Calechosa Bay - We're being surrounded

Yet another development on the Costalegre just outside of Melaque across the bay from Cuastecomate. This has been a very private community beach mostly visited by local surfers and known as Ranchito Beach. Growth and more growth all aimed at gringo bucks.


Here's the sales pitch ....


About Calechosa Bay
Calechosa Bay is a small, planned, sustainable community overlooking the ocean, six kilometers north of Melaque, Jalisco, Mexico. Facing south in a beautiful and secluded bay, it rises up from a rocky beach to a height of 70 meters, providing magnificent ocean views from all lots. Between the southern boundary of Calechosa and the ocean there is only a one-lane road and the Federal Zone (a strip of twenty meters from high tide). Phase One will offer six building lots of between seven and eleven thousand square feet. In Phase Two, about ten more lots will be offered. Phase Three will offer twelve condominiums on two remaining lots. There will be twenty-six lots in all, some of which are reserved for partners in the development.

Calechosa Bay Web Site

Experience Mex-ECO Tours on the Costalegre

Each of the tours organised by or in conjunction with Experience Mex-ECO Tours supports its local community in one or more of the following ways:

• Economically

• Environmentally

• Educationally

This is made possible through working together with community representatives, discovering exactly what their needs are and combining their needs with the interests of our clients. In this way we aim to provide ‘something for everyone’.

Experience Mex-ECO Tours also works on local fundraising projects, such as ‘Ayuda a Los Niños’, which provides support for local children; and C.A.M., the only special needs school in the area. As well as this we receive longer stay volunteers from abroad to support local teaching and Sea Turtle conservation projects.

The aim of Experience Mex-ECO Tours is to leave a number of local groups with the ability to organise and maintain their own tour projects without outside help, allowing them to benefit from the growing number of tourists that are arriving to Mexico’s Pacific Coast each year.

Experience Mex-ECO Tours is managed by Zoologist, Ruth Hazlewood, and marine biologist Daniel Patman.

Both have extensive experience of life and travel in Mexico, as well as spending time working as part of the ongoing efforts towards sea turtle conservation on Mexico’s Pacific Coast.

Each of the tours operated by or in conjunction with Experience Mex-ECO Tours will be led by a bilingual member of staff (English and Spanish), usually employed from within the local area. Our staff are all appropriately trained and have extensive knowledge of the locations in which they work.

We look forward to meeting you and hope that you have the time to experience some of our tours and activities during your stay in the Costalegre.

Mex-ECO Tours Website

Who Controls Paradise?

The New York Times
Published Sunday, May 20, 2007

Who Controls Paradise?

COSTA Alegre, Mexico

 

RON STODGHILL
Goffredo Marcaccini at his estate in Jalisco, Mexico, where he lives with his wife, Alix Goldsmith. They are opposed to a development project involving two of Mexico’s most powerful families.


Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

CRUISING along the swerving, mountainous roads of Mexico’s western coast, past trees and vines, blue lagoons and scattered wildflowers, Goffredo Marcaccini stops his Jeep and thrusts his head out the window. “Ahhh,” he croons, inhaling the morning air. “The smell of the earth! Nice, like the scent of a woman!” His reverie is short-lived. Farther along, he encounters roadside debris, including a bright blue Pepsi can. “Modern man,” he says, wincing, “is the cancer of the earth. We are only here to destroy.”

Mr. Marcaccini is a self-described romantic, a naturalist who waxes poetic about mangroves, giant sea turtles and the beauty of parakeets. He is also an heir to the late British corporate raider James Goldsmith, who once lorded over this richly virginal expanse of nature as though it were his own empire.

Since Mr. Goldsmith’s death in 1997, Mr. Marcaccini and his wife, Alix, the daughter of Mr. Goldsmith, have managed the late patriarch’s most prized asset: Cuixmala, a 2,000-acre private estate with several villas on the Pacific that at various times housed Mr. Goldsmith’s three families, mistresses and high-powered visitors including Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

These days, though, there’s trouble brewing on Cuixmala, which is nestled inside the 32,473-acre Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, a rolling expanse of federally protected coastal land.
In an effort to expand tourism beyond destinations like Cancún and Puerto Vallarta, Mexican officials recently authorized the development of two resorts in the area. The most controversial project, called Marina Careyes — also referred to as Careyitos — is backed by Roberto Hernández, the powerful Mexican banker and developer who sold his financial services firm to Citigroup six years ago for $12.5 billion. Mr. Hernández’s minority partners are Gian Franco Brignone and his son Giorgio, Italian real estate magnates who relocated to Mexico and built a series of sumptuous properties in the state of Jalisco that made it a magnet for the super-rich.

