businesses can’t afford to keep up maintainance and repairs. It was all a bit depressing, and so the next morning we headed inland to visit the sights of the state of Chiapas.