Monkey Mountain
Thinking there is no reason for me to waste a lot of time in Guadalajara, I left the city earlier than I planned to. Following a suggestion from another backpacker I met, I headed to Sayulita on the way to Puerto Vallarta. The bus ride took longer than expected, and by the time I got to the new hostel I didn’t have much energy to do anything. After getting to know my new roommates, I had some dinner and then just relaxed at the hostel for a while before heading to bed.
In the morning, I wanted to make my way to Monkey Mountain and hike there. While there was an organized tour from the hostel, it was ridiculously expensive and I could not understand how anyone was willing to pay the requested price. After trying to get an uber for a while, I decided to leave the hike for another day, and instead headed for the beach.
From there, I walked along the coastline, hoping to make my way to San Pancho. The start was easy and I just walked along, listening to the waves crashing on the beach one after the other. It was quite calming. In the distance I could see some kind of a building, and I headed toward that building. When I got there, it seemed to be the end of the road. I walked back a little bit, looked around me, and spotted a trail and went into the jungle.
From what I’ve seen online, I thought this would be the path to take, and I followed it without thinking about it too much, occasionally looking at the smartphone to try and figure out where I am, although in this case it wasn’t very helpful.
It wasn’t very difficult to follow the trail, and for a while, I was by myself among the trees. It was a nice, casual walk, but I was hoping for more. After a while I could hear, and then see, the waves crashing into the sand. I walked for a few more minutes among the trees until the path ended and I made my way to the new beach. Other than me, there were very few people in the area close to the jungle path, and no one else.
I started walking along the shoreline, wondering if the unexpected path would actually get me to my destination. Several minutes of walking passed by, I passed a couple of rocks, and there were no people around. It was just me, the beach, and a few birds. It seemed too big to be secluded, and yet I couldn’t see anyone else. I had it all to myself.
But that wasn’t the end. In the distance I could see some kind of structure on top of a cliff, and I headed toward it. Along the way, I had to climb some rocks and get my feet wet stepping in water. A thought came to my mind, that once more I’m probably doing something not very smart, but I kept going anyway. I wanted to know if I can get to the other end, to San Pancho.
Unfortunately, the answer to that was no. When I got to the cliff, the structure above looked like it had been abandoned for a while, and the locked gate at the end of the road prevented further progress. Looking at the smartphone again, it appeared to be on the very edge of San Pancho, but to me it felt far away from the city. There might have been a way through, some hidden path that I missed, but at that point I decided to head back to Sayulita, stopping along the way to rest for a little bit and get some tan in the sun.
The next day, after getting some breakfast I tried Uber again, and this time it went a lot better. It took a few minutes for the driver to come, but eventually I was on my way. Since the closer path up the mountain was private property (and according to the internet guarded by aggressive dogs), I opted to go to the further path, which started in the town of Higuera Blanca.
My driver dropped me off at what appeared to be a construction site. Even though the maps showed it as the right way to go when I looked on my smartphone, I still wasn’t sure about it. I asked a couple of people who were working there, and more or less could understand that I was heading in the right direction, and that the few splits in the road eventually become one again after a while.
I started walking along the dirt path, under the sun for a few minutes but it didn’t take long for me to go into the jungle and find some shade. It was quite a nice walk, although there wasn’t anything in particular that stood out for me. As I made my way through the jungle and up the mountain, I could hear people all around me, although I had no idea if they were working in the construction sites or fellow travelers. Soon enough, I started seeing people going down from the mountain as well as up, with the groups being more vocal than the individual hikers.
Despite the lack of view, the physical effort combined with being (on occasion) by myself along the trail, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s been a while since I had a good hike. It was supposed to be short, and that was a bit unfortunate, but it felt like it was a good idea to get in the Uber and climb up Monkey Mountain.
There were some leveled parts, especially as I got higher and closer to the top, but most of it was an incline, going uphill along the dirt path without a clue as to how far I still have to go. Then, in one of the leveled sections, I could see a nice view of the town, and I was looking forward to seeing that view from the top of the mountain.
At some point the dirt path had ended, and for a moment I was confused as to where I needed to go. Pretty quickly I came to the realization that I needed to climb a bunch of rocks, which looked like a bit of a challenge but in reality wasn’t a big problem for me. After several more minutes of making my way even higher, I finally got to what I assumed to be the top, as marked on the online maps and verified by the presence of other people in that part of the trail.
While the view that I could see was nice, it was not clear in all directions. A lot was obstructed, and I needed to move around the top in order to have a better look around me. As the hike up Monkey Mountain wasn’t long, and I didn’t feel tired, I only stayed there for a couple of minutes before making my way down.
At the very bottom of the trail, I went back to town and called an Uber once more. While waiting, a local bus showed up. I had no idea if it was actually going back to Sayulita, although it seemed likely, and if I hadn’t booked the Uber I probably would’ve asked the bus driver if he was heading to Sayulita.