Agave Azul in Tequila

Before reaching Tepic, a town 150 Kms north of Puerto Vallarta, we had spent the last two days riding and covering some ground to reach the South Pacific coast. We had a hard time in the striking heat, reaching more than 100F or 40C in the middle of the day, so we strategically left earlier the next day to avoid the heat and had a much better riding day also due to overcast weather. Now that we were in Tepic, we were at the doorstep of the Mexican Riviera and were looking forward to some beach time.

Sipping and tasting Tequila

That morning, we were supposed to head out to the beach but as we were talking to two Mexican guys in the parking lot of our hotel, they managed to convince Chad that it was a must to go to Tequila and get more familiar about how the national drink was produced. Not far, they promised, at most 30 minutes. Strange, because our map showed it at about 180 Kms! With his charm and sweet words, Chad convinced Caroline to postpone the beach day and ride to Tequila, the city where the drink was born. We took one bike since we had to go through Tepic again to go to the beach and off we went. It did take us almost 3 hours through beautiful mountains roads (full of slow trucks) to reach Tequila.

We headed to the famous “La Rojena” estate where the Jose Cuervo tequila is still made. The tour started with a short movie about the history of the brand and then, we started walking around the beautiful hacienda. First, we saw the "pinas" (see picture) of the Blue Agave plant that only grows in Jalisco and the nearby Mexican states and is Tequila's main ingredient. The Blue Agave takes about 8 to 10 years to mature; once it is, the cactus like leaves are cut off and only the center remains, called the pina, which contains all the sugar for the tequilla. The pina is then put in a furnace and steamed at a high temperature. After that, it was ready to be pressed to get the sweet liquid out and then be distilled. We tried all the different kinds of tequilas: the Blanco and the Oro that have different colors and aged for a few months, the Reposado, aged from a few months to less than a year and the Anejo, aged at least a year. One thing to keep in mind is that the 100% Agave Azul Tequila is th best and won't give you a headache as the others are mixed with other sugar, such as sugar cane. Our favorite Tequila was the Reserva Familial, which we sipped and enjoyed like a fine cognac.

Stuck on a paradise beach

We made it back to Tepic quite late that night and so stayed another night before finally driving to the beach the next morning. It was a little overcast but nothing that would prevent us from enjoying the coast. North of Puerto Vallarta, we heard there was a nice little beach town called Sayulita that we should definitively check out. We did and kind of got stuck there, instantly charmed by the little town. The beach was all it should be: nice sand with palm trees and a tropical forest in the back. Many surfers were enjoying the waves and we had a really good time sitting on the beach on watching them. After a long search, we finally found our dream accommodation: a big palapa (beach hut covered with palm tree branches) in a tropical garden right on the beach. That was it, we had finally found our Mexican paradise. We relaxed a little bit on our hammock and then went for a long walk on the beach.

The next morning, we were thinking about leaving but what was the hurry? Besides, we thought we would have nasty weather due to the Rick, the tropical storm approaching the coast of Baja California. The locals we talked to assured us that today would be ok and that the tropical storm would reach the Pacific north the next day, well north of us. So we stayed, enjoying the beach, the sun, reading and drinking cold fresh coconut water right out of the fruit. It really was paradise here and not crowded at all, we almost had the beach for ourselves. We also met again a British / Canadian couple we had spend time with in the canyon a few days ago (funny how you keep on bumping into the same travelers) and shared dinner and drinks. It does not get more relaxing than that... It was a tough decision for us to agree that we should leave the next day and continue our journey.

A few hours after we went to bed, determined to leave early the next day, the winds started to pick up. We are not talking about a small breeze here, the palm trees around us were moving hard and the wind was shaking our palapa and blowing dust towards our bed. We were glad our mosquito net was protecting us a little since our palapa does not really have full walls but rather wood planks and tie-dyed fabric walls. We were definitively worried, afraid trees would fall on us or that the palapa would be blown away.

At 2:30am, the rain started pouring down and after a few minutes leaking into the hut, but lucky for us, only in a few spots around the bed. Caroline ran out to detach her saddlebags and bring them in, afraid water would get into them. It poured the whole night, strong and long tropical rain. Finally, morning came and we saw the water everywhere. It stopped raining for an hour, allowing us to walk to the beach and see how agitated and brown the ocean was. A whole different sight from the previous day. Looks like we were going to have to stay in paradise, not by choice, until the tropical rain stops and we are able to go back on the roads. Hopefully, this is as close as we will ever get to a tropical storm! The good news is that we are safe and sound and the worse that happened to us was being a little wet in our hut, and stuck in a beach town on a strong rainy day. We were told they may be risks of mudslides on the road south so we are definitively staying here another night, minimizing risk. We're hopeful that tomorrow, the rain will stop.