An Eight Mile Walk...

Okay, folks, this was supposed to be a 2 hour hike....  I can do that...  heck, we walk at least 5 miles every day....  why not?

Well...  what was a 2 hour hike turned out (at least for me and Bill) an almost 5 hour hike over the mountain, down to the sea...  a ride from the main highway back to our little community...  okay...  you get the picture....

Here we go...

 All of our group of hikers (except for me, who took the photo)...

Our leader is on the far left...  Fernando, who knew the trail (which is really a cowpath (literally) from Lo de Marcos to neighboring village, Los Lomas.  Our organizer is Memo... in the striped jacket dead center.  The rest of us are all folks from the US or Canada who spend time in Mexico during the winter months and find hikes like these good exercise and otherwise entertaining ;-)

 Someone's taking a photo op along the trail...

 These folks are all behind me...  there were times when that mountain road was...  shall we say "difficult"?  Single file...  remember folks, we are on a cowpath...

 Some of the interesting things we saw along the way... 

 These folks are up ahead of me......  while the path didn't need bushwhacked... and often had ruts and stones, at least  we were able to distinguish it from the rest of the jungle...

Here's Fernando...  talking to this young colt....

He told us that the mare was pregnant for this foal when he walked this trail a few months ago.  We had just crossed over his grandfather's land onto another property.  He crosses this trail several times a year on a cattle drive...  herding his grandfather's cattle from  Los Lomas to Lo de Marcos as the seasons (and pastureland) changes from season to season.

 The young colt was curious...  and this hiker had some dried mango that the colt really liked.  

 Some of the terrain was rather treacherous...  narrow trail, roots ready to snag your toes...  rocks so slippery you could easily slide...  and the incline was very steep.

We finally all made it to Los Lomas...  where we had the option of either walking down to the beach or heading out to Rt 200 to catch a collectivo and ride back to Lo de Marcos.

Bill and I chose to walk to the beach, which we were told was 20 minutes away.  An hour later.... and very much an up and down road (mostly down a cobblestone road)...  we found ourselves at  Playa Monterro...  an all exclusive resort...  not many facilities open to the public.  

 We checked out the beach, used the facilities, and decided we better start heading back up the road.  We'd already walked for over 3 hours without stopping...  and I knew if I stopped for very long I would never make it back to the town.

So...  off we went...  we were almost back to Los Lomas when...

 This pick-up truck with many of our fellow travelers in the bed of the truck passed us....

They did stop to ask if we wanted to hop on, but by this time, we'd made it almost back to town...

Yeah, we were passed up by the Wimps!

A few minutes later we were all at the bus stop at Los Lomas...

Fernando flagged down a bus...  we all boarded it (for 10 pesos each) and rode the 5 miles or so back to Lo de Marcos.  

By my calculations, those of us who walked from Lo de Marcos, through the jungle to Los Lomas, and down to the ocean and then back to the bus stop, walked over 8 miles.  We got back to our bungalow around 1 pm.

It wasn't exactly what we'd planned on for the day, but even though I whined a bit on that mountain road, I wouldn't have missed it for the world!  And... get this...  when we got home, we ended up taking another walk through town with our friends Greg and Francine...  totally our mileage for the day was over 11 miles.  Not bad for a couple of senior citizens, huh?

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

That's All For Today!