Cuzalapa Organic Coffee Cooperative

Cuzalapa is the site of a very old shade grown coffee plantation that grows organic Arabica beans. Cuzalapa is a little over an hour from Melaque off highway 80 to the south-east of La Huerta on the northern edge of the Manantlan Biosphere Reserve.

The coffee is grown under the shade of a large variety of other trees and the women of the Cooperative offer an hour long walking tour. They will tell you about the many plants, trees, herbs and even some of the human stories related to the area and their ancestors that lived there. Take some repellant for the tour.

The coffee crop is late this year due to colder temperatures but they did have a few kilos for us. It's a good idea to call first if your are going for coffee and not just to visit the area. Later in the year there will be plenty after the gringos leave and there is less of a market. The season can run from December through May/June. The women also sell clothing, honey, Jamica and preserves.

Coffee on the tree


Walking thru the shade


Drying coffee on the roof


Coming into Cuzapala


Web page with more fotos of Cuzapala


Costalegre, Jalisco Mexico

Villa Purificacion

Villa Purificacion is just barely part of the Costalegre since it is about an hour inland off highway 80. It is in the municipio of La Huerta which is the same municipio as La Manzanilla on the coast. The town of La Huerta is in the same valley as Villa Purificacion a little to the south west.


This town was founded by the Spanish back in the mid 1500's but I've not found much more history on this pretty little town. The road in from highway 80 is flat, narrow and you'll probably run across lots of farm vehicles along the way including burros and carts. Lots of sugar cane, corn, fruit orchards and supposedly - cotton.


The town has a nice plaza with almost everything of importance on the edge of it. It has the appearance of a colonial town but has not been preserved as one so there are newer buildings mixed with old. The church is looking pretty tired on the outside but is in perfect shape inside. The one 'fancy' hotel, behind the church, looks good, has secure parking and is less than $20us

Villa Purificacion Plaza


Villa Purificacion government offices


Villa Purificacion street


More Villa Purificacion fotos

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