PALAPA SUNSET
There are a lot of good guide books that cover general travel in Mexico, but there’s only one book that dedicates itself to camping in Mexico. It’s called the Church book by most (because it was written by a couple whose last name is Church) and you’ll see a copy of it in nearly every truck, van, and RV in Mexico. But, it’s around seven years old… and things can change a lot in Mexico in seven years.
Back in San Carlos we had the incredible good fortune to cross paths with the Bumfuzzle bus… a really cool, fun, family. Since they were headed north and we south, we swapped maps and books… and in the trade we picked up their copy of the church book.
It’s roughly three hundred miles from Alamos to Mazatlan. Three hundred miles is a long ass drive in Mexico… especally for us. So we needed layover. And for that we turned to the Church book. Along the way are two pretty big cities. Los Mochis (El Chappo’s home turf) that has one camp park near the autopista, and Culiacan (a city of some 900,000 where you can camp on the main drag next to a WalMart).
ON THE ROAD TO LAS GLORIAS
And then there’s Las Glorias. A town that had gotten a pretty nice review in the Church book. “It’s a place,” the authors said, “that they wouldn’t drive south without visiting.” But I remembered that the Bumfuzzlists had passed through Las Glorias, and they didn’t recommend it so highly. If I remember correctly their take was… “Not horrible… but not worth the drive.”
Not horrible… or horrible (sleeping next to WalMart or next to the autopista)… hmmm. Seemed like a no-brainer to me. So we pointed ourselves in the direction of Las Glorias.
MAIN STREET LAS GLORIAS
The town is EASILY an hour off the autopista. It’s a pretty hour though… miles and miles of corn fields. And when you get there… well, there’s not much there except the Mr Morro camp park. And normally we’d be fine with that except that it was Saturday night… and the Mr Morro has a 24 hr bar (man, have I gotten old)… and people drive their ATV’s and trucks and… you name it on the beach, as fast as they can…
and the beach access was literally ten yards from our site… and the guy who lived in the house behind us must have loved music… or been a DJ… because his music was on all the time. No really… ALL THE TIME. That might have been Ok if he’d have mixed in a little Jack Johnson… but Mexi-polka 24/7… ?
COPPER MEETS THE LOCALS
The Mr Morro is also for sale. So no one is really taking care of it. The bathrooms were frequently clogging and the showers didn’t work (that’s Ok we’ve got a HOT shower)…
And I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t safe for human skin to come into contact with the water in the pool… at least that’s what I told Kaila… who I think would swim in anything.
We figured that Sunday would be better… but it was worse. More people. More cars.
More clogging. More music. And then at sunset it all magically ended…
Except for Danny DJ behind us who kept his music on all night… again.
The beach is like a giant oyster bed. Families woud bring five gallon buckets down, fill em up with oysters, move out of the away of the speeding beach traffic, and eat for hours… for free! You don’t see that much in the states anymore. Not surprisingly there were tons of oyster shells laying around and the kids decided to make a wind chime out of oyster shells.
Overall, Las Glorias is a pretty place… that’s best visited on weekdays. It’s warm. The beach is miles long. There are delicious fresh oysters everywhere. (I swear, these guys wanted me to take this picture, but I’m just noticing that the guy in the middle sure looks mad…)
The ocean offers a nice swim… if you can get to it without getting hit by a car. And if you like Mexican polka music… man have I got the spot for you.
Recommended update for the Church book: Las Glorias… not horrible but not worth the drive… unless you’re a HUGE fan of Mexi-polka.