Ah, finally...the BEACH! I'm pretty sure that it's been about 3 years since I've stepped foot in the ocean, so I was pretty excited to go to Playa La Llorona, a virgin beach in Colima, Michoacán on the Pacific coast. We all went through a group called Conexion GDL, which plans trips for Mexican and international students studying in Guadalajara. We left early on Friday, around 7:30 or so, and we loaded up into two huge buses. We only made a couple of stops on our way there, but the second stop was at this little convenience store in the middle of nowhere. They had everything from water and beer to toilet paper to...moldy bananas? Sascha and I bought a big jug of water to last us for the weekend, but I was a bit hesitant to buy any food. Not sure if it was the hoards of flies or the moldy food...hmm.

After a bit more bus time, we finally arrived at the beach, and it was, needless to say...beautiful. We had a huge area set up with tents and a shelter overhead. Sascha and I went to claim a tent, and we decided on one at the edge of the shelter. We waited a bit to see who else needed a tent to share, but no one showed up. Some people actually had 6 people to a tent, so we definitely lucked out with only two! After a half hour of strong winds, however, we realized that our tent stakes weren't exactly working. A bit of ingenuity and elbow grease finally fixed the problem, though, and we were finally ready to enjoy the beach!

After a bit of swimming and strolling along the beach, I started to get pretty hungry. Fortunately there was a little food shack that served quite a bit of food, from camarones (shrimp) and pescado (fish) to huevos rancheros and quesadillas. Oh, did I mention that they also served cold beer? Oh yes. :)

The rest of the weekend pretty much consisted of drinking, eating, dancing, and swimming. Not a bad way to spend three days on a virgin beach if you ask me...