Barra de Navidad is not the most glamorous place…

…but the people are friendly. The surf can be quite rough on the ocean side of Barra so most families stick to the lagoon side.There are two lagoons: one where everybody swims and one filled with crocodiles. Check to see you have the right one before you jump in!The view from our inexpensive hotel in Barra de Navidad. Al needed a new hat but he wasn’t keen on these Mexican sombreros. He purchased a Panama hat instead.
Food options are non-fattening tortillas and…ponche de frutas.Beach umbrellas for rent – here they call them ‘sombrillas’.You can walk down the beach about four and a half kilometres to Melaque. On our way we passed the turtle vivarium, ‘vivero de las tortugas’. full of broken shells and no tortugas. Love this fat tortuga.In Melaque the water is gentler for swimming and the fishermen are out. The town is larger than Barra, and has more amenities, but I think I liked Barra better.They like to bury their children in the sand in Melaque. In town we found a local bus that took us back to Barra.The annotated map!Another fun thing to do in Barra is to take the ‘lancha’ across the lagoon to Colimilla. We walked past a immaculate golf course with an army of gardeners and women sweeping the long brick roadways free of fallen petals and other plant debris – all for only one small party of golfers.
The town was small and done in two minutes; the walk was hot and I was dying for a cold limonada…
which I found at Restaurant Mary’s which is still there and looks much the same.A different blog with a more extensive review of Colimilla and the seafood there.