A Day at the Emerald Beach

The Costa Esmeralda is very different than the West Coast or the Yucatan beaches. West Coast is brown sand , the Yucatan is white coral sand, while this coast’s sand is almost black. There are at least 50 hotels, campgrounds and cattle grazing land in this 10 mile stretch of MX180 along the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sure all this development has led to the water pollution. I think the oil rigs and oil deposits in the Bay of Campeche have added the dark black color.

But it is very popular in the summertime with Mexicans from all over the country. But in the late Fall and Winter months most of the tourists come from out of the country. It seems warm to us but cold to the Mexicans. So with an El Norte brewing, we have the campground and beach to ourselves. We like Neptuno campground but TP de Alba and Quinta Alicia are nice parks also, we have stayed in both of them.

We finally found a Italian Coffee Co about 2 mi. down the road at a Pemex that allowed me to use their wireless internet to catch up with all my e-mails. I hope by Friday I can get my Telcel 3G USB wide band working again.

So this afternoon we took about a 3.5 mi walk on the beach. The skies looked stormy but it was the temperature was in the mid 70’s and no rain yet. Tomorrow morning we head to Catemaco with a stop in the Tuxtlas for grocery shopping.