This trip of about 5 nights was fairly significant and deserving of its own trip report, but one was never written and few details shared on the Internet.
In summary, I drove with my friend Yamile from Morelia to the northern Michoacan Coast, where we camped for a few nights, and then down to Ixtapa where we stayed in a private condo for two more nights with friends. The drive to the coast was done via Apatzingan, Tepalcatepec, Coalcoman and Aquila. This is very remote territory for most people, pretty much through the heart of Michoacan's drug country. The road from Coalcoman to Aquila does not appear on standard maps such as the Guia Roji.
El Faro and La Ticla are very tiny villages on the mostly undeveloped northern coast of Michoacan. El Faro consists of two or three small corner stores (abarotes), and several palapa (thatched roof, open sided) restaurants on the beach, though La Ticla did have cabañas.
Camping in La Ticla
El Faro
The Lighthouse (Which is English for El Faro)
In La Ticla we camped at something resembling a formal campground. In El Faro we camped out underneath a palapa restaurant. We made it over a couple of times to another beach called La LLorona, named as such because of the squeaking noise made from the sand as you walked through it. This other beach was totally undeveloped, except for some palapa structures though there was no actual service at any of them.
The highlight of El Faro/La Ticla that I will always remember was hitching a ride back to El Faro in the back of a pickup with a couple men, a child and a rooster. After they dropped us off in the village, we saw another pickup doing donuts in the main street of the town. Closer inspection revealed the donuts were being done over top of the poor pig that I had seen wandering the streets earlier. Another unmarked pickup proceeded to chase this devient down, doing circles up and down the main boulevard of the village until shots were fired -- at which point Yamile rushed us into some random family's backyard. It turns out the shots were fired by the local police and they were shooting out the tires. Apparently they just have a regular unmarked pickup truck in this village. The drunkard was apparently released within the next day or two.
On two nights we went to the Colola turtle sanctuary. This was very interesting to see. There is a long stretch of undeveloped beach, and each night a team goes out and digs up turtle eggs after they are layed and covered by the mother. The eggs are reburried within a fenced in, secured area. As the baby turtles hatch, they are released directly to the ocean shore. This serves to prevent people from stealing the eggs, which are considered a delicacy that people like to eat, and the baby turtles don't have to crawl across a large stretch of sand to get to the ocean after hatching. Most of the babies will not make it for various reasons, such as being eaten by birds.
We took a boat ride to a small island one day. It is actually the rock formation seen behind me in one of the above pictures.
In the town of Colola, one night, they had a big disco set up on the beach, and all those who couldn't afford to go in were out on the street drinking. There was a large police presence. Not a touristy thing at all, I didn't see any other foreigners. The turtle sanctuary, however, was staffed by European volunteers with two locals running it at a higher level.
From there, we drove down the Michoacan coast, which is full of lush vegetation and mountainous, gut-wrenching curves down to Ixtapa. In Ixtapa we stayed at a private condo with friends of Yamile. I clicked with one girl in particular in this group that I met for the first time on this trip. I saw her quite a few times upon returning to Morelia. In late February 2006 she moved to Cancun, and I haven't heard much from her since.