The result is a pitched battle over land rights between Mr. Goldsmith’s heirs and two of the country’s most powerful families — a clash that sheds light on the fault lines between traditional luxury resort developers who favor golf courses, swimming pools and spas, and a newer breed of conservationist-entrepreneurs who champion eco-resorts where guests hike and canoe for recreation. The standoff smacks of a blood feud with roots going back decades to early land squabbles involving the Goldsmiths and the Brignones.

The rest of a lengthy article I copied for safe keeping

Fishing El Tecuan

My friend Ron from Seattle was down for a few weeks and we took Armando (a local carpenter) with us up to Tecuan for some rock fishing. It's a bit of a drive and probably better to do in the morning than late afternoon. The road in from the highway is not that good and driving it in the dark is a challenge. There is also less traffic on the highway headed north in the morning than in the evening going south.

If you catch any fish at this beach or not it's just a beautiful place to visit. There is nothing there but beach, the rocks and an abandoned hotel back from the beach. There is a river mouth on each end that only fill with water in the rainiy season (summer). The rest of the time they are small lagoons like much of the coast.

Yes we did catch nothing ....

Ron on the rocks with a line in



At the end of the rocks



Rocks awash



A tide pool looking south



Last minute try before dark

Country Horseback Riding on the Costalegre

This tour is provided by Sea to Sierra based in Barra de Navidad


Some photos of the Plantation horseback riding tours Sea to Sierra with experienced horsemen Horacio and Ariel, two cousins from Aguacate, have been offering this season. The Plantation tour is a 2.5 hour ride for $500 pesos and everyone who's taken it has commented on how well trained the horses are and what a pleasurable experience it has been. We make sure you are comfortable too, adjusting the stirrups and making sure that we match you up with a horse that suits your abilities.

Having the stirrups adjusted for the ride, it takes a bit of time because they are attached with a leather thong not a buckle but the comfort gained makes it worthwhile and we don't mind taking the time.


Ariel also checks the rest of the tack prior to setting out.


It's a good idea to bring along sunglasses, a camera and a hat. These people were from Kamloops and Calgary and they had cowboy hats which fit with the tour really well, but any sun hat will do.

Guides Ariel (in front) Horacio (behind him) setting out from the coral in Aguacate...


and the tour clients on their mounts following behind.


View along the route.

Starting in Aguacate we ride through the plantations, orchards, farms and wilderness behind the little farming and ranching communities of Aguacate and Jaluco. Horacio is completely fluent in English and will answer any questions you may have on the ride.


Riding through a narrow trail, Ariel weilds a mean machete on the brush.


View overlooking Aguacate and Jaluco from the top of the hill.


Riding along one of the farm roads.


Riding a trail that runs through palm, banana and mango orchards in Aguacate.

We now have another new horseback riding tour available that runs from Aguacate, along Arroyo Seco under the highway around the back of Laguna Navidad, then over to Playa de Cocos on Isla Navidad and back. This is a 5 to 6 hour tour at a cost of $950 pesos per person. While the Playa de Cocos ride is not technically difficult non-riders may find it a lot of time in the saddle and prefer to opt for the shorter plantation ride.


If anyone is interested in more information about either of these horseback riding tours drop by our store at Veracruz 204 in Barra de Navidad, we are right across from the newly remodeled Jardin (town square). We are now open from 9 am to 2:00 pm and from 5 pm to 7 pm Monday through Friday, 10 to 2 on Saturdays and 10 to noon on Sundays. Or give us a call at the Office: 355-5790 or the House: 355-8582, or my cell 044-315-100-0282. All three numbers have voice mail if you don't happen to reach us leave us a message.