BAJA HOPPERS: Getting the lay of the land in and around Barra

After settling in and finding our where the pools were it was time to focus on the immediate needs of clean laundry and food acquisition. I was lucky enough to be invited by Annie from Oso Blanco to accompany her and Nicole from Ohana on a shopping expedition to Melaque, the next town over. Annie has a car here in Colima so the short trip over the boarder back into Jalisco and the town of Melaque was a simple matter of loading ourselves into the car and making the short 20 minute trip. I would come to find that with no car, the trip requires you to take a panga (aka water taxi) to Barra and then you can either walk up the beach to Melaque (which I did do) which takes 40 minutes or you can take a cab to Melaque from the water taxi stop in Barra (for 50 pesos ($4.25 roughly). Then you have to get everything you buy back to the boat. Trust me going in the car was a DREAM come true.

Laundry on the other hand required a walk into the town of Colimilla. It's not a far walk - about 1/2 mile - but it is all up hill and I do mean a "HILL." Who knew two little kids laundry could weigh so much but when you've been out at achor for three weeks and every bath towel, sheet and dish towel is dirty I will tell you carrying those bags up hill in 85 degree heat and high humidity is not for the faint of heart. In any event we managed to get our "chores" done in a couple of days.

The marina itself is not all that large. Small in comparison to Nuevo Vallarta's Paradise Village.

A picture of the Marina as taken from the sixth floor of the neighboring hotel. You can see the lagoon in the background. This is where many of the sailboats anchor to avoid paying the pricey slip fees in the marina.

Here is a shot of Sabbatical taken from the sixth floor lobby of the hotel.

If you look across the bay a little to the north you can see the town of Barra de Navidad located in the neighboring state of Jalisco.

That little waterway you see is the boarder between the two states. It takes less than 3 minutes by panga to cross that bay.

As I mentioned the grounds of the marina and hotel have 3 pools. One pool is just too hard to get to as you have to cross several bridges and take several different elevators just to get there. I think they did this on purpose to insure that the kids stay in the slide pool and allow this pool for those truly seeking a relaxing - quiet - vacation. The second pool is a kid friendly pool on the 1st floor which for lack of any other reason as it has to compete with the slide is just not that popular. You'd think more families would camp out here as it has this great dolphin mosaic but the kids thought it was boring. Kelly and our friends Caitlin and Colin Beale did at least venture to get wet in it one day.

The main attraction is the big pool which not only has two slides and a hot tub but also has what my kids loved which was a swim up bar where you could sit and have your nachos and drinks.

From the day we arrived Ryan had his heart set on sitting at the pool bar and having lunch so when we finally obliged his wish and let him order food and sit and eat it at the swim up bar he found that it was all he could do to keep from freezing in the water while trying to eat his lunch. His lips were blue by the time he was done but he could at least say that he had done it.