Sunday, February 19, 2012

Day 26: San Pancho



Casa de Tomas
We had started the day hiking to the highway and catching a bus about 10 minutes down the road to San Pancho. With not as many tourists this place is not as frenetic as Sayulita and feels more like a real Mexican village.

Met a couple from Kelowna who had built a stunningly unusual house called Casa de Tomas just off the main road, that has a small rental unit attached. Unfortunately the photo I took does not do it justice, as my camera had accidently been switched into antique mode making the colors muted. The cupola roof had beautiful blue inlay tile.

Villas Paradise, San Pancho
After breakfast at Maria's we explored the streets of San Panco which are wider than Sayulita and the town is flat. Then we headed down the beach to look at a strange white structure I had seen in the distance when I had hiked the beaches to San Pancho a week or so back.

As we got closer we could see that the sprawling white expanse was the Villas Paradise and looked so completely out of place in this sleepy seaside town, that we were compelled to investigate.

The place seemed deserted yet there was someone in an administration office who was happy to show us around. The place had been built some 20 or so years ago by the president as a place to entertain and impress. Now it was all becoming clear. As we looked at the empty rooms and corridors we felt we were in the movie The Shining, and when I saw the deserted bar by the pool I expected to see Jack talking to the imaginary bartender.

As were leaving we bumped into a couple of old ladies who looked like they had been hired by Central Casting just for this place. They were from PEI and one of them described the place as crumbling opulence. 


Walking back into Sayulita from the highway where the bus dropped us off, we stumbled into what appeared to be a horse show with plenty of hombres all dressed up on their horses. There was free food and no cover charge so we sat on the stands waiting to see what would happen. In the end there was no formal show, then as we were leaving Sue said that this reminded her of a car club show back home where people gather just to show off their cars. This could be the Mexican equivalent with horses.

Ended a great day with fusion sushi and live music at Don Chow's.

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