There are various routes that travelers take through the Americas. If you follow the gringo trail as defined by Lonely Planet’s recommendations, you’ll miss a lot of authentic experiences, as it’s fairly well trodden and developed. The surfer trail is an alternative, less travelled route, and we’ve been lucky to find some tiny villages with mostly locals around (as opposed to expats and tourists), no WiFi, and crazy wildlife everywhere.

Barra de la Cruz isn’t exactly a secret, but since there’s not much to do besides surf, it’s still very chilled. Access to the beach costs MX$20, and all the accommodation is inland, which is a bit of a bummer.

The surf point is a right hand break, which looks like it fires when the swell is right. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any around while we were there.

We stayed at Pepe’s place, and he lent us his truck for the 1km journey down to the beach. Very rustic, very chilled.

There’s no cellphone signal in Barra, unless you drive half the distance to the beach along a dirt road, park at a large sign, hike up an eroded path to an abandoned baseball field at the top of a hill, then assume the position demonstrated here by Kristina. Then you get 1 bar.

This tiny town with hardly anything in it had one excellent pizza restaurant. El Dragon, you were delicious.

On the way out of Barra, spent the day at the Bahías. Here, they make ice cream by blending your chosen ingredients together and freezing it up on the spot for you.

I sold my surfboard to Pepe, for about 70% of the price I paid. Time to leave the coast for now, and start heading over to Cuba.