La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

Sunset over La Cruz anchorage (tired of sunsets yet?)

We woke up Monday and decided since we were only 9 miles from La Cruz, why not just go ahead and go instead of chancing the dicey landing on the beach at Punta Mita.  So here we are in the largest anchorage we’ve been to with the exception of La Paz.  There are tons of boats here…I counted over 30 last night.

La Cruz is short for La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.  La Cruz means the Cross and Huanacaxtle is actually a tree.  Legend has it the town was named that because a woman was buried beneath one of the giant, shady trees and they carved a cross into the trunk of the tree to honor the woman.  Through the years, the tree became a gathering place and the name “La Cruz de Huanacaxtle” stuck.

There is a new marina here right inside the harbor (of which we’re treating ourselves over Christmas) and it is very fancy.  You get a preconceived notion of the town just by docking your dinghy.  Then you walk outside the gate and all of your notions are shot to pieces.  It’s a small town with broken cobblestone streets and small tiendas and restaurants just like the rest of the towns we’ve been to.  We were pleasantly surprised.  Yesterday we decided to go out around lunch time and found most everything to be closed.  I think Siestas are a huge part of this culture!  Nothing seemed to open until 4:00. 

Today we headed out around 4:00 to find Philo’s, a local cruisers favorite.  We picked this destination for two reasons.  One, they are supposed to have good pizza and be a cool place to hang out.  Two, they are having a huge Christmas potluck and we think we might need to make reservations so we were going to check that out as well.  The pizza turned out to be great, atmosphere great and we got all of the details we needed for Christmas.

This also seems to be a place where people use the bus system to go to the various other towns.  Puerto Vallarta is only 10-15 miles south of here and there are several stops in between.  We’re going to have plenty of time to check them all out as we’re going to be here for quite a while. 

Puerto Vallarta is the jumping off point for us for the Galapagos so we won’t be venturing too far away.  There are some places further south we would like to go but we’ll just have to see how it goes.  We’re planning on leaving for the Galapagos in March as that’s supposed to be in the weather window of the best time to go.

Today we start our exploring in Nuevo Vallarta.  There is supposed to be a mega resort there with a wild animal reserve!  Jake’s looking forward to the Tigers.